Conscious connected breathwork can produce powerful changes in physical sensation, emotion, and consciousness. As interest in breathwork has grown, researchers have begun investigating what happens in the brain and body during these practices and whether these effects could have therapeutic applications.
The research is still emerging, particularly when it comes to trauma. While findings are promising, we do not yet have sufficient clinical evidence to conclude that conscious connected breathing (CCB) treats trauma or PTSD, or that specific changes in the brain directly produce trauma recovery.
At the same time, the anecdotal evidence is substantial and extends far beyond any single practitioner or school. Connected breathwork is practiced around the world, with facilitators, training organizations, therapists, and wellness practitioners incorporating it into their work. Countless participants report meaningful benefits related to emotional processing, trauma recovery, and overall wellbeing. I have witnessed these outcomes repeatedly over nearly a decade in the field, both through my own work and through facilitators I have trained internationally, including licensed therapists and other mental health professionals.
These widespread reports do not establish clinical efficacy, but they provide a compelling reason for the therapeutic potential of connected breathwork to be studied more rigorously.
A Note on Research Terminology
In scientific research, conscious connected breathwork is often studied under the term high ventilation breathwork (HVB). For clarity, I use โconnected breathworkโ throughout this article when discussing the practice, while retaining the term โhigh ventilation breathworkโ when referring to studies that use that terminology.
What Happens Physiologically During Connected Breathwork?
Conscious connected breathing can involve breathing more deeply and more rapidly than the bodyโs metabolic demands require. When ventilation increases sufficiently, carbon dioxide (COโ) levels in the blood fall, a state known as hypocapnia.
This matters because COโ is an important regulator of cerebral blood flow. Lower COโ causes cerebral blood vessels to constrict, temporarily reducing blood flow to the brain.
Recent neuroimaging research on high ventilation breathwork has demonstrated substantial reductions in cerebral blood flow during the practice. This does not mean that the brain simply โshuts down.โ Rather, breathwork appears to temporarily alter the physiological conditions under which different brain regions and networks operate.
These changes occur alongside activation of the autonomic nervous system and may contribute to the unusual bodily sensations, emotional experiences, perceptual changes, and altered states of consciousness that can arise during intensive breathwork.
The Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Emotional Memory
The amygdala and hippocampus play important and interconnected roles in emotion and memory, making them particularly relevant to our understanding of trauma. The amygdala helps identify emotionally significant information and is involved in fear learning, while the hippocampus helps form and contextualize memories.
Recent neuroimaging research is beginning to show what happens in these regions during high ventilation breathwork. As breathing intensifies and COโ levels fall, cerebral blood flow can decrease substantially across the brain. Despite this overall reduction, the intensity of participantsโ altered states has been associated with regional perfusion changes spanning the right basolateral amygdala and anterior hippocampus. These regions are strongly involved in processing emotion and emotionally significant memories.
The researchers proposed that these regional changes may reflect greater neural activation within the amygdala and hippocampus as the breathwork experience intensifies. This offers a fascinating possible explanation for something commonly observed during connected breathwork: as ordinary cognitive processing shifts, emotions, memories, imagery, and deeply personal material can become unusually vivid and accessible.
Rather than simply โcalming the amygdala,โ connected breathwork may therefore create a temporary neurological state in which regions involved in emotion and memory become particularly salient. Researchers have proposed that this could potentially facilitate the processing of emotionally significant memories, although this mechanism remains preliminary and requires further study.
Similarities to Psychedelic States
One of the most fascinating areas of connected breathwork research is its ability to produce altered states of consciousness with similarities to those induced by psychedelics, without the use of a substance.
A 2024 study examining conscious connected breathing found that participants reported experiences with qualities similar to those produced by medium to high doses of psilocybin. Experiences related to bliss, unity, spiritual connection, insight, and disembodiment were comparable to those reported with higher doses of psilocybin, while changes in perception and personal meaning showed similarities to medium-dose experiences.
More recent research has strengthened this connection. Studies have found that psychedelic-like experiences during breathwork are associated with measurable changes in neural dynamics, while reductions in COโ during connected breathwork correlate with the depth of the altered state. These states can include experiences such as ego dissolution, heightened emotional significance, altered perception, and a changed sense of self.
Importantly, this does not mean that connected breathwork and psychedelics affect the brain in exactly the same way. Rather, emerging evidence suggests they can produce overlapping subjective experiences through very different physiological pathways. Understanding these similarities may eventually help researchers explore why altered states of consciousness can sometimes facilitate meaningful emotional and psychological experiences.
What Happens to Higher-Order Brain Processing?
Intensive breathing can substantially reduce cerebral blood flow through the effects of lowered COโ.
A 2026 neuroimaging study of experienced high ventilation breathwork practitioners found an approximately 45% reduction in global grey-matter cerebral blood flow during the practice.
Researchers are also beginning to investigate how breathwork affects large-scale brain networks involved in our ordinary sense of self and cognition. In the same study, average connectivity within the default mode network did not significantly change across the group, although exploratory analyses found that greater decreases in connectivity were associated with stronger altered states under one method of analysis.
This emerging evidence offers a more cautious explanation for something breathwork practitioners have observed for decades: during intensive connected breathing, ordinary patterns of thinking and self-referential processing can feel temporarily different. We do not yet know precisely which neural changes are responsible for these subjective experiences.
Connected Breathwork and Altered States of Consciousness
One of the clearest areas of emerging research is connected breathworkโs ability to produce non-ordinary states of consciousness. A 2024 study examining conscious connected breathing in 20 healthy adults measured EEG activity before and after a breathwork session. Researchers observed decreases in delta and theta activity and reductions in some lower beta frequencies, while experienced breathwork practitioners also demonstrated increased gamma activity.
Participants reported reductions in several negative mood states, including tension, confusion, and depression, alongside increased self-esteem. Importantly, this study involved healthy adults and did not investigate people with PTSD or establish that these neurological changes represent trauma healing.
So Where Does Trauma Recovery Fit In?
This is where it is important to distinguish clinical evidence from practitioner experience. Trauma can involve changes in emotional regulation, threat processing, memory, interoception, and autonomic nervous system function. Connected breathwork can influence several of these same physiological and experiential systems. That overlap makes breathwork an interesting area for trauma research, but it does not yet establish connected breathwork as a clinical treatment for trauma.
A 2023 scientific review of high ventilation breathwork concluded that reports of potential benefits for trauma-related, affective, and somatic conditions warrant further investigation, while emphasizing the need for rigorous clinical research into both mechanisms and therapeutic applications.
From a practitioner perspective, people participating in connected breathwork sometimes report emotional release, memories, imagery, new perspectives, or a changed relationship with difficult experiences. These experiences can feel profoundly therapeutic.
However, subjective therapeutic experiences and demonstrated clinical efficacy are not the same thing.
Why Trauma-Informed Facilitation Matters
The same capacity to evoke intense emotional and altered states is also why breathwork should not automatically be considered benign.
Connected and high ventilation breathwork can produce strong physiological changes, intense bodily sensations, emotional material, fear, dissociation, and other challenging experiences. For someone with a trauma history, intensity itself is not necessarily therapeutic. More is not always better.
Trauma-informed breathwork therefore places emphasis on choice, consent, pacing, appropriate screening, facilitator competency, and the participantโs ability to reduce or stop the practice at any time.
A facilitator should not assume that an emotional reaction represents trauma โleaving the body,โ encourage participants to push through overwhelming experiences, or interpret imagery or emerging memories as factual representations of past events.
The goal is not to manufacture catharsis. It is to create enough safety and agency for participants to explore their experience without being pushed beyond their capacity and window of tolerance.
Safe Practice
Itโs crucial to practice connected breathwork in a safe and supervised setting with the guidance of an appropriately trained, trauma-informed Breathwork Facilitator, especially if you have trauma, an underlying health condition, or a breathwork contraindication. Breathwork can sometimes trigger uncomfortable or overwhelming experiences. A skilled facilitator can help you navigate challenging experiences and reduce the risk of overwhelm or retraumatization.
What We Know and What We Donโt
Research into connected and high ventilation breathwork is developing rapidly. We now have evidence that these practices can alter cerebral blood flow, autonomic activity, EEG patterns, mood, and states of consciousness. Neuroimaging is also beginning to identify changes involving brain regions associated with interoception, emotional memory, and self-related processing.
What we do not yet have is strong evidence establishing exactly how these changes translate into trauma recovery, which individuals are most likely to benefit, or where the boundary lies between a challenging therapeutic experience and an unnecessarily destabilizing one. Those are important distinctions as breathwork becomes increasingly popular in wellness and mental health spaces.
Ready to Breathe Towards Healing & Transformation?
You can reach out to book a private or group, online, or in-person Breathwork session with me HERE. If you have experienced the tremendous healing power of connected Breathwork for yourself and are interested in joining an international, trauma-informed Breathwork Facilitator Training, you can find out about our world-leading Breathwork certification program here.
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Citations:
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