Breathing With Intention: An Introduction to Breathwork Practices
Breathing is something we do tens of thousands of times each day, most often without thinking about it. And yet, the breath is far more than a mechanical function—it is a living bridge between body, brain, and consciousness.
Breathwork is a broad and evolving field that includes many different approaches to working consciously with the breath. Some practices are subtle and calming, others more active or expansive, and each carries its own intentions, effects, and considerations. Understanding this range is an important first step in choosing breathwork practices that are supportive and appropriate for you.
Through intentional breathing patterns, we can influence our nervous system, shift emotional states, and access deeper layers of experience that are often beyond words. This guide is offered as an orienting map, so you can approach breathwork with clarity, care, and informed choice.
What is Breathwork?
At its simplest, breathwork involves intentionally changing the way you breathe. This might include altering the rhythm, depth, or continuity of the breath, or bringing focused awareness to the breathing process itself.
What makes breathwork unique is that breathing is the only function of the autonomic nervous system that can be consciously influenced. Research in psychophysiology shows that intentional breathing patterns can affect heart rate variability, stress response, and emotional regulation by shifting activity within the autonomic nervous system.
Through conscious breathing, it’s possible to:
· increase present-moment awareness
· shift patterns of stress, tension, and anxiety
· support emotional processing
· access states of calm, clarity, or expanded awareness
Different breathwork practices work in different ways—some are gentle and regulating, others more activating and exploratory—but all share the understanding that the breath reflects, and influences, our internal state.
Potential Benefits of Breathwork
People come to breathwork for many reasons, and experiences vary widely from person to person. Because we all breathe, the invitation to meet the breath with awareness is available to everyone. While the ways of working with the breath may differ, there is a practice that can support each person in cultivating greater ease, awareness, and connection.
Breathwork can support:
· Reduced stress and anxiety
· Greater emotional awareness and resilience
· Improved sleep and relaxation
· Increased energy and vitality
· Relief from chronic tension or holding patterns
· Enhanced clarity, creativity, and insight
· A deeper sense of connection to self and life
A growing body of research suggests that conscious breathing practices can influence attention, emotional regulation, and cognitive flexibility, helping people become more present and less reactive.
Rather than forcing change, breathwork often works by creating the conditions for the nervous system to reorganize naturally, at its own pace.
A Brief History of Breathwork
Breathing practices have existed for thousands of years across cultures and traditions. Long before breathwork was named as such, humans intuitively worked with the breath through practices like singing, chanting, ritual movement, and meditation—often as ways to influence the body, focus the mind, or access expanded states of awareness.
Across many ancient traditions, the breath was understood not only as a physiological function, but as a vital force that animates life itself. This is reflected in the language used across cultures, where words for breath and life are often one and the same:
· In India, prana
· In Chinese medicine, qi
· In Japan, ki
· In Greek philosophy, pneuma
· In Hawaiian tradition, ha
· In Hebrew mysticism, ruach
These traditions recognized breath as a carrier of vitality, awareness, and consciousness.
Yogic traditions, in particular, developed highly sophisticated systems of breathing (pranayama), mapping the effects of the breath on the body, mind, and states of consciousness with remarkable precision. Breathing practices are also found in martial arts, meditation traditions, and other embodied disciplines, where breath is used to cultivate focus, energy, and presence.
In more recent history, modern forms of breathwork emerged in the mid-20th century, influenced by psychology, somatic therapy, and consciousness research. Practices such as Holotropic Breathwork and Rebirthing, developed in the late 1960s, explored the use of continuous breathing patterns to support emotional processing, insight, and non-ordinary states of awareness.
Today, breathwork continues to evolve—integrating ancient wisdom with contemporary understanding of trauma, neuroscience, and the nervous system—offering practices that range from gentle and regulating to deeply exploratory.
Why Practice Breathwork?
Modern life places enormous demands on our nervous systems. Many people live in a near-constant state of low-grade stress—mentally busy, physically sedentary, emotionally overloaded, and disconnected from the body.
When we feel overwhelmed or unsafe, the breath often becomes shallow, restricted, or unconsciously held. Over time, these patterns can contribute to chronic tension, fatigue, anxiety, or emotional numbness.
Body-based approaches to healing emphasize working with sensation and physiological regulation rather than relying solely on cognitive insight, especially when addressing stress and trauma.
Breathwork offers a way to gently interrupt these cycles by:
· signal safety to the nervous system
· release accumulated stress and tension
· reconnect with bodily sensation and emotion
· cultivate greater capacity to respond rather than react
In times of acute stress or trauma, gentle, down-regulating breath practices can be especially supportive, helping the body return to a sense of grounding and stability.
Different Types of Breathwork
“Breathwork” is an umbrella term that includes a wide range of practices, each working with the breath in different ways and for different purposes. Some techniques are gentle and accessible for most people, while others are more activating or exploratory. Understanding the intention and effects of a particular practice can help ensure that it’s both supportive and appropriate for you, especially when engaging in more powerful forms of breathwork.
Breath Awareness: Mindful & Observational Practices
Cultivate presence, interoceptive awareness, and nervous system attunement
Breath awareness practices focus on observing the natural rhythm of the breath without intentionally changing it. Rather than directing or manipulating breathing patterns, the emphasis is on noticing how the breath moves, where it is felt in the body, and what its qualities reveal in any given moment.
Because the breath is always happening in the present, it serves as a steady anchor of awareness, gently drawing attention out of habitual thinking and into lived, embodied experience. Tracking sensation—movement in the chest or abdomen, air at the nostrils, subtle shifts in rhythm—supports a felt sense of being here, now.
This kind of noticing is also where choice begins. We might recognize that the breath has become shallow while working at a computer, or that we’re holding it while driving through a busy part of the city. From this awareness, new options emerge—perhaps a few slow, sighing exhales, or an invitation toward gentler diaphragmatic breathing.
Over time, breath awareness strengthens interoceptive awareness—the ability to sense internal bodily states—and deepens understanding of nervous system regulation. As we become more attuned to how breathing patterns correspond with states of activation or ease, we gain greater capacity to respond skillfully, rather than automatically.
Examples include:
· Simply noticing the breath at the nostrils, chest, or abdomen
· Tracking the breath through the body without effort or control
· Using the breath as an anchor during meditation or moments of stress
Because breath awareness does not involve altering breathing patterns, it is generally accessible and appropriate for most people, including those who may not feel drawn to more active forms of breathwork. It can be practiced on its own or used as a grounding and integrative complement to other breath-based practices.
Over time, cultivating awareness of the breath can deepen one’s capacity for self-regulation, presence, and responsiveness, offering a quiet but powerful way to relate more skillfully to both inner experience and daily life.
Down-Regulating Breathwork: Calming, Grounding, & Centering Practices
Support relaxation, nervous system regulation, and a sense of safety
These practices emphasize slow, steady breathing and are often used to reduce stress, anxiety, and overwhelm by supporting a shift toward parasympathetic nervous system activity.
· Diaphragmatic (Belly) Breathing
Slow, deep breathing that engages the diaphragm and supports relaxation and nervous system regulation.
· Extended Exhale Breathing
Lengthening the exhale relative to the inhale can help calm the body and settle the mind.
· Physiological Sigh
Two successive inhales followed by a long, sighing exhale—a pattern shown to quickly reduce acute stress and support a sense of safety during moments of activation.
· Ratio Breathing (e.g., Box Breathing, Equal Length Breathing)
Breathing with equal or patterned counts to steady attention and regulate arousal.
These approaches are often accessible starting points, particularly during periods of stress, fatigue, or heightened activation.
Up-Regulating Breathwork: Activating & Energizing Practices
Increase vitality, circulation, and alertness
These practices tend to be more stimulating and are often used to increase energy, focus, and physiological arousal. They are commonly practiced earlier in the day or alongside movement.
· Breath of Fire (Kundalini Yoga)
A rhythmic, active breathing pattern emphasizing forceful exhales, traditionally used to generate heat, increase circulation, and energize the body.
· Wim Hof Breathwork & Related Cyclical Hyperventilation Practices
These approaches typically involve short rounds of active breathing—often 20–30 full inhale/exhale cycles—followed by a breath hold. They are commonly used to increase alertness, stress tolerance, and may influence inflammatory and immune responses.
Because these practices can strongly activate the nervous system, they are best approached with awareness of timing, individual sensitivity, and any relevant health considerations, including history of panic attacks.
Functional Breathwork: Therapeutic & Habit-Based Approaches
Address breathing habits and efficiency
These approaches focus on how we breathe in daily life, rather than on altered or expanded states. The emphasis is on restoring efficient, functional breathing patterns that support overall health, resilience, and nervous system balance.
In recent years, functional breathing has gained wider public attention through books such as Breath and The Oxygen Advantage, which highlight the importance of nasal breathing, carbon dioxide (CO₂) tolerance, and the impact of chronic over-breathing on sleep, stress, and performance.
Research on chronic over-breathing and functional breathing patterns suggests that improving breathing efficiency—rather than increasing breath volume—can support respiratory health, nervous system regulation, and stress resilience.
· Buteyko Method
Emphasizes nasal breathing, reduced breath volume, and gentle breath holds to address chronic over-breathing and respiratory inefficiency. The goal is not to “breathe more,” but to breathe more efficiently, supporting better oxygen delivery, calmer nervous system activity, and improved tolerance to everyday stress.
These approaches are commonly used to support respiratory health, sleep quality, stress resilience, and athletic or cognitive performance, and can be a valuable foundation for people interested in improving their relationship with the breath before exploring more intensive breathwork practices.
Expanded-State Breathwork: Conscious Connected Breathing
Support insight, emotional processing, self-discovery, and transpersonal exploration
Some forms of breathwork use sustained, continuous, or connected breathing patterns practiced over longer periods of time. Often referred to as Conscious Connected Breathwork, these approaches can invite expanded or non-ordinary states of awareness, where insight, imagery, emotion, creativity, or a sense of meaning may naturally arise.
Research suggests that such states are associated with temporary shifts in brain activity, including a reduced dominance of habitual, analytical thinking and increased access to sensory, emotional, and visionary experience. In this way, expanded-state breathwork can open new perspectives and deeper experiences of the self—beyond the stories we typically tell about who we are.
Examples include:
· Holotropic Breathwork
· Rebirthing Breathwork
· Kaisora Breathwork, along with other contemporary approaches such as Transformational Breathwork, Biodynamic Breathwork, Soma Breathwork, and Clarity Breathwork
While each school has its own influences and style, these approaches share a common foundation: working with the breath as a gateway into embodied, energetic, and transpersonal dimensions of experience.
When practiced in a safe, supportive, and well-held environment, expanded-state breathwork can help people move through unresolved inner material, reconnect with inner resources, and explore spiritual or existential questions in a grounded, embodied way. With skilled facilitation, the emphasis is on integration rather than intensity, supporting experiences that can be meaningfully woven into daily life.
To learn more about Conscious Connected Breathwork—including how it’s practiced within Kaisora—see our dedicated guide on this approach.
Safety Considerations
Breathwork ranges from very gentle to quite powerful. While many people benefit from it, certain techniques may not be appropriate for everyone.
Active or continuous breathing practices may be contraindicated for individuals with certain medical or psychological conditions. Choosing practices that match your needs—and working with a trained facilitator—is essential.
If you have questions about whether breathwork is right for you, consult a qualified healthcare provider and speak openly with your facilitator.
Finding the Right Facilitator
Breathwork is a deeply personal experience, and the quality of facilitation matters—especially for more activating or expanded-state practices. A skilled facilitator helps create a sense of safety, clarity, and choice before, during, and after a session, supporting experiences that feel both meaningful and well-held.
Many forms of breathwork, particularly breath awareness and down-regulating practices, can be explored independently. These approaches are often accessible through guided meditations, apps, recorded practices, or with the support of a trained meditation or yoga teacher, and can be valuable tools for everyday regulation and self-care.
More activating or sustained breathing practices, however, are best approached with the guidance of an experienced facilitator. These styles of breathwork can open powerful physical, emotional, or perceptual experiences, and having skilled support helps ensure the practice unfolds in a way that feels safe, grounded, and productive—rather than overwhelming or disorganizing.
When choosing a breathwork facilitator, it can be helpful to consider:
their training and experience
their approach to creating safety, choice, and pacing
their training in working with embodied experience and nervous system regulation
how the space and guidance feel to you
whether you feel respected, supported, and at ease
Ultimately, breathwork unfolds most naturally when the body feels safe enough to soften and respond. Trust your instincts, ask questions, and seek out guidance that honors your pace, capacity, and intentions.
In Closing
Across cultures and centuries, the breath has been recognized as a doorway—into the body, into awareness, and into deeper layers of life itself.
The breath is always with you. Learning to meet it consciously can change the way you meet your life.
Whether you’re seeking stress relief, emotional healing, self-discovery, or a more intimate relationship with your own inner world, breathwork offers a simple yet profound place to begin.
The breath is always with you. Learning to meet it consciously can change the way you meet your life.
Breathwork is an experiential, body-based practice intended to support self-awareness and wellbeing. It is not a substitute for medical or mental health care, and participants are encouraged to work within their own limits and consult qualified providers as needed.
Written by Tai Hubbert for Kaisora Breathwork. All rights reserved.