Myth or fact

Box breathing is the best breathing exercise

Short answerSort of

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20265 sources

Sort of. Box breathing is simple, easy to remember and it does calm people down. But in a month-long trial that compared it head to head, cyclic sighing lifted mood more, and box breathing wasn’t clearly ahead of plain meditation. We’d call it a good pattern with thinner evidence than cyclic sighing.

Why it seems true

Box breathing has the best story. It’s also called tactical breathing, and it’s been used by members of the military to stay steady under stress. Four equal sides is easy to picture, easy to teach, and easy to remember when your heart is pounding.

Being famous and being best tested are two different things. Picking a pattern for its story is like picking a restaurant for its sign. The sign might be right, but you’d still want to know what people thought of the food.

What the trial found

The best test of box breathing so far came out of Stanford in 2023. In 2020, researchers there split 108 adults into four groups for 28 days, five minutes a day. One group did box breathing, one cyclic sighing, one fast rounds and one mindfulness meditation. Everyone rated their mood and anxiety before and after every session.

The box breathing group didn’t all count to four. Each person first took a deep breath and breathed out as slowly as they could, and that time set their count. If it took under 20 seconds, they used 3 to 4 seconds per side. If it took 25 to 45 seconds, 5 to 6. And 50 seconds or more meant 8 to 10 seconds per side. If they had to strain, they were told to shorten all four sides.

In any single session, box breathing did about as well as cyclic sighing. The difference showed up over the month. The cyclic sighing group’s lift in mood grew the more days they kept at it, and their breathing rate on the WHOOP strap fell more than any other group’s. Box breathing didn’t show either pattern clearly.

With only 21 people, the box group was the smallest in the trial, so it had the least chance of showing a clear difference. The authors call the whole study exploratory.

Why might cyclic sighing do better?

The researchers point to two things cyclic sighing has that box breathing doesn’t, a long out-breath and a double breath in that fills the lungs deeper. Box breathing has equal in and out, plus two holds.

A long out-breath helps because of how your heart is wired. Breathing in takes the brake off your heart and breathing out puts it back on. In a 2014 study in Belgium, 30 people felt more relaxed and less stressed when their out-breath was much longer than their in-breath. Box breathing splits the time evenly, so it doesn’t lean on the calming half.

The pace may play a part too. Your heart rate swings most at about six breaths a minute. Box breathing at four seconds a side runs at 3.75 breaths a minute, and with the holds it’s further from that pace than cyclic sighing or six a minute. That doesn’t make it bad. A 2023 review found slow breathing in general lowered stress by a small to medium amount.

Where box breathing fits

• When you need a count. Some people find it easier to stay focused when there’s a number to follow. Four equal sides is about the simplest count there is.
• Short bursts before something hard. A minute of box breathing while you wait for a race or an interview is fine. Two or three slow sighs work too.
• Not if holds bother you. Holding your breath makes some people uneasy, and the holds can make some people lightheaded. Six a minute is just as slow, has no holds, and has its own trial behind it.

Try them both on the timer and see which one you’d actually do every day. That counts for more than the small difference between them.