Blog

Posted in Blog

Breathwork for anxiety: does it really work?

By Alan Dolan, Founder of Breathguru® • 23 years of breathwork experience

Anxiety is one of the most common and debilitating experiences in modern life. According to the World Health Organisation, anxiety disorders affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In the UK alone, anxiety is the most frequently reported mental health condition. And yet, for many people, the treatments on offer — medication, CBT, talk therapy — only go so far.

Over the past few years, breathwork has emerged as one of the most promising complementary approaches to anxiety. But does it actually work? And if so, how?

As someone who has been working with the Breath for 23 years, and who has sat with thousands of anxious clients, I want to give you an honest and grounded answer.

What the science says

The research on breathwork and anxiety has grown substantially in recent years, and the findings are striking.
A 2026 randomised controlled trial — the first of its kind for online Conscious Connected Breathwork — found that a six-week programme produced large reductions in anxiety symptoms, with participants showing significantly lower scores compared to a waitlist control group. A major meta-analysis published in Scientific Reports, drawing on multiple randomised controlled trials, found significant reductions in self-reported anxiety, stress and depression among people who practised breathwork.

A 2026 clinical trial published in the journal Stress and Health found that breathwork significantly reduced anxiety, depression and stress scores, with medium to large effect sizes. A review published in Brain Sciences concluded that a range of breathwork interventions produced significant improvements in anxiety symptoms in people with clinically diagnosed anxiety disorders.

The science, in other words, is catching up with what practitioners have known for decades: controlled, conscious breathing has a measurable, meaningful impact on anxiety.

Why does breathwork help anxiety?

To understand why breathwork helps, it helps to understand what anxiety actually is at a physiological level.

Anxiety is, at its core, a stress response. When the brain perceives a threat — real or imagined — it activates the sympathetic nervous system: heart rate increases, breathing becomes shallow and rapid, cortisol floods the body. This is the fight-or-flight response, and it evolved to keep us safe from predators. The problem is that in modern life, it gets triggered constantly — by work pressure, by relationships, by the news — and many people are living in a near-permanent state of low-grade activation.

Breathwork works directly on this system. Conscious, connected breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system — the rest-and-digest response — and signals to the brain that it is safe. Heart rate slows. Cortisol drops. The body literally shifts out of threat mode.

But Conscious Connected Breathing goes further than this. Because it works at a deeper level than simply calming the nervous system in the moment — it reaches the stored emotional material that often underlies chronic anxiety.

Anxiety lives in the body, not just the mind

This is something that talk therapy often struggles to reach. You can understand, intellectually, that your anxiety is irrational. You can identify its triggers, challenge your thought patterns, develop coping strategies. And all of that has value. But the anxiety is still there — because it is not just a thought. It is a felt sensation in the body. A tightening in the chest. A knot in the stomach. A background hum of dread that no amount of reasoning seems to switch off.

Conscious Connected Breathing works somatically — through the body. It creates the conditions for stored tension, fear, and unprocessed emotion to rise to the surface and be released. Not talked about. Released. Many of my clients describe a moment during a session when they feel something shift — physically, in their body — and afterwards, the anxiety that had been with them for years simply is not there in the same way.

What my clients tell me

Over 23 years, I have worked with people carrying every kind of anxiety imaginable. Social anxiety. Health anxiety. Generalised anxiety disorder. Panic attacks. Post-traumatic stress. Performance anxiety. Many of them have come to me having already tried therapy, medication, meditation, and much else besides.

What they consistently tell me after working with the Breath is not just that they feel calmer. It is that they feel different. That something has shifted at a level they cannot quite explain but can absolutely feel. That the anxiety, while it may not be entirely gone, no longer has the same grip on them. That they feel more like themselves than they have in years.

Some people experience this shift in a single session. For others it comes gradually over a series of sessions. Everyone is different, and I always work with clients as individuals, not as a category.

Is breathwork for anxiety right for you?

Breathwork is not a magic cure, and I would never present it as one. It is a powerful practice that, when approached with the right guidance and the right intention, can produce results that many people find remarkable. But it works best as part of a broader approach to wellbeing, and it is not a replacement for professional mental health support where that is needed.

There are some contraindications — including certain cardiovascular and respiratory conditions — and I always discuss these carefully with new clients before we begin.

What I can say is this: if you are living with anxiety and you feel you have not yet found something that truly reaches it, the Breath may be worth exploring. The worst that can happen is that you leave a session feeling calmer than when you arrived. The best that can happen is that something fundamental shifts.

How to get started

The most effective way to experience the benefits of breathwork for anxiety is through a one-to-one session — either in person in London or online via Zoom. A single session is 60 minutes online or 80 minutes in person, and many people find even one session produces noticeable results.

For those who want to go deeper, my residential retreats in Lanzarote offer daily one-to-one breathwork sessions in one of the world’s most beautiful and restorative environments. Removing yourself from the demands of daily life and dedicating time exclusively to the Breath produces results that are, in my experience, unlike anything else.

The Breath is always with you. The question is whether you are ready to use it.

Alan Dolan is the founder of Breathguru® and one of the world’s leading Conscious Connected Breathing practitioners. He offers 1-1 sessions in London and online, workshops, and residential retreats in Lanzarote. Visit breathguru.com to find out more.