Can breathing exercises make anxiety worse?
Yes, if you breathe too fast or too deep. Moving more air than you need lowers your carbon dioxide, and that brings tingling, a head rush and a tight chest, which feel a lot like panic. Slow down, make each breath smaller, drop the holds and let the out-breath run longer.
“Take a deep breath” is the advice everyone gives, so people try to calm down by breathing big. A few big breaths are fine. A minute of them is a lot of extra air, and your body notices. Some people try a breathing exercise once, feel worse, and decide breathwork isn’t for them, when the pattern was just too big.
What we’d do
Breathe slow and small. A slight feeling of wanting more air is fine on a slow pattern. Tingling fingers or a swimmy head mean you’re overdoing it, so make the breaths quieter. If holds make you uneasy, switch to six a minute, five in and five out, with nothing held.
How a calming exercise backfires
When you breathe more than your body needs, carbon dioxide in your blood falls. The Cleveland Clinic lists what comes next. You get numbness and tingling in your arms or around your mouth, muscle spasms in your hands and feet, and feeling lightheaded, dizzy or weak. Low carbon dioxide also narrows the blood vessels to your brain.
For someone with anxiety, every one of those feels like a warning sign. It’s like turning up the heat because you feel a chill, then sweating and thinking you’ve got a fever.
It happens more than you’d think
Even slow breathing can overdo it
84 students, one session each. Marchant and others, Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 2025
Six breaths a minute led to mild over-breathing, with carbon dioxide falling a little.
One session in a lab, healthy students.
About 1 in 10 had a bad time
108 adults, 28 days. Balban and others, Cell Reports Medicine, 2023
About 10 percent reported negative experiences related to the exercises.
The paper doesn’t say which ones, or what happened.
Fast breathing in depression
Pooled trials, Fincham and others, Scientific Reports, 2023
In one trial of fast breathwork, a small group had hot flushes, shortness of breath or sweating. Nobody dropped out over it.
The authors asked for more safety research on fast breathwork in particular.
In the 2026 trial of slow breathing for stress, people were told to stop if they felt any signs of over-breathing and to report it. That’s the right rule for anyone.
How to fix it
- Make the breaths smaller and quieter. Slow and shallow is better than slow and huge.
- Drop the holds. Six a minute has none.
- Make the out-breath longer than the in-breath. In a 2014 lab study, a long out-breath felt more relaxing than a long in-breath at the same pace.
- If it still feels bad, stop and breathe normally. Try again tomorrow at a shorter length.
If panic comes on its own, not from an exercise, see how to breathe during a panic attack. If dizziness is the main problem, see why you feel dizzy after breathing exercises.
6 sources
- Cleveland Clinic, Hyperventilationmy.clevelandclinic.org
- Balban MY et al., Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal, Cell Reports Medicine, 2023pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Marchant J et al., Comparing the effects of square, 4-7-8, and 6 breaths-per-minute breathing conditions on heart rate variability, CO2 levels, and mood, Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 2025pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Fincham GW et al., Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: a meta-analysis of randomised-controlled trials, Scientific Reports, 2023pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Sumińska S, Rynkiewicz A, Szulczewski M, Resonance frequency versus fixed 0.1 Hz breathing in HRV biofeedback: a four-week randomized comparison, Scientific Reports, 2026nature.com
- Van Diest I et al., Inhalation/exhalation ratio modulates the effect of slow breathing on heart rate variability and relaxation, Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 2014pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
