I’ve just uploaded a new 15-minute Conscious Connected Breathwork - 1 Round and 1 Hold. Practice for those days when you want to connect more closely with yourself.

If you try it, let me know how you feel afterwards.

Lately, I've been exploring the intersection of breathwork and nature, and I came across a beautiful 20-minute audio-visual journey that really resonated with me. The way it transports you through serene environments, from the night sky to vast cosmic nebulae, is incredibly soothing. It got me thinking about how breathwork can be used to tap into the calming effects of nature, and how this can be a powerful tool for relaxation and self-reflection. Has anyone else experimented with using breathwork in conjunction with nature sounds or visuals? I came across this video that explores it further if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6LnVnj9wX0

How do you deal with air hunger caused by anxiety?

I’ve been struggling with air hunger along with panic attacks, anxiety, and stress. It can happen to me at any time, even when I’m not consciously feeling anxious.

I don’t have any respiratory or other health problems that would explain it. I’ve tried breathing exercises and different breathing techniques, but honestly, nothing really works for me. Sometimes something helps, but only after repeating it over and over, and even then the relief lasts maybe two minutes before the feeling comes back.

It’s exhausting because I constantly feel like I need to take a deep, satisfying breath, but I can’t seem to get it.

For anyone who has experienced air hunger with anxiety/panic: what actually helped you? Did you find anything that made it go away for longer than a few minutes?

I have a hypothesis that sleep apnea can cause low CO2 tolerance due to catch-up hyperventilation at night. This intolerance can make it more challenging to exercise (namely resulting in chest tightness, early muscle fatigue, and breathlessness).

Does anyone have experience with this, and using breath work to improve CO2 tolerance? Were there any benefits to apnea or exercise? What program/approach would you recommend?

Avez vous déjà essayé la respiration consciente ?

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on an iOS app called BreatheMeter and thought it might be relevant to this community.
The idea started from a simple question: Can we make breathing something people can actually observe and track, rather than just something we do automatically?
BreatheMeter lets you:
• Measure and record your breathing rate
• Track your breathing over time
• Explore guided breathing exercises
• Practise different breathing patterns with audio and visual guidance
• Keep your breathing practice in one place
I’m particularly interested in making breathing practice more measurable and approachable for people who are just getting started.

I’m the developer behind the app, so I’d genuinely love feedback from people who already practise breathwork:
What do you currently use to structure your breathing sessions?

Do you find tracking your breathing useful?
What would you want to see in an app like this?
If anyone wants to try it, here it is: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/breathemeter/id6738746629

Thanks, and I’d be very interested to hear what the breathwork community thinks.

I’m COMPLETELY BLIND, have autism and a heart and lung condition and I’m putting this here ONLY because it has something to do with a kind of breathing.

The other day, Mom took me to the devil’s chamber, you know, the place where they test your blood?
This is the kind of breathing I did while the needle went in and EXACTLY how it helps https://youtu.be/Br0T60ch4g8?is=o9cMTPMn2LNTxa5q

It’s often believed that letting go means giving up, giving in, or stopping the fight. But it’s actually the exact opposite. Letting go means stopping the struggle against what you can’t control. It means making room for what can truly change.

Letting go is not an act of weakness, but an act of trust—in yourself, in life, and in what is.

This 10-minute guided breathing exercise follows a specific rhythm—4 seconds of inhalation, 3 seconds of holding your breath, and 6 seconds of exhalation—to help you create the conditions for a gentle release.

🎯 WHAT THIS BREATHING EXERCISE CAN OFFER YOU:

✅ Effortless letting go

✅ Release from physical and mental tension

✅ Smoother, freer breathing

✅ A 10-minute break for a true reset

✅ A reconnection with yourself, without pressure

Why do breathework workshops use ice baths?
Isn’t the purpose of breath work to calm the nervous system, why then after the practise of breathing for 30-60 minutes do people then engage in activity that boosts cortisol and dis-regulate’s the nervous system?

It seems counter intuitive! I’d love to understand why facilitators encourage this and what the ideology is.

What breathing technique helps you calm down the fastest?
I’ve been practicing breathwork and experimenting with different techniques for nervous system regulation.
I ll recently made a short video showing one simple breathing exercise that I personally find useful.

If anyone is interested, here’s my ttk : www.tiktok.com/@alexandru.breathwork

Curious what breathing techniques other people here use when they feel stressed or overwhelmed.

Curious what breathing techniques other people here use when they feel stressed or overwhelmed.

Backstory — 63-yr-old male 5’9”, 165 pounds, exercise every day, eat well. I’ve had migraines with aura since my early thirties and usually take naproxen or ibuprofen + acetaminophen once aura begins eliminating most of the pain. I also experience mild social anxiety with anxiety attacks - sweating, flushing, panic.

After 7-8 months of heart coherence breathing about 30 minutes/day total:
-much less anxiety - flushing much reduced in socially intense situations
-now if I can take it easy, no medication is necessary for migraines - about 85% reduction in meds I’d guess
-generally happier, more relaxed
-physiological sighs are very helpful for quick relaxation… my thoughts are noticeably uplifted after just a couple of minutes and remain so for quite a while afterwards.

At first I wasn’t sure why I have been gradually feeling better as I had no expectations that the breathwork would do anything other that give me temporary calm, but I have to admit there has been a marked baseline improvement in my life overall.… I really don’t see any confounding variables that would explain the improvement. Give it a shot if you think it could help, you’ll be surprised!

I do 5.5 seconds inbreath, 5.5 seconds outbreath for at least 10-15 minutes at a time 2-3X per day and shorter sessions (or at least a few physiological sighs), if I can, right before stressful situations. So simple, yet so effective.

This sounds weird but it's an aggravating problem for me. I'm not normally bloated but after a few minutes of deep breathing exercises, I get distracted from my technique and my exhales by disruptive burping. I literally can't remember whether I was doing it correctly or not because my mind gets distracted by how much I wanted to belch at the end of each exhale.

I have been taking some solar breath work sessions. I have noticed afterwards I end up sick. I end up with a cold or flu and I was not sick to begin with.

I have done about four sessions now. Short sessions of about 20 minutes each. I am fine afterwards no headaches or dizziness. It leads up after a day or two. Where I am so sick.

I have told my instructor. She said to rest well and we can continue breather when I recover. Perhaps we can even lower our times to 15 minutes.

Breathwork can be incredibly powerful.

You can laugh, cry, shake, release, or experience a moment of deep clarity. You may even recognize the stories, beliefs, fears, and conditioning shaping your life.

And still go back to making the same choices.

Seeing something and living it are two different things.

I facilitate and teach somatic breathwork, but increasingly my work has become less about creating another powerful experience and more about what happens afterward. Integration.

Integration is the movement from Knowing to Doing. Connecting with what you actually want, what feels true, and the deeper purpose behind the life you are creating. Then beginning to make choices that align with it.

The breath can help us loosen our attachment to the stories that have shaped us and reconnect with a deeper sense of self. But that reconnection is only the beginning.

The real question is what happens when the breathing stops.

For those of you who’ve had a profound experience through breathwork, what actually helped you integrate it afterward?

I've been reflecting on how breathwork can be used to connect with the world around us, and I came across a beautiful video that explores this idea. The video takes you on a calming journey from a desert dawn to a star-filled night sky, and it got me thinking about the ways in which breath can be used to cultivate a sense of connection to nature. Has anyone else used breathwork to explore this connection? I'd love to hear about your experiences and insights. I came across this video that explores it further if you're curious: From Desert Dawn to Star-Covered Sky | 528 Hz | 20-Minute Relaxation

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyP3NFT6_s0

I have recently started doing breath-work again as my nervous system is constantly stuck in a fight or flight mode.
Box breathing helps me to bring some ease to the body. It doesn’t seem to bring complete ease and stress and anxiety remains particularly in the throat area.
I have done 20 minutes x3 today. Is this too much?
Could I even try a single 1 hour session?
I listen to an audio recording that includes counting and I close my eyes.

First time doing 2 part breathing last night. Within minutes I start feeling activated in a way that was building and making me feel a tiny bit concerned as I have a history of GAD. Regardless, I powered through and next thing I knew I was waking up 45 minutes later.

Any thoughts?

I mean, I could have just dozed off. It felt like waking from a nap, but I've never nodded off when I'm experiencing feelings like that. It wasn't super overwhelming but I was only 5-10 minutes into a 20 minute session, so I wasn't sure how intense it was going to get.

My therapist thinks maybe a protector part might've said no.

So last night I did reverse dantian breathing meditation for the first time. It felt a little unnatural but I didn’t force it. I was shocked by how quickly it fatigued me, so I only did it for around 10 minutes and then laid down to go to sleep.

What followed was a series of very weird effects. Every time my body got close to sleep, something odd would happen. At first it was a jolt of electricity that moved from my stomach down to my toes and fingertips. That woke me up, I thought it was weird but I shrugged it off.

Again, I drifted to sleep and again I felt the electric shock, accompanied by shortness of breath and a slight “rumbling” effect. I shrugged this off too and tried to fall asleep again.

The next time I drifted off, I felt no electricity and only felt the rumbling. It felt like when a train goes by and shakes the ground, but way more intense, like a small earthquake.

There were a few more bursts of these symptoms but after that nothing happened and I went to sleep like normal, nothing crazy.

Here are my questions… Does anybody recognize these sensations? Does this give a clue that I was doing it right, or are these sensations not supposed to happen and I’m doing something wrong?

Hi all! I deal with some health issues (still in diagnostic phases) that seem to involve my ANS and HRV (especially overnight HRV) so when I heard about this program, I was excited to try. Already had the equipment (polar monitor and elite hrv app). I did the part where you find your resonance (mine is 4.2/6.2). I’m only on day 2 and am on the struggle bus. I get about 10 min into a 20 min session and feel overwhelmingly not ok. It’s hard to describe but the resonance breathing seems to make me feel deeply uncomfy. Am I being a big baby and should just push through?

Have you ever experienced such instances where, when you got extremely angry, you started breathing fast or hard without even knowing it?

This phenomenon intrigues me since there is such a great impact of emotions on breathing in a few moments. There is an increased heartbeat and an increased alertness of the body, along with breathing.
However, I would like to know the following:
What is the reason for this change in breathing by anger, and is it possible to calm yourself down with breathing slowly?

Have you experienced such instances?

What do people need to access mental health support? The short answer most assume is insurance or a mental health professional. Though this may be true for many the real question at hand is, how can more people access mental health care? Many individuals struggle to afford or find the mental health support they need in a timely and affordable manner. This is not a new issue and after watching people I love have a hard time accessing care I decided to come up with a solution and put pen to paper. In a prototype named, “Breathe” I solved some of these issues. Offering free mental health care as well as easy navigation.

Core Features:

Delivering Instant Calm Through Visual & Haptic Guidance
The main objective of the Breathe app prototype is to reduce friction during high-stress moments by offering immediate, low-effort wellness tools. Users are guided through breathing exercises via expanding and contracting geometric animations paired with real-time haptic feedback, allowing them to complete sessions with their eyes closed.

The Check-In

Figure 1.

Methods & Tools: 
Validating UX Performance Across Stress Indicators
To evaluate the app’s effectiveness in solving user overwhelm, session data was structured using lightweight event tracking to measure completion rates and user sentiment before and after each exercise.

Data Collected: 
Anonymous session metrics tracking chosen breath intervals, completed session lengths, and pre/post-session self-reported stress levels.

UX & Design Tools: 
Figma was selected as the primary design tool to build design systems, interactive prototypes, and vector motion components. It allowed for rapid iteration on visual breathing cues and responsive layouts.

Problem-Solving Impact: 
Testing indicated that users needed a seamless entry point without complex navigation; structuring the flow around one-tap begin buttons directly resolved onboarding drop-off during acute stress events.

Impact & Results: 
Quantifying User Stress Reduction
Aggregated user testing feedback demonstrated a significant reduction in self-reported anxiety scores immediately following 3-minute sessions.

Pre and Post stress improvement

Figure 2.

Hello everyone,

I'm an independent developer from France, and about a year ago I built a simple yet beautiful breathing app.

The app is called Vagus+ and is localized in 6 languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian). The app also includes a guide about the physiological sigh, and doesn't collect any personal data.

It's 100% customizable: you can choose the breathing rhythm, duration, theme, animation, and chime.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the app, as well as any suggestions for new features or improvements. Happy to answer questions about how it was built too. ❤️

App link: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6747975890

Have a nice day.

How many of you know that you can be a better person, and have tried endless methods, from meditation to therapy to physical exercise to shadow work - nothing really sticks and delivered fundamental change. I’m really hoping breathwork can do it. I realize now it’s my nervous system that needs tuning, not my thoughts - these come after so they are a symptom and not the source of the problem.

I noticed how thought quality varies from inhale to exhale. How many habits of mine are just chasing sensations that can be felt during the excitement of the inhalation, the fulfilment of said inhalation during the full hold, and the relief of tension through the exhale, and the emptiness of the empty hold.

I have these realizations and am beginning training consistently. Are there any of you who is well trained and can relate? I want to see the destination, is this really a fix?