Your Brain on Breathwork

For all the peeps out there (like me) that just need to understand.

Since my first transformational breathwork journey, I felt the urge to understand what was actually happening in my brain during breathwork. Fortunately, with the recent increased interest in breathwork as a holistic modality, more research is being conducted and it’s exciting that we are getting closer to understanding.

There have been several studies over the years that have proven that breathing techniques can decrease levels of stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, increase relaxation and calmness as well as improve medical conditions such as asthma, hypertension, anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorder. These effects of breathwork on the body are attributed to an obvious interplay between the O2-CO2 balance, blood pH level, cortical blood flow, vagal nerve stimulation and neurotransmitter release (Gerritsen & Band, 2018). However, the neurophysiological effects of breathwork are still not fully understood and studies today are diving more into that aspect.

Due to the number of breathing modalities offered, it is important to note that this article speaks specifically to the conscious connected breathing technique. For this technique a person is invited to sit or lay down and deliberately engage in an activation breath, breathing deeply and consistently without a pause between inhale and exhale. One deep full diaphragmatic inhale connects with the exhalation accomplished simply through relaxation of diaphragm. Sessions generally last 60-90 minutes and 20-30 of those minutes will be working with the activation breath. This breathwork can be quite stimulating and participants are encouraged to freely release any impulses or emotions they experience during the breathwork session. The intensity is controlled by the style and pace of the person’s breath.

The interesting thing about our breath is that it is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which means we breath automatically and it doesn’t require any thought from our brain to initiate breathing. (similar to the heart and its function). However, breath can also be controlled consciously, unlike any other function in the body’s autonomic nervous system. This allows us to intentionally alter the oxygen (O2) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) ratio within our bodies.

When we change O2 & CO2 ratios with breathwork, it has an impact on the functions of the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. This can alter the state of our brain waves, emotions, nervous system responses, and states of consciousness. We can experience transient hypofrontality, which means that for a while, the focused thinking part of our brain (the pre frontal cortex) gets a rest. This then allows other parts and functions to become more dominant. The disengagement of the prefrontal cortex gives us an opportunity to be in an alternative or non-ordinary states of consciousness. This internal focus allows us to tap into our intuitive flow, process unprocessed emotions stored in the body, release stress and tension, experience timelessness and presence, peacefulness (being less analytical), and floating (diminished working memory and attentional capacities). You create an opportunity to be completely in the present moment with an uncluttered perspective, allowing yourself to let go of things that are holding you back and giving you the ability to step into your own healing power. You don’t have to logic your way out of these things, you can just process and release.

Through an intentional breathwork practice you actually have the opportunity to regulate these parts of the brain by retraining the stress response through rewiring the limbic system. Instead of being in a state of survival (fight, flight, freeze or fawn) you can establish a state of growth and repair and that can be truly healing.

Let’s take a closer look at the limbic system, which is a part of the brain that is impacted during breathwork. We understand that that the limbic system is involved in processing and regulating emotions, forming and storing memories as well as arousal and learning, making it a powerhouse when it comes to behavior, motivation and long term memory. It plays a huge part in our body’s response to stress and is highly connected to the autonomic nervous system. This part of our brain is made up of several different parts all designed to keep us safe, built to predict and avoid negative stimuli, by attaching strong responses (fight, flight, freeze or fawn) to an experience and creating a memory of that response so we can recognize that “danger” in the future and create a similar response in the body when faced with a similar stressor. Because it takes its clues from outside stimuli and is an interface with the nervous system, it responds to these instances with an increase of heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate, stress etc… It’s involvement with the cognitive and emotional behaviors also feeds into the reinforcement/reward part of the brain often leading to habitual responses.

This would all serve us well if we were living in the jungle and being chased by tigers, however, our body often responds in this way to very mild stimuli meaning we can cycle through the responses several times daily. When these parts of the brain are malfunctioning, overstimulated, stressed or damaged, we see chronic stress, depression, OCD, anxiety, mood disorders, addiction and more.

The other interesting thing about the limbic system is that it processes time as non linear, meaning it processes the past, present, and future as if it were all happening right now, making it harder for us to discern real and meaningful emotions and reactions. This can show up when someone overlays the story of the past onto their present life as if that is still their reality. Living in the confines and fears of the stories they tell themselves. We see it all the time.

Because we can quiet this part of the brain during breathwork, we have the opportunity to restore healthy limbic system physiology and relearn to respond to stressors in the future while releasing the past experiences in a healthy way without that immediate survival response taking over.

We can also take a look at the prefrontal cortex, where much of our sequential, orderly, systematic thinking and decision making happens. This part of the brain has a decrease in brain waves during breathwork as well. I believe this is what makes breathwork such a grounded and efficient healing modality. The fact that you can let go of the need to understand or analyze your negative or limiting beliefs and you can just allow your body to do the processing is so powerful.

There was a recent study Camile Bahi et al.,2023 that looked specifically at the effects of conscious connected breathing on brain activity and state of consciousness. The objective was to establish the neurophysiological correlates of conscious connected breathing and to examine the effects of conscious connected breathing on mood status. Through EEG imaging and pre and post states analysis, they were able to determine several postive effects of conscious connected breathwork.

They noted that in line with the notion that breathwork might alleviate depression, the present results show a positive effect on mood. Breathwork decreased tension, confusion, depression and tended to reduce anger. Esteem on the other hand increased after breathwork. This is also in line with psychodynamic theories of breathwork which commonly attribute the occurrence of emotional breakthroughs as a consequence of releasing bodily tensions that have accumulated through the suppression of negative emotions over a long time (Everly & Reese, 2007; Lalande et al., 2012; Lowen, 1975; Rhinewine et al., 2007; Victoria & Caldwell, 2013; Young et al., 2010). During a connected breathing experience, the connection between the habitual way of breathing, and the holding patterns of our emotions (Gilbert & Chaitow, 2002), gets interrupted. Consciously choosing to ‘break’ the pattern during the session may allow for a freeing of these negative emotions, as seen in a reduction of all the negative mood facets after the breathwork session. The increase in esteem found after the session could possibly be related to a sense of autonomy over one’s own emotional efficacy, as it is one’s own effort and attention that allowed the transformation. Future research could look deeper into this underlying mechanism.

Another very interesting finding was that they fouund a significant increase of power across gamma frequencies in experienced breathwork participants. Gamma brain waves are some of the fastest brain waves produced in the brain and your brain tends to produce gamma waves when you’re intensely focused or actively engaged in solving a problem. Gamma waves ultimately help you process information.

Further they looked into breathwork consciousness during the experience and compared it to non-ordinary state induced by psychedelics, in this case psilocybin (Hirschfeld & Schmidt, 2021). On a descriptive level, participants reported changes in their experiences of blissful state, experience of unity, spiritual experience, insightfulness, disembodiment similar to high doses of psilocybin. Breathwork induced scores similar to medium doses of psilocybin, with highest scores for objects “appearing more salient and personally significant than they ordinarily do” (Bayne & Carter, 2018). Breathwork does not have as strong visual distortions and hallucinations as high doses of psychedelics but seems to increase personal significance and salience of internal visions. On the ‘Dread of Ego-Dissolution’ subdimension, participants scored very low. This dimension was also the lowest during psilocybin experiences. While further investigations are necessary for conclusive statements, the results visually give an indication that breathwork is a mean of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness, in a similar manner to psychedelics.

The results of this study are an objective testimony of the efficacy of breathwork, showing neuropsychological and emotional changes after only a single session. Moreover, establishing the relationship between objective brain activity and subjective mood status by combining EEG recordings with more subjective measures of mood. Finally, the inclusion of the 11D-ASC scale in combination with the EEG measures made it possible to examine the potential of breathwork to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness, comparable to psychedelics.

Take a look at the article Camile Bahi et al.,2023 if you’ d like to see EEG images and read in more detail about the study quoted here.

I am so excited that there are more studies being conducted to help us all understand what is happening in our body during breathwork and explain why this modality has such amazing healing powers. I hope this helps you understand a bit more about your brain on breathwork. Happy breathing friends!