What Is Breathwork? And How It Can Help with Stress, Anxiety and Nervous System Regulation.
Have you ever noticed yourself holding your breath while replying to an email? Or felt a constant tightness across your chest, as though you just can't quite get a satisfying breath? Maybe you sigh throughout the day without even realising it. Most of us rarely think about how we breathe, yet our breathing quietly reflects the pace of our lives.
When we're rushing, overwhelmed or constantly switched on, our breath often becomes fast, shallow and held high in the chest. Over time this can leave us feeling tense, disconnected and exhausted. That is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about breathwork. It's one of the few things we can consciously change that has an almost immediate effect on how we feel.
First — What Most People Think Breathwork Is.
Most people who tell me they've "tried breathwork" have experienced one of two things: a short breathing exercise in a yoga class, or a technique like box breathing or 4-7-8 breathing practiced at home for a few minutes to feel calmer.
These are genuinely useful tools, ones that I practice with clients. But a couple minutes of conscious breathing is to breathwork what a gentle walk around the block is to summiting a mountain. The terrain is related. The experience is completely different.
True guided breathwork, practiced in a dedicated session with a trained facilitator, creates physiological and psychological states that cannot be accessed through a few minutes of conscious breathing alone. Understanding why requires a brief look at what the breath is actually doing in your body.
The Breath Is Your Most Powerful Self-Regulation Tool.
Of all the functions in the human body, breathing is unique: it typically takes no effort to breathe, you do it automatically all day and night, but you might have noticed that as soon as you put your attention on your breath, you’re able to consciously control it. Slow down the pace or speed it up. Breathe deeper or more shallow.
Your heart beats without your input. Your digestion functions without instruction. But the breath sits at the intersection of the voluntary and involuntary nervous system — and that makes it a direct line into states of being that are otherwise inaccessible.
Put simply: the way you breathe tells your nervous system what state to be in. And when you change your breathing intentionally, you change your state — your chemistry, your hormones, your emotional access, your level of consciousness.
Breathwork deliberately and powerfully changes the state of your nervous system, and you can feel this effect directly in a breathwork session.
The Spectrum of Breathwork.
Not all breathwork is the same. It spans an enormous spectrum, from the gentlest regulating practices to the most activating transformational sessions — and both ends serve profoundly different purposes.
Regulating & Grounding Breathwork.
At one end of the spectrum are the slow, therapeutic breathing practices: extended exhales, coherence breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, Buteyko-based breath retraining. These work by slowing the breath to somewhere between 4 and 8 breaths per minute — a rate that activates the parasympathetic nervous system (the body's rest, digest, and repair state), lowers cortisol, increases heart rate variability, and signals deep safety to the nervous system.
These practices are the foundation. They build what we call nervous system capacity — the ability to hold more, feel more, and recover more easily from life's inevitable stresses. Practiced consistently, they can meaningfully shift patterns of anxiety, chronic stress, insomnia, and emotional reactivity. They are the techniques I teach clients to take home between sessions and weave into daily life as an ongoing self-regulation toolkit.
Breakthrough Breathwork.
At the other end of the spectrum is something else entirely.
Breakthrough breathwork uses activating conscious breathing techniques — faster, fuller, connected breathing — to deliberately create a state of heightened physiological activation. As the breath builds, the nervous system moves through its habitual defences. Carbon dioxide levels shift. The prefrontal cortex — the analytical, self-monitoring part of the brain — begins to quiet. And as that happens, the inner monologue of thoughts, worries, stress also quietens.
What follows is difficult to describe and impossible to fully prepare for.
Some people experience tingling sensations that move through the body in waves. Others feel an extraordinary expansion of awareness — a sense of existing beyond the usual boundaries of self, sometimes described as ecstatic, blissful, or deeply peaceful.
Many experience profound emotional release: tears that feel cathartic, grief that finally surfaces, anger that has been held in the body for decades. The body moves involuntarily, trembles, shakes — discharging stored tension and completing stress responses that were never given the chance to finish.
And then, in the integration that follows, something settles. A lightness. A clarity. An aliveness that feels like remembering something you forgot you'd always known.
The research behind this is compelling. Studies on conscious connected breathing practices have shown significant reductions in stress hormones like cortisol, meaningful improvements in symptoms of anxiety and depression, enhanced sleep quality, and states of expanded consciousness that participants frequently describe as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives.
Why the Body Responds So Powerfully.
To understand why breathwork can produce such profound effects, it helps to understand a little about how the nervous system stores stress and trauma.
When we experience overwhelming emotions, chronic stress, or traumatic events, the body activates its survival response — flooding with adrenaline, tensing muscles, bracing for impact. This is protective and intelligent. But when that response doesn't get to complete — when the threat passes before the body has discharged the activation — the energy becomes stored in the tissues, the fascia, the nervous system patterns we carry into everyday life.
Over time, this stored activation shows up as: anxiety that seems to come from nowhere, chronic physical tension, emotional numbness, patterns of reactivity, difficulty relaxing even when there is nothing to worry about, or a persistent low-level feeling of being on edge.
Breakthrough breathwork gives the body a pathway to complete what was interrupted. The activation of the breathing moves the stored energy to the surface. And with the right holding — the right space, music, guidance, and support — the body can finally let it go.
This is why people cry without knowing why. This is why the body shakes and trembles during a session. This is not dysfunction. It is completion.
Why an Experienced Facilitator Changes Everything.
When you breathe in the way that creates a breakthrough experience, you are entering terrain that can surface deeply held emotions, old memories, and physical sensations that may be intense. Having a trained facilitator present — someone who understands the physiology of what is happening, who can read the body's signals, who can offer support, grounding, or adjustment when needed — is what allows you to go fully into the experience without fear.
It is the difference between navigating unfamiliar wilderness alone and having a skilled guide who knows every trail. You can go deeper, stay longer, and trust the process more completely because you know you are held.
In sessions at The Liminal Space Wellness, the entire space is designed to create that safety. The music, the pacing of the breath, the integration, the hands-on support and grounding touch when needed — all of it is held intentionally, so that your nervous system can surrender to the experience rather than brace against it.
Your boundaries and pace are always honoured. There is no pressure to push further than you are ready for. The breath itself is extraordinarily intelligent — it will take you exactly as deep as you are ready to go.
What Breathwork Can Help With.
Guided breathwork can support a wide range of experiences:
Anxiety and chronic stress — building nervous system capacity and shifting the body out of chronic fight-or-flight
Trauma and stored emotional tension — creating a pathway for the body to release what it has been holding
Depression and emotional numbness — reconnecting with aliveness, energy, and feeling
Burnout and depletion — restoring vitality at a physiological level
Spiritual growth — accessing states of expanded consciousness and deep insight
Physical tension — releasing held tension from the muscles, fascia, and connective tissue
Feeling stuck — creating energetic and emotional shifts that insight alone cannot reach
So — Have You Actually Tried Breathwork?
If you have practiced a few minutes of box breathing or alternate nostril breathing, you have touched the very tip of something vast.
If you have sat in a full guided breathwork session and felt your body move, your emotions surface, your consciousness expand — you have experienced something ancient that science is only starting to adequately explain.
And if you have never tried either — you are standing at the beginning of something that may be one of the most significant experiences of your life.
Curious and Ready to Explore Breathwork?
At The Liminal Space Wellness, I offer dedicated breathwork experiences for those who want to regulate their nervous system or go deep to process past stress stored in the body. Sessions are available in person in Ripponlea, near St Kilda in Melbourne's Bayside area, and online via Zoom.
If you're curious about where to begin, I'd love to connect. Book a complimentary Clarity & Connection Call and we can explore together what breathwork might open for you.
Book your free video call here →
The Liminal Space Wellness offers body-based holistic healing techniques including Breathwork, Somatic Healing, Spinal Energetics, and Meditation in Melbourne's Bayside area and online.
All sessions are trauma-informed and tailored to your unique healing journey.