Guides
How these techniques work, what the research does and does not show, and how to pick one. Every physiological claim is referenced, and where the evidence is weak these say so.
- Slow breathing and the vagus nerve — The mechanism is real and reasonably well described. Most of what is written about it is not.
- Breathing for anxiety: what the evidence actually shows — Breathing exercises help, modestly, for some people. That is a less exciting claim than the one usually made for them, and it is the one the trials support.
- CO₂ tolerance, and why breath holds work — The urge to breathe is a carbon dioxide alarm, not an oxygen one. Almost everything about breath-hold training follows from that.
- How to choose a breathing technique — Almost every question about which technique to use resolves into three, and you can answer all three in under a minute.