Breathwork & the Nervous System: Returning to the Body Through Breath 🫁
Breathing is something our bodies do automatically from the moment we enter the world—and yet it is also something we can consciously influence. This makes the breath a fascinating bridge between processes that happen without our conscious direction and our capacity to intentionally engage with the body.
Have you ever noticed your breathing change when you're afraid, excited, grieving, exercising, resting, or falling asleep? Our breath responds to our experience, but the relationship also works in the other direction: intentionally changing how we breathe can influence physiological arousal and how we experience stress.
This is one reason breath has been central to contemplative and healing practices across cultures for thousands of years. From ancient yogic pranayama and Buddhist meditation to contemplative prayer and contemporary therapeutic practices, humans have long recognized that attending to the breath can change how we experience ourselves and the present moment.
Today, research continues to explore how different breathing patterns may affect stress, emotion, attention, and autonomic function. While breathwork is not a cure-all—and different practices can produce very different effects—it can offer an accessible way to become more aware of the relationship between breath, body, and mind.
How Breath Influences the Nervous System
Breathing is closely connected with the autonomic nervous system, which helps regulate processes such as heart rate, digestion, blood pressure, and responses to stress.
One way we can observe this relationship is through the natural variation in heart rate that occurs with breathing: heart rate typically increases slightly during inhalation and decreases during exhalation. This phenomenon, known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia, reflects interaction between breathing and cardiovascular regulation.
Research suggests that slow, comfortable breathing can influence autonomic activity and may help reduce physiological arousal and feelings of stress. For some people, intentionally slowing the breath—particularly allowing the exhale to remain comfortable and unforced—can support a sense of settling or relaxation.
This does not mean that the breath acts as an on/off switch for the nervous system. Our physiological responses are shaped by many factors, including our environment, health, relationships, past experiences, and whether we actually feel safe in the moment.
Instead, the breath can be understood as one accessible way of interacting with the body: something we can notice, experiment with, and use to explore how different patterns of breathing affect our experience.
Breathwork & Polyvagal Theory
You may also hear breathwork discussed through the lens of Polyvagal Theory, an influential framework developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges to describe relationships between autonomic activity and experiences of safety, connection, mobilization, and shutdown.
Within this framework, certain breathing practices are sometimes used to support a shift in how we experience activation or stress. However, it is important not to think of the breath as a tool for deliberately moving ourselves between three discrete nervous-system “states.” Human physiology is more complex, and some of Polyvagal Theory’s specific anatomical and evolutionary explanations remain scientifically debated.
At Loto, we find Polyvagal Theory useful as one framework for developing awareness of our lived experience.
The invitation, then, is less about using the breath to achieve the “right” state and more about becoming curious: What happens in my body when I breathe this way? Do I feel more settled, more activated, more present, or something else entirely?
Exploring Breathwork Practices
There is no single form of “breathwork.” Different traditions and therapeutic approaches use different patterns of breathing for different purposes. Some practices emphasize slow, gentle breathing and relaxation, while others intentionally use faster or deeper breathing to create more activating experiences.
For everyday stress support, simple and comfortable practices are often a good place to begin:
Slow Breathing: Gently slowing the pace of the breath can help bring attention to the body and may support relaxation. Rather than forcing a particular rhythm, experiment with a pace that feels comfortable and sustainable.
Extended Exhale: Some people find it settling to allow the exhale to be slightly longer than the inhale—for example, breathing in comfortably and letting the breath out slowly. The goal is not to achieve a perfect ratio, but to notice how the body responds.
Diaphragmatic Breathing: Sometimes called “belly breathing,” this practice invites the diaphragm to move more freely as you breathe rather than relying primarily on shallow breathing through the upper chest. Placing a hand on the abdomen can help bring awareness to this movement without forcing the breath.
Mindful Breathing: Breath awareness does not always require changing the breath at all. Simply noticing its rhythm, temperature, movement, and sensations can become a contemplative practice of returning attention to the present moment.
Most importantly, pay attention to your own experience. A breathing practice that feels calming for one person may feel uncomfortable or activating for another. If a practice creates dizziness, distress, panic, or significant discomfort, return to normal breathing and stop the exercise.
Potential Benefits of Breathwork
Research on breathing practices continues to grow, particularly around slow and intentional breathing. Studies suggest that certain breathing practices may support relaxation, reduce perceived stress and anxiety, influence cardiovascular and autonomic activity, and improve aspects of emotional well-being.
Beyond measurable physiological effects, breath practices can also offer something beautifully simple: a way to bring our attention back to what is happening right now. The breath can become an anchor for meditation, prayer, movement, or moments when we simply need to reconnect with ourselves.
Breathwork should not be understood as a cure for trauma, anxiety, or other physical or mental health conditions. Instead, it can be one supportive practice within a much larger landscape of care that may include relationships, movement, rest, therapy, medical care, spiritual practice, time in nature, and changes to the conditions contributing to stress in the first place.
The goal is not to breathe our way out of every difficult emotion. Sometimes sadness, anger, fear, grief, or activation are appropriate responses to what we are experiencing. Breath can simply give us another way to remain present with ourselves as those experiences move through us.
A Note on Breathwork Safety
Breathwork is not one single practice, and more intensive techniques can produce very different physiological effects than gentle breath awareness or slow breathing. Practices involving rapid breathing, prolonged breath retention, or significant changes in breathing patterns may cause dizziness, tingling, anxiety, or other uncomfortable responses and may not be appropriate for everyone.
If you have a cardiovascular or respiratory condition, are pregnant, have a history of fainting or seizures, or have other health concerns that could be affected by intensive breathing practices, consult an appropriate healthcare professional before participating. When exploring more intensive forms of breathwork, consider working with a properly trained facilitator.
And remember: you do not need to push through discomfort for a practice to “work.” If breathing intentionally makes you feel distressed, dizzy, panicked, or unwell, return to your natural breath and stop the practice.
Breath as Spiritual Practice
Long before we understood the physiology of respiration, humans recognized something sacred in the breath.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word ruach can mean breath, wind, or spirit. In Genesis, the ruach of God moves over the waters of creation. Elsewhere in Scripture, breath becomes an image of life itself—the animating presence of the Divine moving through Creation.
Other spiritual traditions have also developed rich relationships with the breath. Yogic traditions have explored prana and pranayama for centuries, while Buddhist contemplative practices often use awareness of breathing as a pathway into presence. These traditions are distinct, with their own histories, teachings, and meanings; they need not be collapsed into one another for us to notice a shared human intuition: breath matters.
Conscious breathing can become a form of prayer—not because a particular breathing pattern brings me closer to God, but because paying attention helps me become more present to the Sacred already here.
The breath arrives without our earning it. Again and again, the body receives and releases.
Inhale.
Receive.
Exhale.
Release.
Perhaps this is one of the simplest practices of returning available to us: noticing the breath, inhabiting the body, and remembering that Life is moving through us even when we are not consciously directing it.
“The deeper your interior silence, the more profoundly God will work in you without your knowing it.”
