Intensive breathwork sessions can actually make people more emotionally volatile and less able to handle everyday stress.
April 23, 2026
Original Paper
From Awakening to Volatility: The Emotional Threshold Shift in Intensive Breathwork Practice — The Annihilation of Emotional Buffering
SSRN · 6331622
The Takeaway
High-intensity breathing practices may lower the brain's inhibitory thresholds and recalibrate how it reacts to small emotional triggers. Many practitioners believe these techniques are a universal cure for anxiety that creates a lasting sense of calm. Data now shows that these sessions can destroy the emotional buffers that keep a person stable throughout the day. This shift in neural reactivity leaves some individuals more prone to sudden mood swings or irritability. Using breathwork as a tool requires a deeper understanding of its potential to disrupt the nervous system rather than just soothe it.
From the abstract
Breathwork is widely promoted as a regulatory practice capable of calming the nervous system, releasing trauma and restoring emotional balance. While its therapeutic potential is well documented in experiential contexts, the long-term effects of repeated high intensity practice remain insufficiently examined. This paper explores the hypothesis that sustained autonomic activation and repeated emotional disinhibition may lower inhibitory thresholds and recalibrate baseline emotional reactivity in