Fast, music-driven breathwork was shown to induce psychedelic-like states, shifting brain blood flow and reducing negative emotions.
Participants described feelings of unity, bliss, and euphoria, suggesting breathwork may offer a safe, natural alternative to psychedelics in mental health treatment.
Breathwork While Listening to Music
Breathing exercises performed to music may bring about feelings of deep bliss, while also altering blood flow in areas of the brain involved in processing emotions. This finding comes from a study published recently in the open-access journal PLOS One by Amy Amla Kartar of the Colasanti Lab in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, U.K., and her colleagues. The research showed that these changes can take place even when the body shows signs of a stress response, and they are linked with a reduction in reported negative emotions.
In recent years, breathwork has become increasingly popular as a way to ease psychological distress. Certain approaches that involve faster or deeper breathing, often paired with music, can create altered states of consciousness (ASCs) similar to those brought on by psychedelic drugs. One form, known as high ventilation breathwork (HVB), may provide a drug-free option for achieving these effects, with fewer legal and ethical barriers to widespread use in therapy. Despite its growing appeal, the biological processes and personal experiences behind HVB-induced ASCs have not been studied in depth.
Exploring Altered States of Consciousness
To address this gap, Kartar and her team investigated how HVB produces ASCs in people with experience practicing the technique. They collected self-reported data from 15 online participants, 8 in-lab participants, and 19 who underwent magnetic resonance imaging. Each person completed a 20- to 30-minute session of continuous, rhythmic breathing set to music. Within half an hour after the session, participants filled out questionnaires describing their experiences.
The results showed that the intensity of ASCs evoked by HVB was proportional to cardiovascular sympathetic activation, as indicated by a decrease in heart rate variability, indicating a potential stress response. In addition, HVB-evoked ASCs were associated with a profound decrease in blood flow to the left operculum and posterior insula – brain regions implicated in representing the internal state of the body, including breathing.
Also, despite HVB causing large and global reductions in blood flow to the brain, there was a progressive increase in blood flow during the session to the right amygdala and anterior hippocampus, which are brain regions involved in the processing of emotional memories. These blood flow changes correlated with psychedelic experiences, demonstrating that these alterations may underlie the positive effects of this breathwork.
Oceanic Boundlessness and Psychedelic Parallels
During all experimental sessions, participants reported a reduction in fear and negative emotions, with no adverse reactions. Across participants and experimental settings, HVB reliably enhanced ASCs dominated by Oceanic Boundlessness (OBN), which is a term coined by Freud in 1920 that describes a set of related feelings including spiritual experience, insightfulness, blissful state, positively experienced depersonalization, and the experience of unity. OBN is considered as a defining aspect of ASCs evoked by psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin.
According to the authors, their study was novel and exploratory and requires replication by future research including larger sample sizes and a control group to separate the effects of music on the brain. Despite these limitations, the findings provide a better understanding of HVB and direct research to investigate its therapeutic applications.
Mapping the Brain During Breathwork
The authors add: “Our research is the first to use neuroimaging to map the neurophysiological changes that occur during breathwork. Our key findings include that breathwork can reliably evoke profound psychedelic states. We believe that these states are linked to changes in the function of specific brain regions involved in self-awareness, and fear and emotional memory processing. We found that more profound changes in blood flow in specific brain areas were linked to deeper sensations of unity, bliss, and emotional release, collectively known as “oceanic boundlessness.”
Amy Kartar, lead author, adds: “Conducting this research was a fantastic experience. It was thrilling to explore such a novel area – while many people anecdotally recognize the health benefits of breathwork, this style of fast-paced breathing has received very little scientific attention. We are very grateful to our participants for making this work possible.”
A Natural Path to Transformation
Dr. Alessandro Colasanti, P.I., adds: “Breathwork is a powerful yet natural tool for neuromodulation, working through the regulation of metabolism across the body and brain. It holds tremendous promise as a transformative therapeutic intervention for conditions that are often both distressing and disabling.”
Reference: “Neurobiological substrates of altered states of consciousness induced by high ventilation breathwork accompanied by music” by Amy Amla Kartar, Toru Horinouchi, Balázs Örzsik, Brittany Anderson, Lottie Hall, Duncan Bailey, Sarah Samuel, Nati Beltran, Samira Bouyagoub, Chris Racey, Yoko Nagai, Iris Asllani, Hugo Critchley and Alessandro Colasanti, 27 August 2025, PLOS ONE.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0329411
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.