Breathing exercise produced mixed stress responses in adolescents
A randomized laboratory experiment found changes in cardiac responses after resonant breathing, without detecting differences in emotional responses or stress recovery.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Resonant breathing changed some cardiac measurements, but its overall effect on adolescents' stress responses was mixed. Emotional responses, emotion regulation and recovery did not differ detectably between groups. The physiological findings therefore do not establish an emotional benefit, and the absence of detected differences does not prove that the approaches have identical effects.
The target breathing rate was difficult to sustain, and the heart-rate-variability result weakened in additional analyses. This abstract-based account covers immediate laboratory responses and cannot establish lasting benefits.
What researchers found
Cardiac preejection-period (PEP) response to acute stress
Resonant versus spontaneous breathing during the immediate laboratory stress test; the response was smaller with resonant breathing. Cohen's d expresses the group difference in standard-deviation units, not a percentage reduction or raw cardiac time difference.
Cardiac measures diverged
Resonant breathing increased heart-rate variability during the exercise. During the later stress test, that measure responded more strongly in the resonant-breathing group. This unexpected result weakened in sensitivity analyses.
An immediate laboratory result
Participants had difficulty maintaining the target breathing rate during the exercise. The authors suggest repeated training might help, but this abstract reports no test of whether repeated practice would improve stress responses.
The original publication
The Immediate Effects of a Resonant Breathing Exercise on Adolescents' Stress Responses: A Randomized Trial.
Michels N, Vanderhasselt MA, Braet J et al.
Biopsychosoc Sci Med · 2026
- PubMed ID
- 41257401
- Record checked
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