Breathwork Triggers Brain Changes Similar to Psychedelics, Study Finds

Breathwork practices that increase breathing rate or depth — often performed with evocative music — are rapidly growing in popularity as tools for psychological healing. Practitioners frequently report profound subjective experiences resembling altered states of consciousness (ASCs) induced by psychedelic substances, including feelings of euphoria, bliss, and ego dissolution. Yet until now, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these experiences remained almost entirely unexplored.

This study from Brighton and Sussex Medical School recruited experienced breathwork practitioners across three interconnected experiments: a remote home-based session, an MRI neuroimaging session, and a psychophysiology laboratory session. Participants performed high-ventilation breathwork (HVB) accompanied by music designed for breathwork ceremonies. Subjective experience was measured using the validated 5D-ASC questionnaire, with a focus on 'Oceanic Boundlessness' (OBN) — a dimension capturing bliss, unity, insightfulness, and positively experienced depersonalization — as this was the most frequently and strongly reported experiential phenomenon.

The MRI arm used pseudo-continuous arterial spin labelling (pCASL), a technique that quantifies regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) without contrast agents, allowing measurement of perfusion changes during actual breathwork. The psychophysiology arm used heart rate variability (HRV) analysis to assess autonomic nervous system shifts. Key findings showed that greater OBN intensity correlated significantly with reduced rCBF in two specific brain clusters: the left operculum/posterior insula — a region central to interoceptive awareness and respiratory sensation — and the right amygdala/anterior hippocampus — structures critically involved in emotional memory processing and regulation. Higher OBN scores also correlated with increased cardiovascular sympathetic activation (lower HRV), indicating that the depth of the altered state tracks with measurable physiological arousal.

These findings are mechanistically coherent: hyperventilation causes hypocapnia (reduced CO2), cerebral vasoconstriction, and altered neurometabolic homeostasis. The regional specificity of blood flow reductions — particularly in areas governing the body-brain interface and emotional memory — may explain why HVB can trigger emotionally cathartic and transformative experiences. The authors propose that perturbation of interoceptive and limbic circuitry during HVB could parallel some of the mechanisms by which psychedelics achieve therapeutic effects, such as disruption of habitual self-referential processing and facilitation of emotional memory reprocessing.

Caveats include the small sample size (experienced practitioners only), absence of a control breathing condition within the MRI arm, and the inherent difficulty of performing neuroimaging during active breathwork. Nonetheless, this is the first study to directly link the subjective intensity of HVB-induced ASCs to objectively measured changes in cerebral perfusion and autonomic function, offering a neurobiological framework to guide future research on breathwork as a therapeutic modality.