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Exposure therapy is a widely used treatment for patients with post-traumatic stress dis -order. It involves reduction of fear through progressive exposure to frightening stimuli in a therapeutic environment. Here we propose a new method designed to improve the effectiveness of exposure therapy. We hypothesized that device-guided breathing during exposure therapy can increase the capability of the patient to undergo effective exposure. The successful application of the method is described for a single patient. Using a device to slow and regularize breathing, the patient was calmed and experienced a greater sense of control and a profound effect of the exposure. The use of the breathing-guiding device is believed to reduce arousal level and excitability of sympathetic “fight-flight” behaviors. The present study suggests that device-guided breathing integrated with exposure therapy may provide a practically feasible and potentially promising non-pharmacological treatment after trauma.

This paper aims to historicise the contemporary chlorophyll trend through the first academic study of its early marketing in Sweden (1950–1953). Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it demonstrates how brands used advertisements to convince female consumers of chlorophyll’s necessity to fulfil certain aspirational goals.

In all, 150 advertisements for chlorophyll products were collected from the Swedish Historical Newspaper Archive, as well as 600 additional advertisements for the three most popular products (toothpaste/mouthwash, sanitary towels and soap) from 1940 to 1950 and from 1954 to 1964. Then, multimodal critical discourse analysis was used to investigate how the products were marketed before, during and after the chlorophyll trend, identifying the general themes and linguistic/semiotic structures of the advertisements.

This paper shows how the commercial use of chlorophyll offered a lucrative opportunity for marketers, acting as a “tabula rasa” on which they could use discourses of science, nature, idealised femininity and luxury to draw connections with health, modernity and beauty, despite the product having no real purpose or value.

Viewing this fad from a historical perspective emphasises how brands, marketers and influencers continue to capitalise on the anxieties of female consumers with promises around beauty, hygiene and health. It, thus, offers us critical distance to reflect on contemporary claims about chlorophyll’s health benefits to make informed choices.

This study was performed to confirm that autonomic nervous activity is affected by breathing speed. I hypothesized that prolonged expiratory breathing would promote parasympathetic dominance, whereas rapid breathing would promote sympathetic dominance. Ten healthy men, ages 21-28 years old, were instructed to perform prolonged expiratory breathing (6 seconds expiration, 4 seconds inspiration) after spontaneous breathing and rapid breathing (1 second expiration, 1 second inspiration) after spontaneous breathing; changes in high frequency (HF) and low frequency (LF)/HF of heart rate variability (HRV) were measured during each type of breathing. During prolonged expiratory breathing, parasympathetic nervous function was significantly activated. Conversely, during rapid breathing, parasympathetic nervous function was significantly suppressed. The HRV method assessing sympathetic and parasympathetic modulation in this study is an indirect, noninvasive method with clear limitations. The use of additional techniques should be considered to clarify the relationships between the breathing speed and the mind.