A 2026 study looking at the impacts of slow breathing on brain function and risk behavior found that prolonged exhalation can increase risky behavior by changing how we respond to our internal reward systems.
The premise of this study is that we parse information about the world through the lens of our internal state. If we’re feeling anxious we might respond to someone’s comment about what we’re wearing differently than if we’re feeling confident.
That internal state is influenced by all sorts of variables, including the current state of our parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for managing our bodily functions and shifting us into “rest and digest” or “feed and breed” modes (or somewhere in between).
A spike in parasympathetic activity usually occurs after eating or engaging in some kind of calming activity (like reading or meditating), and typically lowers our heart rate, increases the volume of acid in our stomach to aid with digestion, and constricts our airway muscles so that it takes less effort to restfully breathe.
Slowing our breathing has been previously shown to increase parasympathetic activity, helping us shift into that calm, more relaxed internal state.
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