High ventilation breathwork practices: An overview of their effects, mechanisms, and considerations for clinical applications.
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews – December 01, 2023
Source: PubMed
Summary
High Ventilation Breathwork (HVB) shows promise in alleviating psychological distress, particularly for PTSD and other psychiatric disorders. Clinical observations indicate that HVB significantly alters subjective experiences and activates the sympathetic nervous system, enhancing cerebral blood flow and interoception. With a focus on practices like pranayama and the Wim Hof method, participants report profound changes, suggesting HVB could be effective for 30-50% of individuals suffering from trauma-related conditions. These findings highlight the potential of breathwork to modulate neuronal excitability and improve mental health outcomes.
Abstract
High Ventilation Breathwork (HVB) refers to practices employing specific volitional manipulation of breathing, with a long history of use to relieve various forms of psychological distress. This paper seeks to offer a consolidative insight into potential clinical application of HVB as a treatment of psychiatric disorders. We thus review the characteristic phenomenological and neurophysiological effects of these practices to inform their mechanism of therapeutic action, safety profiles and future clinical applications. Clinical observations and data from neurophysiological studies indicate that HVB is associated with extraordinary changes in subjective experience, as well as with profound effects on central and autonomic nervous systems functions through modulation of neurometabolic parameters and interoceptive sensory systems. This growing evidence base may guide how the phenomenological effects of HVB can be understood, and potentially harnessed in the context of such volitional perturbation of psychophysiological state. Reports of putative beneficial effects for trauma-related, affective, and somatic disorders invite further research to obtain detailed mechanistic knowledge, and rigorous clinical testing of these potential therapeutic uses.