The Breath That Switches Off Anxiety: The Cyclic Sighing Discovery

In 2023, a team of Stanford researchers led by Melis Yilmaz Balban together with David Spiegel and Andrew Huberman published a study in Cell Reports Medicine comparing four different five-minute daily breathing practices against classic mindfulness meditation, over a full month. The most interesting finding: all the breathing practices improved mood more than meditation alone, but one in particular — "cyclic sighing" — turned out to be the most effective at improving mood and lowering resting respiratory rate, a direct marker of the physiological arousal tied to stress and anxiety.

The mechanism has to do with the vagus nerve, the main link between our nervous system and organs like the heart and lungs: a long, slow exhale, longer than the inhale, activates the parasympathetic system (the one that calms us down) and slows the heart rate. The double inhale through the nose that defines cyclic sighing — a first deep breath followed by a shorter "top-off" breath — artificially reproduces the physiological sigh the body naturally produces during sleep or under stress to reopen small collapsing air sacs in the lungs; here, though, we do it on purpose, followed by a long exhale through the mouth, to get the calming effect within just a few minutes.

How to practice it: two inhales through the nose in quick succession (the first deep, the second short, as if "topping off"), followed by one long, slow exhale through the mouth, as slow as you can manage. Repeat for one to five minutes whenever anxiety rises — before a difficult conversation, before sleep, or simply when you notice you're breathing shallow and fast for no clear reason.

Sources

• Balban, M. Y., Neri, E., Kogon, M. M., et al. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1).