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Brighton & Sussex Medical School

Breathwork

Breathwork

This page simply shares research coming out of the Breathwork Lab within the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. We comprise a multidisciplinary team of scientists, spanning psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience.

We are interested in everything from outcomes to mechanisms, with the constant being breathwork. Our goal is to advance the scientific understanding of how breathwork can support human health, wellbeing and performance.

This research initiative was started by Dr Guy Fincham, made possible by the organisations DMT Quest & ResearchHub. We hope you enjoy our (breath)work!


BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

Publications

Fincham GW, Caddye E, Kartar AA, Lilley EA, Stoke N and Colasanti A (2026) An exploratory study of breathwork-induced altered states of consciousness in experienced practitioners: the airways to alteration (A2A) trial. Front. Psychol. 17:1851882. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1851882

Fincham GW. Cavanagh K. & Colasanti A. "Breathwork in the Management of Stress and Mental Health" In: Noordsy DL, Burgess JD, Chawla V, Baron DA, editors. The American Psychiatric Association Publishing Textbook of Lifestyle Psychiatry. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association Publishing, in press. 

Are you breathing properly? The ins and outs of the ultimate health hack. Financial Times.(27 January 2026).

Kartar, A. A., Horinouchi, T., Örzsik, B., Anderson, B., Hall, L., Bailey, D., ... & Colasanti, A. (2025). Neurobiological substrates of altered states of consciousness induced by high ventilation breathwork accompanied by music. PLoS One, 20(8), e0329411.

Caddye, E., Aceves, R., Brzeszczyński, F. & Fincham, G.W. (2025). Successful non-surgical management of chronic hip pain in the context of Otto’s disease by targeted retraining of the internal torque chain and psoas major. ResearchHub, 1.

Caddye, E., Aceves, R. & Fincham, G.W. (2025). The Neuromuscular Nexus: Introducing torque chains as a paradigm-shifting framework for physical, mental, and emotional health. ResearchHub, 1.

Cavarra, M., Kuypers, K. & Fincham, G.W. (2024). Breathe hard to breathe easy: High-intensity online breathwork-assisted psychotherapy for social anxiety. OSF.  

Fincham, G.W., Epel, E., Colasanti, A., Strauss, C. & Cavanagh, K. (2024). Effects of brief remote high ventilation breathwork with retention on mental health and wellbeing: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Scientific Reports, 14(1), p.16893. 

Fincham, G.W., Strauss, C. & Cavanagh, K. (2023). Effect of coherent breathing on mental health and wellbeing: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Scientific Reports, 13(1), p.22141. 

Fincham, G.W., Kartar, A., Uthaug, M.V., Anderson, B., Hall, L., Nagai, Y., Critchley, H. & Colasanti, A. (2023). High ventilation breathwork practices: An overview of their effects, mechanisms, and considerations for clinical applications. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, p.105453. 

Fincham, G.W., Strauss, C., Montero-Marin, J. & Cavanagh, K. (2023). Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised-controlled trials. Scientific Reports, 13(1), p.432.

Caddye, E., Lukianstseva, Y., Aceves, R., Fincham, G.W. (2026). Movement-informed Breathwork (MiB): Integrating Muscular Contractions with Slow Conscious Connected Breathing for Therapeutic Application. OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine, 11(1).

Fincham, G.W., Mavor, K. & Dritschel, B. (2023). Effects of mindfulness meditation duration and type on well-being: an online dose-ranging randomized controlled trial. Mindfulness, 14(5), pp.1171-1182. 

Evan Lewis-Healey, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Andres Canales-Johnson, Tristan A Bekinschtein, Breathwork-induced psychedelic experiences modulate neural dynamics, Cerebral Cortex, Volume 34, Issue 8, August 2024, bhae347, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae347