Orthostatic DIY Pulse Test for POTS: How To Measure Dysautonomia With Heart Rate Supine-Standing Change: Interview with Dr Artour Rakhimov

How one can measure their degree of POTS/Dysautonomia with an easy at-home DIY pulse test? How to test yourself for POTS with heart rate measurements for standing and lying body positions?

In this video, Dr. Artour Rakhimov and Volker Schmitz expand on the relation between results for the dysautonomia DIY orthostatic test and breathing retraining. Dysautonomia is a nervous system problem when people's autonomic nervous system does not function properly. It can relate to general fatigue, to the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. Around 2 to 3 million people in the United States have various degrees of this health condition.

In the West, the orthostatic test is used for this condition. It would show how the heart rate increases when standing up. When people have too much fatigue or stress in the system and when they stand up their heart rate shoots up. It can go from 60 to 90 beats per minute. Dr. Artour Rakhimov had personal experience of using this test when training national teams for endurance. He would perform this test on athletes every morning. Dr. Artour Rakhimov saw that after periods of strenuous exercise there was a large increase in the heart rate.

This DIY dysautonomia/POTS test reflects the general state of overtraining. The lower the number of seconds on the test the better. An increase in heart rate of 5 to 10 would be a normal (healthy) increase on this DIY POTS test. 

Thus, this DIY orthostatic pulse test is taken first when laying down and it takes about 1 minute. Upon standing up the heart rate would increase by 5 to 10 beats per minute. Then it continues to gradually climb until it reaches a stable level and then it just changes by +1 or -1 beats per minute.

While 15 to 20 (for heart rate increase) would be a serious increase that would push the body without enough recovery. There are other tests that also relate to dysautonomia that will be explained in coming videos.

For over the last 10 years, Dr. Artour Rakhimov has been involved in health. He saw that most modern people have 20 seconds for the body-oxygen test or the control pause test. This test also measures unconscious breathing patterns. The previously mentioned seconds is a very low level of oxygen and it means people breathe twice the amount compared to the medical norm. When people get sicker, the test gets down to 10 seconds.

Sitting increases metabolism compared to laying down. While standing will increase it even more. People with dysautonomia have not exercised for a very long time. They might be able to do a bit of walking. When they begin to exercise, it reconditions their body. Their heart rate will grow rapidly.

Dr. Artour Rakhimov had students with this condition and chronic fatigue syndrome that were able to get rid of all their symptoms. They did this by changing their unconscious breathing patterns. As a result, body oxygen increased up to 30-50 s.

For more details and graphs related to this DIY test for POTS see, this page “Orthostatic DIY POTS Pulse Test: How To Measure POTS with Increase in Standing Heart Rate” https://www.normalbreathing.com/s/dysautonomia-diy-pots-pulse-test.php.

The YouTube URL of this video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwK_7NGCLdM /.

The video features Volker Schmitz (Buteyko breathing practitioner from Hamburg, Germany) and Dr. Artour Rakhimov (Toronto, Canada) who was trained by medical doctors teaching the Buteyko Method in the Buteyko Moscow Clinic.

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