The Effect of Breaths per Minute on Heart Rate

Background and Research Question: The average adult, while resting, breathes about twelve times a minute. This is called the ventilation, or respiratory rate.1 The average heart rate, for a healthy adult, is around sixty to one-hundred beats per minute, but it can be lower, depending on the athleticism of a specific person.2 This means that each breath, on average, would last about five seconds, (about two and a half seconds to inhale, and two and a half seconds to exhale). When air is inhaled, it goes into the lungs, diffuses into the alveoli, and then into the lung capillary. The air then enters the bloodstream and moves into the pulmonary vein, and goes through the heart by way of the left atrium and then left ventricle, and is finally moved through the aorta to various parts of the body. From the aorta, blood is moved to body cells where oxygen diffuses out of the blood and carbon dioxide and waste diffuse into the blood. Then, the blood is moved from capillary beds in body cells, to veins, to the superior or inferior vena cava, and then finally back to the right atrium and right ventricle. Finally, the blood moves to the pulmonary artery and returns to the lungs where carbon dioxide is expelled by exhalation.3 All this takes place, on average, in about five seconds. Generally, when we exercise, we have to breathe more often (quicker). Our heart rate also accelerates. Is this just a correlation? The research question of this experiment is: What is the effect of breathing rate on the heart rate? Hypothesis: If the subject is breathing slower, then his/her heart rate will be slower; if he/she is breathing quicker, then his/her heart rate will be quicker.

Damon, Alan, Randy McGonegal, Patricia Tosto, and William Ward. "Physiology of exercise." In Biology: Standard level: developed specifically for the IB diploma. Harlow, Essex: Heinemann International , 2007. 249. 2 Laskowski, Edward R.. "Heart rate: What's normal?." Mayo Clinic. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/heart-rate/AN01906 (accessed February 14, 2011). 3 "Human health and physiology" In Biology: Standard level: developed specifically for the IB diploma. 172.

Predictive Graph:

Independent Variable: The independent variable for this experiment is breathing rate, measured in breaths per minute (also, seconds per breath). The levels of the independent variable will be thirty (two seconds per breath), fifteen (four seconds per breath), seven and a half (eight seconds per breath), six (ten seconds per breath), and three and three-quarters (sixteen seconds per breath). Dependent Variable: The dependent variable for this experiment is heart rate, measured in beats per minute. Control Variables: Variable Body position (standing, sitting, movement, etc.) Outside noise influence Temperature Effect Being in different body positions can make the heart work more or less to pump the blood to all areas, therefore skewing our results. Surprising loud noises may scare us and raise our heart rate. Being in a room that is too hot or cold could lower or increase the difference in heart rate between trials Measuring in different areas of the body/ having different people measure other peoples heart rate can make it difficult to distinguish between when the heart beats begins and ends. Control Stay in the same body position for all trials; do not move in between. Be in a separate room, away from other people. Perform the experiment in a neutral-temperature room Each student will measure their own heart rate, using two fingers to find their pulse on the right side of their neck.

Measurement type

Method: 1. Measure resting heart rate at a normal breathing rate. Do this while seated. Count how many heartbeats there are in thirty seconds and multiply this by two. Record the result in the data table. 2. Next, for one minute, take small breaths, so that each inhale lasts one second, and each exhale lasts one second. All in all, the subject should take thirty breaths. Immediately afterwards, the subjects heart rate should be taken. The subject should remain in a seated position throughout the entire experiment. 3. Next, breathe normally for one to two minutes. 4. For one minute, take slightly larger breaths, so that each inhale lasts two seconds and each exhale lasts two seconds (15 breaths). Take the heart rate immediately following one minute of breathing as such. 5. Follow the trial for the second level of the independent variable with another one to two minutes of normal breathing. 6. Repeat the breathing, heart rate measuring, and resting, for eight second breaths, ten second breaths, and sixteen second breaths (each inhale/exhale lasts half the given number). 7. Make sure to record observations. 8. Do this experiment five times (or with five different people, one trial each). 9. Process data and make a graph of the results. We will control the independent variable by watching the clock closely, and making sure that each inhale lasts precisely the amount of seconds that it should, and that each exhale also lasts the proper amount. We will control the dependent variable by again using a clock and watching it closely. We will use the same clock each time to make sure that, even if the clock is incorrect, we will have the same margin of error each time. *Both variables involve counting: we cannot count partial seconds in a breath, and we cannot count half a heartbeat. Materials: Clock Chairs Sufficiency of Data: The experiment performed was a 5x5 (five trials for five levels of the independent variable), giving us a small data sample (twenty-five data points).

Raw Data/ Processed Data: The Effect of Breathing Rate on the Heart Rate Condition: Breaths per minute 30 15 7.5 6 3.75 Normal Calculations: Average: (Value 1+Value 2+Value 3+Value 4+Value 5)/5 (68+80+92+96+76)/5 = 82 (Average HR for 30 breaths per minute) Percent change: [(New - Resting) / Resting] * 100 [(82-70)-70]*100 = 17 (Percent change for 30 breaths per minute) Heart Rate of Subjects 1 through 5 (beats per minute) +/- 1 bpm 1 68 70 72 64 60 56 2 80 78 76 68 64 76 3 92 72 70 68 64 82 4 96 80 74 72 74 70 5 76 76 74 70 66 68 AVG 82 75 73 68 66 70 S.D. 11.5 4.2 2.3 3.0 5.2 9.8 17.1 7.1 4.3 -2.9 -5.7 -% Change

Conclusion: My hypothesis, if the subject is breathing slower, then his/her heart rate will be slower; if he/she is breathing quicker, then his/her heart rate will be quicker was supported by the data. As seen in the graph, the general trend of the data is a linear increase; heart rate increased at the same time as breaths taken per minute increased. For example, when the subjects breathed thirty times per minute, the average heart rate was 82 beats per minute. This is sixteen beats per minute greater than that of when we breathed only approximately four times per minute (66 bpm at 3.75 breaths). Also, as seen in the red line in the graph representing the average normal heart rate when breaths per minute were not monitored, the slower breathing rates corresponding heart rate was lower than that of the normal heart rate, and the heart rate which corresponds to the quicker breathing rate was greater than the normal heart rate. As seen in the graph examining percent change (of the heart rate of monitored breathing versus resting heart rate breathing normally), taking 3.75 and 6 breaths per minute resulted in a negative percent change. All other breathing rates greater than 6 breaths per minute experienced a positive change, in relation to resting heart rate. Additionally, in general, breathing quicker than the normal heart rate created a greater change in heart rate than breathing slower than the normal breathing rate. For example, at 3.75 breaths per minute, subjects on average experienced about a 17 percent change. On the other hand, when subjects breathed 15 times in a minute, they only experienced a net change of 2.86 percent (negative). Further experimentation could be done to see whether breathing slower for longer amounts of time could have a greater affect on the heart rate. Small anomalies were due to the difficulty we faced and effort exerted in trying to control our breathing. Based on the averages I found, our group had the resting heart rate most close to that between taking six and seven and a half breaths per minute. This is interesting, seeing as the average adult takes five second breaths. A further experiment could be made in different parts of the country and with different demographics, such as age, race, gender, and weight to see if my group had some common characteristic that allows us to have a normal resting heart rate while taking more breaths than the average adult.

Evaluation and Improvement Factor Affecting Speed/ style of breath taking quick breaths and then holding breath vs. taking a breath that lasts the whole X seconds. Effect on Data A quicker breath and then holding the breath could raise the heart rate because initially, oxygen is being inhaled much quicker. Additionally, this would not really change the breathing rate much. If the subject has consumed food with caffeine, their heart rate will be greater; if the student is very excited, the heart rate will also be greater. It was hard to keep each breath lasting the specified amount; breathing more times per minute raised the heart rate and breathing fewer times per minute lowered the heart rate. Additionally, it was sometimes hard to measure the heart rate; beats could have been skipped or added due to the flow of other blood being counted instead. Improvements Instruct each student on how to breathe slowly (through the nose); specify in the method whether the students should be doing deep abdominal breathing or regular chest breathing.

Food/ mood of the subjects

Make sure that the subjects have either not consumed any caffeine in the past three hours, or have all consumed caffeine; try to have the subjects clear their minds before doing the experiment. Use a more specific form of time measurement (i.e. a timer that beeps after a minute), perhaps use a stethoscope to make sure that the counting of the heart beats is as accurate as possible.

Measurement errors