RTP's Meditative Breathing

Clinically Proven PTSD Symptoms Relief

On December 26, 2004, at 7:58 AM local time, a 9.2–9.3 magnitude earthquake struck with an epicenter off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.  The resulting tsunami produced waves up to 100 feet high, devastating coastal communities and killing nearly 228,000 people.  Many of those who survived lost almost everything; family, friends, homes, and businesses were wiped out.  Among the survivors was a group of refugees who took up temporary residence in southern India. 

Eight months after the tsunami, a landmark PTSD clinical study of 183 of the survivors, living in an Indian refugee camp, was conducted.  All study participants had severe PTSD, as measured by the PTSD Checklist (PCL) survey.  The mean baseline PCL-17 score for the participants was approximately 65 (out of a maximum score of 85).  The study brought desperately needed relief in the form of an instructor taught breath-meditation practice.

The study’s participants ranged in age from 18 to 65.  One-hundred and sixty were women and 23 were men.   Instead of PTSD medication, all study participants ultimately received 8 hours of training on a yoga breathing technique—an acknowledged well tolerated coping mechanism.  A subgroup, which acted as the study control, had their treatment delayed for 6 weeks. 

After just 1 week, the experimental group participants experienced clinically significant relief regarding their PTSD symptoms (see accompanying Table 3 graphic).  After 6 weeks, those receiving the breath intervention experienced a massive 43.2 points (PCL) average reduction in symptoms-severity—equal to a nearly 66% decrease in symptoms-severity relative to baseline.   In the same amount of time, the study control group experienced an insignificant 4.6 points decrease in PTSD symptoms-severity; comparatively confirming the efficacy of the breath intervention.  

To understand just how impressive the breath intervention results are, compare them to the PTSD medication results observed in a recent VA study.  The VA study found that the use of PTSD medication reduces symptoms-severity by between 6.8 and 10.1 points (PCL).   The breath study research results are 4x greater than the medication study results.

In addition to the above landmark study, a meta-study (2013) of mindfulness-based therapy (i.e., attention focusing therapy), comprising 209 studies and 12,145 participants, found that it is especially effective for reducing anxiety, depression, and stress.

The difference is stark: for PTSD symptoms stabilization and severity-reduction, meditative-breathing-intervention delivers a 4x improvement over PTSD drugs.  Moreover, as medications can impede the development of coping skills required for follow-on treatments like exposure therapy, meditative-breathing-intervention is a superior alternative and comes without medication side-effects, which include increased suicidal ideation and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

RTP Enhances Meditative Breathing

Despite the impressive effectiveness of breath meditation practices in managing symptoms of distress, many struggle to incorporate such practice into their daily routine, resulting in a blunted therapeutic effect.   Several factors contribute to this difficultly:

• No Time: Perhaps the biggest barrier is the perception of limited time. Life is filled with work, family obligations, and social activities, making it hard to carve out even a few minutes for meditation.

• External Distractions:  Constant distractions from phones, notifications, and social media can hinder the ability to sit quietly and meditate.

• Lack of Guidance: Beginners often struggle with techniques, leading them to abandon the practice altogether.

2-Dooz's drug-free AI and mobile apps technologies overcome these difficulties by incorporating a user’s own biofeedback into an as-needed, app guided, 90-seconds long breath meditation practice.  The novel, personalized biofeedback is provided by a connected wearable device, e.g., MSSD Smart Ring, enabling the real-time assessment and treatment of trauma induced distress.  Moreover, AI-powered distress-tolerance tracking continuously delivers objective proof that the app provided intervention is working.

Real-time prompting frees a user from having to remember to perform a daily mediation practice, which many find difficult to comply with.  And, the app-based coaching eliminates any worry of doing the intervention incorrectly.  And, because the solution is drug-free, it avoids the risks that come with the use of medication for the treatment of PTD, inclusive of PTSD.