THE JOINT

Your weekly dose of RA wellness

The Mindset Edition

I’ve Been Practicing Breathwork. But Does It Work?

I started using breathing techniques the way most people do: through podcasts, meditation apps, and online wellness content. I’ve tried several.

For me, they help when I'm anxious, in pain, overwhelmed, or stuck in my head. They bring me back to the present.

But after practicing one technique for months, I started wondering:

Is this the right one?
Are they all doing the same thing?
Do the differences between them even matter?

So I started digging into the research, the history, and the people behind modern breathwork culture.

Here’s what I found.

It Started 3,000 Years Before Your Podcast

Breathwork did not start with a podcast, a Netflix documentary, or a man standing in a frozen lake.

Records of intentional breath control go back roughly 3,000 years to yogic and Ayurvedic traditions in India. The Sanskrit word pranayama refers to regulating the breath to influence both the body and mind.

Ancient Chinese medicine developed similar ideas around qi, the life force believed to move through the body through breath and energy.

For centuries, these practices stayed largely within those traditions.

In the 1950s, a Soviet physician named Konstantin Buteyko developed a clinical breathing method focused on nasal breathing and carbon dioxide regulation, primarily for respiratory conditions.

By the 1960s and 70s, breathwork entered Western counterculture through practices like holotropic breathwork and rebirthing.

Then it mostly faded into the background.

Biohacking took over.
Hot yoga.
Elimination diets.

Then Wim Hof climbed into ice baths on television. Andrew Huberman started discussing breathing physiology on podcasts. Breathwork surged back into wellness culture.

How a Few People Made Breathing Famous Again

A handful of people shaped most of the modern conversation around breathwork. Here’s a quick look at who they are and what they’re claiming.

The Techniques Worth Knowing

Not all breathwork works the same way.

Slow breathing techniques like physiological sighing, box breathing, coherent breathing, and 4-7-8 work through a similar pathway. They slow breathing rate, extend the exhale, or both, which helps shift the nervous system toward a more parasympathetic, “rest and regulate” state.

Then there’s a completely different category: intense breathing practices like Wim Hof’s hyperventilation method and holotropic breathwork.

These involve rapid, forceful breathing designed to create altered physiological states. Some people report strong emotional or physical effects from them, but they are not interchangeable with slow breathing techniques and are not appropriate for everyone, especially people managing chronic illness, cardiovascular conditions, anxiety disorders, or dizziness.

For most people with RA, the slower breathing category is probably the better place to start.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the main techniques and what each one is trying to do.

Real Evidence, Reasonable Expectations

The research on breathwork is legitimate. It’s just narrower than the internet makes it sound.

What studies consistently show is that slower breathing techniques can reduce stress, improve nervous system regulation, and help some people feel calmer and more emotionally regulated.

One Stanford study comparing different breathing techniques found that cyclic sighing, also called the physiological sigh, produced the biggest improvement in mood and the largest reduction in resting breathing rate after just five minutes a day for 28 days.

Slow-paced breathing has also been shown to improve heart rate variability and lower cortisol in controlled settings.

That’s where the evidence stands right now.

What the evidence does not show:

• Breathwork reverses autoimmune disease
• Breathwork suppresses the immune system
• Breathwork “detoxes” the body
• Breathwork lowers CRP in a clinically meaningful way
• Breathwork replaces RA treatment

A lot of online claims move far beyond the research.

Most studies were also conducted in healthy adults over short periods of time. The physiology is promising, but the RA-specific evidence is still mostly extrapolated from broader nervous system research.

Your Nervous System Is the Missing Piece

Most people think of RA as a joint disease, but the nervous system is involved more than most people realize.

With RA, the body tends to stay shifted toward fight-or-flight. Research shows people with RA often have reduced parasympathetic activity and elevated sympathetic activity, and some studies suggest this dysfunction may even appear before RA develops.

This helps explain why nervous system regulation tools can feel surprisingly helpful for some people with RA.

Slow breathing with longer exhales influences the vagus nerve, one of the main drivers of the body’s calming response. That can lower heart rate, muscle tension, stress response, and even pain perception.

The nervous system state you’re in when pain arrives changes how intensely that pain is experienced. Slow breathing does not eliminate pain, but it may help reduce the amplification of it.

This may also help explain why some people notice improvements in fatigue, poor sleep, feeling constantly “wired,” and overwhelm when they consistently practice slower breathing techniques.

Breathwork doesn’t solve RA. But it is a low-cost, low-risk tool that directly targets a system many people with RA struggle to regulate.

Try It Before You Decide

I spent a long time using breathing techniques without fully understanding what I was doing or why any of it seemed to help. I just knew I felt different afterward.

Learning the science behind it didn’t completely change how I use breathwork, but it made me more intentional about which techniques I reach for and when.

If you’ve never tried the physiological sigh, try it today.

Two minutes.
Just breathe.

What breathing technique have you tried that helped, or didn’t?
Reply and let me know. I read every response.

If this resonated, share it with someone navigating RA or autoimmune disease.

You can explore past issues of The Joint or more strategies around nutrition, movement, stress management, and living well with RA at JointVenturesRA.

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