Here is a selection of research material in the field of therapeutic breathwork found in published sources. We are always pleased to receive more references so that this list can be expanded.
Commentary on Context of Breathwork Research
It’s probably safe to conclude that modulation of breath for self-care and wellness had been practised long before the advent of the scientific medical paradigm that holds sway over healthcare today. Indeed, many breathworkers will find the way academic research splits human unhappiness into a wide variety of named ‘disorders’ and examines them according to specific symptoms and theoretical mechanisms uncomfortable and even foolish.
Breathwork, particularly a program of conscious connected breathwork, is one of the best examples of a truly intregative practice. As a practice with very little ‘intervention’, this work seems to allow that thing that is at once intangible and indefinable, yet felt as very real: our ‘true nature’, to surface beyond the webbing of subconscious programming, and re-establish a path more natural to it.
However, that idea is challenging to the current Western mindset, and we must take the world as we find it. That includes firstly a huge number of people requiring mental health interventions, and secondly an expectation of statistical studies and comparisons. Also included is a strong impulse to find physiological mechanisms to explain everything about bodies and beings. These parameters are not constant over time or across the world, but they are very present with us currently in the UK.
Already though, modern physics leads us to suspect that life is made from consciousness rather than matter, and that a new paradigm is being called forth.
For now, Breathwork, with its incredible simplicity and immediate possibility of testing in your own armchair, must also be studied according to the current paradigm, and such studies become the basis for bringing it into established healthcare systems, hopefully resulting in much more widespread health benefits and significant cost savings.
Current Research at University of Surrey – Breathwork and Workplace Stress
Led by Mark Cropley, Professor of Health Psychology, this study is currently (April 2025) shown as recruiting participants. The goal is to assess the effects
High-ventilation breathwork practices (including conscious connected breathing) effects, mechanisms and clinical considerations – University of Sussex, 2023
This research article examines ‘high-ventilation breathwork’ (HVB) in detail over its many incarnations. It is therefore much more specific to the forms of breathwork widely
Scoping Review of Breathwork for Anxiety Disorders – 2023
Scoping revews look at large ranges of study where the differences in methodology across individual studies are significant and the review cannot therefore be considered
Meta-Analysis of Breathwork in Stress and Mental Health – 2023
The study below examines a wide-variety of breathwork methods. Fincham, G. W., Strauss, C., Montero-Marin, J., & Cavanagh, K. (2023). Effect of breathwork on stress