How does Breathwork work?

Breathing is direct line of communication to our nervous system: short, fast breaths can switch on the "fight or flight" sympathetic nervous system while deep, slow breaths switch us into the "rest and digest" mode of parasympathetic nervous system.

Which, when you think about it, is pretty freaking cool -- it's not like you can consciously change your how fast your heart is beating just by thinking about it BUT you can change the depth and pace of your breathing.

And in fact, when exploring the underlying scientific/physiological reason why practices like yoga and meditation have shown to benefit mental health and cognitive performance, scientists' best guess is the regulated or guided breathing doing the heavy lifting. [citation]

Even just *5 minutes* of breathwork is proven to reduce stress, lower your anxiety and improve your mood.

Andrew Huberman and his colleagues at Stanford published a study in January this year comparing 5 minutes of breathwork to mindfulness meditation and “brief structured breathing" (aka breathwork) out performed meditation for improving mood and autonomic regulation and lowering stress around the clock." [citation]

All 3 of the different breathwork patterns they tested: cyclic sighing (two inhales and a long exhale), box breathing (inhale-hold-exhale-hold) and cyclic hyperventilation (long inhale, short exhale, hold) were effective but cyclic sighing had the biggest impact on improved mood, lowering stress and reducing anxiety.

And even better: the more days in a row people did the breathwork practice, the greater their results.