Breathwork Breakdown: What’s actually happening in your body?

Ever wondered why breathwork can feel or even look so intense or transformative?

Your breath is more than just air—it’s a tool for emotional release, stress relief, and healing.

Breathwork affects your body, mind, and nervous system, helping you access stored emotions, shift perspective, and connect to deeper states of awareness.

In this blog, we’ll explore the science behind what happens to the body during breathwork, and how it can support emotional healing and personal growth.

Let’s dive in ✨

1. Hyperventilation & Oxygen Shifts:

Rapid breathing shifts blood oxygen and CO2 levels, and Hyperventilation leads to reduced CO2 (hypocapnia), which can lead to tingling, dizziness, muscle cramps, and lightheadedness due to changes in blood chemistry and electrolyte imbalances.

2. Emotional Release:

Breathwork engages your autonomic nervous system (ANS) and stimulates the vagus nerve, one of the longest nerves in your body. Running from your brainstem through your neck, chest, and abdomen, the vagus nerve connects your brain to vital organs like your heart, lungs, and digestive system. It acts as a communication highway between your brain and body, playing a key role in regulating stress responses and emotional balance.

When activated through focused, intentional breathing, the vagus nerve helps shift your body from a fight-or-flight (stress response) state into a rest-and-digest state, promoting calm and healing. This allows the body to release tension, stress, and emotional blockages.

Repressed emotions like anger, fear, or sadness can get stuck in the body, but through focused breathing, these emotions can surface and be released. This process can feel intense but is a natural part of healing—offering clarity, relief, and freedom from emotional patterns or trauma.

3. Limbic System Activation:

Deep breathing stimulates the amygdala (emotion processing in the brain) and hypothalamus (stress response in the brain), connecting breathwork to emotional processing, trauma release, and memories surfacing. These areas of the brain are linked to fear, stress, and emotional regulation.

As you breathe deeply, suppressed emotions, unresolved trauma, and buried memories can come to the surface. While intense, this release allows the body and mind to process and heal, creating clarity, relief, and emotional balance.

4. Altered States of Consciousness:

Changes in CO2 and oxygen levels in the body can trigger trance-like or hypnagogic states (between wakefulness and sleep), dissociation (feeling detached from the body) and increased gamma brain waves (linked to focus, heightened awareness, and altered perceptions).

5. Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) Activation:

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is responsible for your body’s fight-or-flight response—the automatic reaction to perceived threats. When activated, the SNS increases your heart rate, tightens muscles, and prepares your body to respond to danger.

During breathwork, rapid or intense breathing can trigger this response, leading to physical sensations like shaking, increased heart rate, or even emotional expressions such as crying or yelling.

While it may feel intense, this response allows the body to release stored stress, tension, and emotional energy, helping you process and heal.

6. Catharsis & Healing:

Many describe breathwork as transformative, where the release of emotional energy or trauma gives way to clarity, relief, and a sense of freedom from past burdens.

7. Mood Boost:

Breathwork can trigger the release of endorphins (natural painkillers and mood boosters), serotonin (the 'feel-good' neurotransmitter linked to emotional balance), and dopamine (the 'reward chemical' associated with pleasure and motivation), your body’s natural feel-good chemicals, leaving you euphoric, clear-headed, or with moments of insight.

Remember, your breath is always there for you—simple, powerful, and ready to support you through healing, clarity, and transformation.

Whether you’re looking for emotional release, stress relief, or just a moment of calm, taking time to connect with your breath can make all the difference.

Stay tuned and make sure you sign up to emails for my upcoming Breathwork events - I hope to see you soon 💛

With Love,

Maria x