Box breathing techniques and benefits | Hacker News Reader

Box breathing techniques and benefits

verywellmind.com

182 pointsliminal-dev90 comments

I'm happy to see these types of techniques hit the front page of HN.

Breathing techniques changed my life.

I remember convincing myself many years ago to take a leap of faith and to trust the process.

I've practiced for over 10 years at this point, and I've been in dangerous or even life threatening situations where I've remained mindful of my breathing throughout the experience.

It's an incredible feeling to be so deeply connected to yourself through breathing. It can become an extremely transformative experience.

I've had a couple of experiences with samadhi by 'accident' throughout the years which is the most profound experiences I've had in my life.

So what is the practice? Non-doing? Staying mindful? All I know is that words cannot really describe it, as soon as you're dealing with words and semantics you've strayed away from breathing again.

The ego ties into it a lot, but you quickly start to sound like a broken record if succumb to that gospel.

No one preaches that the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow.

It's the elusive obvious, it's the old fish swimming by and saying:

"Morning boys how's the water?”

The two young fish give each other a puzzled look and ask:

"What the fuck is water?"

I have gotten into Wim Hof and other breathing techniques. There is definitely something more to it than woo and sentiment. The way you can interact with and stimulate your nervous system through breathing remains unique to me in the scope of ways to interact with the body. I have also been into cold water immersion for many of the same reasons. Can dig up some posts I did on wim hof cheat sheet and cold water immersion on my blog (see profile). In fact, that is about all I wrote on my blog thus far, mostly as notes to myself and for close friends when they ask what I am up to in the health and fitness realm. CWI and Breathing are my future and I find huge benefits to it in my martial arts pursuits (brazilian jiu jitsu, staying calm, managing my energy in tough sparring matches, etc.).

I find the breath work to be more useful than meditation. Now any time I find stress I immediately recognize my breath and start controlling it, almost sub-consciously. Driving, tough spots in matches, just getting deep into a problem and not getting it. The breath is always there. Okay, maybe it is a little woo, but the more focused breathing activities are not and actually trigger physiological response, and these reminders of the breath are reminders of those states.

Fellow WHM practitioner here. IMO it’s not that woo’ie. Being connected with breathing means regulating the autonomous nervous system

I was a participant of the pnas article [1]. There’s quite a bit of science to it.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1322174111

I think almost everything Wim has promoted from the hard science side is accurate. There are just some elements of it that I know are mostly mental for me, but it is tightly coupled with all the the physiological in ways I haven’t bothered to articulate much :)

The disappointing thing about the Wim Hof videos that I have seen (many), is that he does not warn about the risk of tinnitus - and how to avoid it.

Could you please expand on that, or provide a link?

I've never heard of tinnitus in relation to breathing techniques, and it sounds like something I should be aware of, before starting with the Wim Hof method.

I'm interested in what it says about the cause of tinnitus, since I know someone who suffers from it -- I've experienced ringing in my ears after deep breathing and it was a kind of spiritual thing, sounded like those singing bowls used in buddhism, lots of harmonics and tremolo. As I understand it, the tinnitus caused by hearing damage is not nearly so pleasant..

But if it can be activated by changing your O2/CO2 levels, maybe it could be deadened by some change as well?

There are lots of webpages/videos discussing it if you do a search for "wim hof" and tinnitus".

I cannot find the link, but what I have read is that when you inhale and hold, that the pressure needs to be held in your belly, not in your head. If you hold the air pressure in your head/nasal cavities - that it could lead to tinnitus.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BecomingTheIceman/comments/ls2d85/w...

This link (which I recommend) provides a different take on WHM: https://ugjka.net/blog/breathwork/2022/07/30/wim-hof-breathi...

> I find the breath work to be more useful than meditation. Now any time I find stress I immediately recognize my breath and start controlling it, almost sub-consciously.

I'd just like to note that you're literally describing mindfulness meditation and its effects, there. That's what interoceptive meditation is all about - focusing on your internal state - and breath is an excellent medium for that focus.

Anyone that believes that Wim Hof breathing is woo should literally just spend the three minutes to do a round of it and see the effects by themselves. It is immediately obvious that there is a clear effect on the body from just breathing the right way.

For anyone wanting to try, here is the video I used when I started getting into it: https://youtu.be/lwlEJ2O-6HM

(Don't necessarily pay too much attention to that creator's other videos, he's not very science-based overall.)

Just do the first round and you'll see an undeniable effect on your body and mind. I mean undeniable, not something subtle and small.

Now, the specific effects of it all can be debated. I'm rather doubtful of some of the claims made of it, and it's very clear that a lot of non-skeptical people flock to this sort of thing, so that's expected. But there's something to it, for sure. Try it the next time you're about to do something high-stress, such as public speaking. The difference for me is night and day.

I also recommend people check out NSDR. Here is what I use: https://youtu.be/AKGrmY8OSHM

It's a bit subtler, but there's a definite effect. Supposedly it has similar effects on learning as sleep. Whether that's true or not, it's a tool you can try out yourself and decide whether or not it's helpful to you.

I did mindfulness meditation for many years. The breathing is similar. Maybe the years of that and now the breathing are all tangled in my brain. But the Wim Hof Method stuff just feels different. I have been doing 10-25 minutes of breath work and 3-10 minutes of 4-8C water daily. It fixed a broken part if me nothing else has.

Is there a specific technique that worked for you? I've done a bit of mindful meditation, which is breath-related, and tried box breathing, too. I have a specific breath pattern that I use when I want to fall asleep, as well, and it works wonders, though I'd be hard pressed to describe it at all.

Box breathing specifically doesn't do much for me, though.

is this not a pavlonian response? i mean, its cool if it works, but makes me wonder if you are just training the behavior

Totally possible, as it's part of a routine by now. Still, without it I notice a real difference in getting to sleep.

Nothing wrong with training yourself in a way that helps. It's a wonderful thing when used properly.

Can you try to describe it? haha I'd love to know.

The most effective technique I have used is also the simplest. I came across it reading about how trauma affects the body. Under stress we tend to exhale more forcefully in short outward breaths, so when exhalation is quicker than inhalation the body responds accordingly. This means we can get a beneficial response if exhalation is longer than inhalation.

So the technique is to inhale at whatever pace feels comfortable, counting if that helps, and then exhale a little longer. It soon becomes natural enough that no counting is necessary and you can think about whatever pleasant associations work.

I came across a rather unique essay a few months ago, and I checked out the author's podcast. He got me to look at box breathing and breathwork in general much more seriously. He makes the point that all of us have a trauma loop and it is reflected in how we breathe. By dealing with that trauma, whatever it may be, you can head off a lot of potentially long-term detrimental effects to your health because even if you ignore trauma that you've accumulated, your body is keeping the score.

What is a trauma loop?

A bad physical reaction primed from prior traumatic exposure that makes things worse, instead of better.

What is an example? I can’t think of anything that would cause a bad physical reaction in me.

I’ve personally been lucky enough to be able to process most (all, maybe?) of the traumatic events I’ve been exposed to, but I’ve known others who have not. I’ve seen a decent amount of blood in my time, and held more than a few folks hands as they died. But not a lot. And I’ve been lucky to be able to help them, most of the time, which helps.

I’ve seen folks go suddenly catatonic in high stress environments (and nearly die because of it), suddenly switch from friendly to literally attacking someone (in one case choking their spouse until they passed out - their legal situation got very unpleasant after that) due to a conversational trigger, and have seen someone’s eyes go ‘black’ in a screaming rage due to a combination of environmental factors that didn’t make much sense, reaction wise.

PTSD is a common thread here, but only about half of them were diagnosed with it that I’m aware of.

Each of them I remember showed significant physical signs of distress when it was happening, such as uncharacteristic pupil dilations, extreme body tension, breathing irregularities, distant stares or seeing ‘through’ what is there, etc.

I’ve been lucky to do a lot of meditation and mindfulness in the past, and when I’ve felt the physical reactions and related cascades, have been able to process what was happening in a way.. I could make use of? Understand without being hijacked by it? Feel without ‘being’ it? Guide to a more useful place?

Not sure how else to describe.

The full body pulsing heartbeat, the choking/crushing feeling in the chest, the need to fight right now, the overpowering rage that can happen, the near blindness from the tunnel vision, the punch in the gut. It’s different, depending, but it shares common themes.

Not sure if that helps?

Personally, one that stuck with me for years (but definitely was not the worst I’ve seen) was when I was first on the scene to a multi car accident. It was a three car pileup, and the last vehicle was a disabled person transport van. The first vehicle had stopped to make a left hand turn across oncoming traffic when I watched the van driver plow into the back of the middle car, which then got pushed into the car turning left.

The van driver didn’t even tap their brakes, and they were going almost exactly 55mph at impact. I distinctly remember the explosion of glass and the rear end lifting up like in a movie.

It was a 4 lane, undivided highway. I happened to be the car directly behind the van, and was going to make that same left turn as the vehicle they plowed into.

The driver had two passengers - a middle aged woman who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt in the front passenger seat who got almost scalped by the windshield and had some kind of closed head trauma, and a disabled woman in a wheelchair in back.

The impact was so severe, the woman in back broke several ribs and ripped the anchors for her wheelchair out of the van frame, partially impacting the back of the passenger seat and driver seat. She ended up turned partially.

The driver had an airbag and had been wearing her seatbelt and walked away uninjured.

I managed to come to a safe stop, call 911, stop traffic and get additional assistance from one of the other motorists, and started triage so when the EMTs arrived, they knew who to transport and why. I did initially fall for the (classic) ‘pay attention to loud one’ at first, but was able to snap out of it when the EMT who arrived started to do the same thing, and I was able to grab him and point him to the closed head trauma patient who was not able to form whole words anymore, and was being too quiet, and needed immediate transport or would likely die.

This was before I had my EMT certification, and I was running off old Boy Scout first aid training.

It was not a feeling that I was in control, though I was definitely more in control than any of the approximately 80ish people around me, until the county Sheriff showed up and took over the scene.

I don’t think I was able to actually calm down until the next day. I had no one to talk to at the time, I lived alone and only a couple hundred yards away.

For years afterwards, if I heard car tires screech, I could feel my muscles tense, my brain switch into emergency mode, my heart rate to shoot up, and everything start flooding back. I had disruptive thoughts about it, etc.

I still distinctly remember the way the passenger was acting and the distinctive halo of blood on the windshield where her head impacted, and the screaming of the disabled (but relatively ok) passenger in the back.

But if they can scream, they’re doing pretty good compared to the ones who can’t.

Good news is, I didn’t have to black tag anyone, and there were no kids. Also, the later training I got turned it into more useful and directed action, and therapy and meditation helped me process it over the years. It doesn’t bother me particularly anymore, and I haven’t felt anything like a Trauma cascade from it in at least 15 years.

It happened… 20 years and a handful of months ago.

I’ve run across some nastier ones and have processed those too. But I don’t think you want me to talk about those.

Yes, that helps. I guess I've just been fortunate to never have had a traumatic experience since I've never felt anything like "The full body pulsing heartbeat, the choking/crushing feeling in the chest, the need to fight right now, the overpowering rage that can happen, the near blindness from the tunnel vision, the punch in the gut. It’s different, depending, but it shares common themes."

That’s really good, and I hope you’re able stay that way.

For anyone that does recognize some of these, or if you do ever feel anything like that, be aware that internal acceptance (in a ‘this is happening’ sense, not necessarily ‘this is healthy for me’ sense), awareness, and working through it are more healthy than suppressing or ignoring it. There are tools to work through these things. It does require work and time.

There are other trauma cascade reactions. Externally, trauma reactions also include being overly friendly to someone attacking you, freezing up and not taking action due to brain lock, running away even if you knew what to do due to an overwhelming sense of fear, denial/avoidance of major problems (to the degree of delusion), etc.

Most of them have distinctive physical reactions that proceed them, and individuals will usually have a specific tendency towards one of them by default, but it is heavily modifiable with training - to a point.

Don't know if this is what OP means by it, but I interpret that to mean the cycle of avoiding something that triggers a fear, thus establishing that fear even more.

Yes. Avoidance behavior seem to play a big role.

> I came across a rather unique essay a few months ago, and I checked out the author's podcast.

Link please.

Great to hear about your journey. What sort of breathing techniques did you find most transformative and do you mainly practice today, 10 yrs on?

I also like seeing new breathing techniques. However, as other have pointed out; I would look to the yoga pranayama that has been used for 5,000 years or longer. As I have learned from pranayama, the description in the article tries to make everybody breath the same. Each individual has their own lung capacity and rythym that they should follow. ne should find out what is the natural amount of time for one to go from empty to full lungs then do the rest at the same rate. So, if it takes one 9 second to naturally go from empty lungs to full lungs, then hold it for 9 seconds, then exhale out over the course of 9 seconds. Then hold out for 9 seconds. Then repeat as appropriate. I would personally consider 4 seconds to inhale from empty to full lungs or 4 seconds to exhale from full lungs to empty lungs too quick and not relaxing. I would suggest find experienced yoga teacher that can guide one and tailor to one appropriately as the description in the article and following referenced page seems not giving full/accurate instructions:

https://www.verywellmind.com/abdominal-breathing-2584115

Here's[1] a Wim Hof breathing exercise with 56 million “views”. I've been doing it for two years now. I watched the video once (the narration is painful) and I've been doing it without guidance since. I've had been doing box breathing, some pranayama and reichian breathwork before I started doing this one, but somehow the Wim Hof one completely took over. It's been very valuable to me.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ

I have a simple visualisation for box breathing:

https://tacosteemers.com/files-static/breathing/box-breathin...

One can tap/click the bottom of the screen to show a counter, the top to hide it again. It only uses CSS.

Good one. Actually quite helpful. I like the circle metaphor.

I suggest you make the right “hold” text-align:right. Right now, on my phone, I can only see the first two letters.

Ah thanks, I see what you mean. By zooming out I do get the whole word in view on my phone.

Glad to hear that it helps.

Ha. This is simultaneously lame and super great! Thanks.

Could you do this with circle or sinusoid, but maybe adding a line or top & bottom point, for regular breathing?

I'm also planning to combine 40Hz bineural beats, pink noise and using drum beats per minute to keep breathing pattern without visuals.

Hmm Maybe adding more beats but of different volume or with irregular interval would produce a mental circle following path between top and bottom, breath in / breath out.

I was experimenting with small breaths sequences, like hardcoding counting without need for counting consciously but disrupting smooth breathing makes it unnatural & ineffective.

This is kind of fringe medicine podcast territory, but I learned a lot listening to these two discuss breathing and its physiological impacts. There’s quite a big overlap here between stress and sport performance. Sometimes I try this when I go running and am always curious with the results.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/103-youre-probably-bre...

Box breathing is also a strategy I think was developed and used by special forces to control stress in critical environments. That’s not me, but it certainly has helped me regain composure when I feel my heart race or am distracted. Fascinating stuff.

The nice thing about box breathing is that, unlike pursed lips for example, you can do it without anyone noticing, by quietly breathing through your nose. So if you're in a stressful meeting, you can calm yourself without anyone noticing :)

I really liked the period when I did freediving, and practiced to hold my breath. Doing "CO2-tables", almost like intervals except holding your breath. (And as in running, you don't run a marathon every workout, so didn't "push" it to the extreme these breathing sessions). A CO2-table for instance could have you hold your breath for 3 minutes, breathe normally for 90 seconds, then again hold for 3 minutes, then only 80 seconds break etc, decreasing the break each time.

It's quite a sensation overcoming the "need" of breathing. To truly learn that the feeling of having to breathe is only because of CO2 buildup in your body, not because of lack of O2. Mind over body.

CO2 is toxic at high concentrations though.

It's something to be careful of, but doing it for a short time is probably fine.

When sitting around, people exhale 4-5% CO₂. That's 40000 - 50000 ppm. But the Navy has done studies at that level and found it doesn't have a noticeable effect¹.

> Thus, CO₂ at 40,000 ppm for 2 weeks did not affect performance on multiple tests of cognitive function in physically fit young airmen, a population probably not unlike submariners.

[1]: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11170/chapter/5#54

>It's quite a sensation overcoming the "need" of breathing.

Indeed there are many ways to experience it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27159001

Sivananda Yoga practices something called Kapalabhati & Anuloma Viloma Pranayama breathing. It is fantastic.

There are a bunch of YT videos on it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiwEkHb6gSM

Beyond that, their style of yoga is very traditional and quite approachable by us nerds... they have 12 basic poses and just repeat those with variations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f09l0hdK19Q

Box breathing has actually worked for me. It's a nice quick way to get a moment of calm in a busy day. Just a few minutes can make an immediate difference in mood.

There's a zillion apps; I tried a lot of them and settled on Breathly. The UI is simple, it's open source, and it's free without bullshit. https://github.com/mmazzarolo/breathly-app

I have it installed, but I don't use as I've never seen the point of an app assisting by breathing. How do you feel it's helpful? Have you tried without it?

I find it helpful to have an automated timer rather than trying to count myself.

This isn't a great article, but for Box Breathing and many other zero-risk wellness activities: Just try it. There's huge variation between people, so obsessing over the impact on the average person will take more energy than getting concrete data on how well it works for you over the course of a week.

FWIW it's been a small but positive addition to my stress reducing toolbag. Best of luck.

Counting a few seconds seems within the realm of human abilities. It doesn’t need an app.

I just tried it and my heart started beating faster, and I felt very stressed.

It was not a pleasant sensation, and I quickly stopped and went back to regular breathing.

Because a natural thing is to breath regularly in and out in the same pace stabilising pulse variability, not forcing 4 arbitrary phases disrupting natural cycle. I think that for a deeper syncing even better is to try to follow these intuitive tops and bottoms - it's like prolonging breath and filling a specific sensation. But it's more for relaxation as breath becomes slower & longer then nearly using only stomach/diaphragm.

If you have anxiety, and use caffeine regularly, step 1 should be to eliminate caffeine.

Caffeine withdrawal symptoms (headaches, insomnia) typically last about 10 days, but the improvements on stress and anxiety start by day 3 or so. They will be dramatic.

I find it surprising that this solution is rarely discussed. Caffeine is much more potent than many people realize.

I stopped caffeine for a few months a couple times in the past. I came to the conclusion that I am not my best self when I don't have caffeine.

Every single thing I would do that required attention was harder, even intently listening to an audio book while taking a walk. I'm honestly not convinced that taking powerful prescribed stimulants has an advantage over simply enjoying a cup of coffee and/or tea.

The way I think of my caffeine addiction is that I take a daily loan out against my evening energy and focus in exchange for the additional focus during the day.

This is a common story for people with ADHD. If caffeine can be treated as a medication and you are mindful of timing and doses, I don't see why it shouldn't be an option.

Caffeine is not very much dopaminergic. What made my ADHD terribly worse was quitting nicotine.

I had a similar experience. I 100% gave up all caffeine for an entire calendar year. I resumed drinking coffee on January 1st of the next year, felt super great and focused, and haven't stopped again except for an occasional weekend off as a reset.

this. one of the best things i ever did was quitting caffeine. the benefits started after about 3 months. better sleep, being energetic throughout the day, more focus.

Additional tricks:

- yoga like poses where your lungs are almost flat with head slightly lower (akin to the covid pronating position). changes lungs internals and ease heart by not having to pump blood up high

- upper body movements like rotating shoulders, which compress/depress lung cavity helping air exchange

Despite the obvious difference in demographic, it's interesting seeing HN sort of synoptically align with the content reshared in my disability communities.

Layoffs change cultures, don't they?

I'm waiting for the first HN clothing swap :D

Check out Ujjayi or "oceans breath" if you're interested in breathwork. The latter name refers to the sound that happens as you breathe in and out in this way. All you need to do is to constrict the back of your throat as you exhale, which makes the exhale longer in a very organic and natural fashion. Because of the slower exhalation it is said to stimulate the vagus nerve in a very positive manner. More people need to learn about the link between a healthy body (and mind) and the vagus nerve IMHO.

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On my first try of box-breathing, after roughly 7 minutes of doing the practice I burst into a tearful laughter and couldn't stop. It was an amazing feeling, now I would call it lung-orgasm, but after 1-2 minutes I kinda got scared about it and managed to stop in the end.

I tried to reproduce it after, but it never happened again. Maybe it requires some built-up tension and that day I managed to release it.

Highly recommend the Brealthy[0] app if anyone wants to start getting into breathwork. It also has a mode where you can customize your timings

[0] https://breathly.app/

Sounds similar to a 'jhana' state in Buddhist meditation. My understanding is that there are layers/steps of meditation practice and the higher level ones may allow such states; people can sometimes find themselves temporarilly jumping up a few layers and getting such experiences.

After some articles recently about this on AstralCodexTen I'm reading 'The Mind Illuminated" to try and decide for myself if such "unfalsifiable internal states" exist.

Disappointed to see Wim Hof method not mentioned in "Other techniques".

You don't have to buy into the whole breathing as a lifestyle thing, but if you've ever jumped into frigid water, the simple act of breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth in a controlled way can stop your body from shivering possibly long enough to save your life.

This is a great book if you're into breathing and sports: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Mind-Sport-Lifelong-Personal/dp/.... He covered a lot of this back in 1994.

I made my own version of a box breathing visualizer with some pretty CSS and no js. It is also "Save to home screen friendly".

https://lassebomh.github.io/box-breathing/

Wonderful

Simple, yet incredibly useful. Thank you.

You're welcome! I want to add an asterisk to the no-js statement. I added a service worker so it should also work offline if you have added it to your homescreen.

Link to the source code: https://github.com/lassebomh/box-breathing

Didn't know this had such a name. I was basically taught basically this doing sports as a kid. Nobody called it by name, but it's basically what we were taught to do when you are out of breath. Not specifically a 4 count, but a breath, pause, release, pause, repeat.

Breathing exercises (Pranayama) is the best you can do for yourself. Short breathing or big sessions.

I remember reading years ago that if you want to be chilled out, do Pranayama. So I tried. It was the first thing that helped me chill out my mind at a time of great difficulty. The one that worked the best for me is where you breathe in 3 times with a tiny hold between breaths and without breathing out in between. So each breath takes you a little deeper. I forget what it is called, but wow, life changing.

Oak is an excellent app that has good UI, and the breathing exercises are free.

There are some guided meditation add-ons, but they aren’t advertised.

unfortunately doesn’t say anything about breathing through your nose versus mouth. I think the technique is often described as inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, but please correct me if i’m wrong

You breathe with your nose. It’s best not to let too much air in or out - in fact, try to inhale and exhale slightly gentler than you normally would.

I believe that is referring a different technique called resistance breathing, where the intent is to cause your diaphragm to do a bit of extra work.

Boxed breathing is just about the rhythm and can be done through the nose.

I've tried both (in resistance breathing you inhale, then exhale through pursed lips over a minute or so, repeat three times) - and they seem both to make me more relaxed and less anxious.

Basically what the yogic texts say that Hindu sages wrote

A lot of this is complete hokum, and it’s frustrating because the people who should know better end up being the most caught up in the pseudoscience…

Edit (don't want to give folks a second comment do downvote into oblivion): I need y'all to understand, "Just try it." is not the counterargument you think it is. I'd expect that from Scientologists and homeopathy advocates. I don't need to "just try" NSAIDs to believe they work, and plenty of people feel "good" after visiting a chiropractor despite that being much more obvious and clear hokum.

And no, one or a dozen studies do not validate a damn thing on their own. There is not the level of consensus you think there is when it comes to any of this, the article even points this out at the top.

Clarify "a lot of this" ?

Are you speaking from personal experience wherein you made a good-faith effort to try different breathing techniques and experienced no benefits? Or have you reviewed research showing an absence of benefits? Or are you reflexively dismissing the whole field?

Or some combination of the above?

Have you tried box breathing? It works really well for me. I have no idea though how such a simple technique could be proved to be placebo or not proved to be one.

I feel noticeably better, with measurably improved blood pressure after breathing exercises. Why do you say it's pseudoscience?

It works. Try it.

Personally I found that box breathing helped with one reflexive reaction I always had in times of high stress, namely taking in a lot of air and holding it like that.

I don't think it's pseudoscience, it's difficult to do RCTs with this but breathing techniques are definitely reproducible and falsifiable.

Furthermore, if it is, it doesn't have to be a bad thing. If it's pseudoscientific and not effective, it can still help through no/placebo.

It's not like box breathing is going to damage you (or others) if it doesn't do anything (it doesn't do much for me).

Science smience. You either try it and see if it works for you or you don’t.

Pseudoscience would be if breathing exercises didn’t have a significant effect on cortisol levels. But some randomised trials have proven that they do. If you apply an additional reason over the top of the breathing like the utterance of certain words that make it work or not, I’d agree with you. From personal experience having attended meditation classes when stressed out, I have found “omm ar humm” very effective in reaching a relaxed lower stress state. I didn’t know this was called box breathing to make the omm (in) arr (the pause held at the heart) and the humm (the outbreath) the same length. So that was a lesson for me. I have however experimented with different non religious words and found it effective in reaching that pleasant meditation very rapidly.

"But some randomised trials have proven that they do"

It would be nice if you posted some links to those ostensible studies.

Though I am skeptical myself, it's much different than other many other hokum/pseudoscience in that it is probably not very harmful and no one tries to sell you something.

Quick google searches show that there are in fact studies that show that different breathing techniques do help with anxiety. The article itself links some.

Now I’m not saying they are or aren’t placebo. I don’t know anything myself.

Anecdotally though, breathing exercises feel good to do.

I do know for a fact that I can lower my heart rate by altering by how I breathe. It’s really easy to demonstrate that with a cheap heart rate monitor.

I’d suggest giving that a try yourself. You might be surprised at how easy it is.

It's literally just breathing deeply.

'breathing deeply has changed my life!'

You have a point but don't throw the "baby out with the bathwater". The problem is that much of the ancient Yogic Pranayama techniques were discovered empirically but its explanation models do not quite match with our current Scientific Models (which is of course vastly more detailed and Complex). We do have the broad ideas covered and a lot of micro-details worked out but no one has as yet put everything together and explained it end-to-end using Modern Science. Hence all the charlatans/woo-woo peddlers having a field day with the gullible public. So it behooves us to study a little bit by ourselves to get at the facts/truth. With that in mind you might find the following useful;

- Movement of Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide in the Body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMeG75wqsRc

- Blood Gases: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudrLakBgeU

- Breath of Life: The Respiratory Vagal Stimulation Model of Contemplative Activity: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6189422/

- Benefits from one session of deep and slow breathing on Vagal tone and anxiety in young and older adults : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98736-9

- A Physiological Handbook for Teachers of Yogasana by Mel Robin (the 2nd edition is called A Handbook for Yogasana Teachers, The Incorporation of Neuroscience, Physiology and Anatomy into the Practice): This is a huge book where the author (himself a researcher) has tried to explain the ancient practice in terms of Modern Science. The bibliography is quite large and lists a lot of Studies/Papers on the subject.

So my suggestion is not to dismiss wholesale "Sciences" which were discovered empirically and practiced over generations but try to practice it and explain it using Modern Science as much as possible. That is how "Real Science" advances.

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