What Happens in the Nervous System During Conscious Breathing

When you change your breathing, you are not “just relaxing”. You are actually interacting with your autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system has two primary branches:

• Sympathetic (mobilisation, alertness, stress response) 
• Parasympathetic (rest, digestion, recovery)

Breathing is one of the few autonomic functions we can control on purpose. This gives us a direct way to influence our body's regulation.

When you breathe slowly and steadily, and focus on making your exhales longer, your brainstem gets the message that your body is safe and can relax. For example, individuals practising diaphragmatic breathing exercises frequently report a reduction in anxiety and a sense of calm. In such cases, heart rate variability increases, vagal tone improves, and your system slowly moves out of defensive states.

Fast, shallow breathing does the opposite. It can reinforce mobilisation, even in the absence of a real threat.

This is why breathwork is more than just relaxation. It actually helps you change your body's state.

With regular practice, conscious breathing can help your body move more easily between states, so you are less likely to get stuck in fight, flight, or freeze.

Building on the discussion of how breathing influences autonomic nervous system states, it is important to note that trauma researchers and somatic psychologists have expanded the traditional classification of stress responses to include up to seven distinct 'F' states. These automatic survival mechanisms further illustrate the complexity of nervous system responses to stress or perceived danger and reinforce the significance of conscious breathing in facilitating adaptive regulation.

Expanding beyond fight, flight, and freeze, modern trauma models recognise these distinct nervous system states:

• Fight: Confronting or pushing back against a threat aggressively (or through firm boundaries).
• Flight: Fleeing, running away, or avoiding a problem.
• Freeze / Fixate: Feeling completely stuck or paralysed when immobilised by stress.
• Fawn: Using people-pleasing, over-accommodation, or appeasement to avoid conflict and maintain safety.
• Flop / Faint: A total nervous system shutdown or collapse.
• Flock: Seeking out social connection, community, or co-regulation with others to feel safe.
• Flow: The ventral vagal state of being fully present, engaged, and able to adapt to your environment safely.