The effects of paced breathing on respiratory resistance are minimal in healthy individuals

Paced breathing has been criticized for its presumed influences on autonomic and respiratory regulation, among that on respiratory resistance. It has been speculated that excessive pulmonary stretch receptor activation through high tidal volume (V(T)) would be the mechanism underlying such influences. However, the idea of airway dilation by paced breathing has remained untested. We analyzed inspiratory and expiratory resistance measured by forced oscillations in 26 healthy participants during baseline and two paced breathing conditions, regular pacing with instructions to alter rate only and pacing with additional instructions to alter volume randomly throughout the task. In each condition, four 3-min paced breathing trials at 8, 10.5, 13, and 18 breaths/min were administered. Despite pronounced changes in respiration rates and V(T) across pacing trials, neither inspiratory nor expiratory resistance were changed significantly under the regular paced breathing condition. A small reduction in resistance was only observed under conditions of variable volume at 18 breaths/min. Thus, regular paced breathing at different speeds across a range of naturally occurring breathing frequencies has only minimal effects on resistance of the airway passages.