Today we are gonna do a quick test on your ability to tolerate carbon dioxide. Why the hell would we do that??? Because it is how your brain decides if you need air or not.
Ever hold your breath in a pool for as long as you can? When you get really close to not being able to hold it any more, what do you feel? Slight anxiousness to come up and get air, maybe? What if someone held you under water right as you were about to come up, that would probably make you panic. That's how a build up of CO2 makes you feel anxious.
Watch the video and test yourself and send me your scores!
CO2 TOLERANCE AND ANXIETY STUDY
HHPF has been helping researchers at California State University, Fullerton evaluate use of a timed exhale CO2 tolerance test (CO2TT) as an index of anxiety in healthy adults.
The study was a 2-visit, single-arm pilot evaluating the feasibility and effectiveness of a timed exhale test — the CO2TT — as a quick, easy-to-use, equipment-free tool for diagnosing short-term (“state”) and long-term (“trait”) anxiety among healthy adults.
Key finding: Performance on the CO2TT was found negatively correlated with state anxiety. In other words, people with higher CO2TT results had lower in-the-moment anxiety, while those with lower CO2TT had higher in-the-moment anxiety.
This line of research aims to identify and test simple ways to measure the impact of stress on respiratory physiology, so we can ultimately evaluate the effectiveness of breath-related interventions in measuring and addressing physiological (CO2 “tolerance”) and psychological (measures of anxiety) responses to stress.
The study has been completed and manuscript development is underway. Insights gained from this pilot may be used to design a longer-term, randomized trial.
Collaborator: California State University, Fullerton
