Today, I indulge you in some gentle biohacking. It is not my schtick, but it is my guilty pleasure.
I will talk about SUPER slow breathing. But before we start I feel a need to give a disclaimer of what any breathwork or emotional regulation technique for me is and isn’t.
Breathwork is NOT the ultimate silver bullet for hardships that the life presents to us. We are imperfect and often unhappy, by design. Systems and structures we live in can be harmful, often by design. None of that we can just breathe away using the right breathwork technique.
Having said that, I love playing with the breath, as a tool for emotional regulation but also, maybe more importantly, as a way to experiment and play with the body that I have been given.
OK, so will you do this for me now? (Seriously, go on, do it.)
Count how many breaths you do in one minute, using a stop watch on your phone or your watch. What counts as one breath is one inhale and one exhale.
Just your normal pace of breathing, at this point we are not trying to change it in any way.
Done, yeah? It’s weird isn’t it, to start intentionally noticing something that goes under the radar most of the time – our own process of breathing. I don’t know about you, but it always gives me this weird feeling of how little happens under conscious control in every given moment, and how much has to happen in any given moment for the body to function without me even knowing it is ongoing. It is mind bending.
How many did you count? I just did it myself, it was 22 breaths in one minute. That is fairly high, that is some fast breathing given the fact that I am sitting and not exerting myself physically. 22 is a bit high – I think 15 or 16 would be average.
Now, relax on your seat, and focus on your abdomen. Is it relaxed? Can you feel your abdominal walls expanding as you breathe in and falling back as you breath out? Focus on that area of the body for a minute or two.
If that is OK now, imagine that you have a candle in front of you. And that you want to blow at that candle very, very gently. You want to be flickering that little flame without putting it out. Maybe make a little seashell sound at the moment of your exhale and make it very very long. Close your eyes. Do this 5 times. Very slowly. Take your time.
OK. How do you feel?
Now let’s go back to the first practice, just following the breath, as it is and counting how many breaths in one minute.
So? How many is it? I actually just went from 22 to 3. I only had three breaths in a minute now. Really, I just did it as I was writing this.
If your breath count is now around 6 breaths per minute, welcome to the slow breathing zone. The frequency here is 0.1 Hz.
If you have slowed down even more, and reached the one, two or three breaths per minute you have entered the territory of super slow breathing. The frequency here is roundabout 0.05Hz.
I have already written about the benefits of slow breathing in ANS Bliss Kit. I will recap some of it quickly here, before I tell you about the effects of super slow breathing as discussed in a recent study.
In this piece I will:
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Explain some elements of the physiology of slow breathing (including the effect on ResHRV – ex RSA)
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Share with you the results and conclusions of a recent paper on super slow breathing
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Talk about safety, boundaries and consent when it comes to integrating any form of breathwork in your therapy practice
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Provide you with some exercises that can help you access the super slow breathing territory when working with clients (or for your own practice)
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Provide a clinical examples where I successfully used slow breathing as a core intervention
I have spoken about breathing being an access point to autonomic control before.
Now, not all breathwork is calming as such. Specific types of intentional breathwork can both lead to parasympathetic and sympathetic activation and dominance. It also can depend on our history and relationship with the body and the process of breathing itself. More in-depth rundown of aspects of respiratory control and the associated brain areas can be found here.
Generally speaking, the slow breathing leads tipping the balance towards parasympathetic state while hyperventilation – different versions of power-breathing – will typically lead to heightened sympathetic response.
Now, remember, 6 breaths per minute is what is usually referred to as slow breathing. The breathing frequency here is 0.1 Hz.
There is an extensive body of research pointing to the physical and mental benefits of slow breathing practices. I will talk about this more extensively elsewhere ( and I already did a little bit here).