Breathing slower?

I was thinking of 1) setting something up where I could monitor my breath rate while working at my computer and 2) using that to train myself to breathe slower. What do you think--is this useful? What are good solutions for tracking breath rate? What would be an ideal breath rate be?

I already know that I can sustain breathing at once per minute, but it takes a lot of concentration. Is it even healthy to breathe that slowly, or would thrice a minute be better? Will it work to train myself to always breathe this way?

Update 2013-10-12: at a party, my friend Jonathan Toomim measured my Mayer wave resonance frequencies to determine at which breath rate I got the biggest amplitude boost on the Mayer wave and the most increased oxygenated bloodflow to the brain: around nine seconds per breath. Now, whether this means anything in terms of increased health, performance, or affect--he admits it's still unclear. But it's pretty cool.

Nick

Hacking on CodeCombat, a multiplayer programming game for learning to code. Mastermind behind Skritter, the most powerful Chinese character learning app.

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