Breathwork research ·
What Can Five Minutes of Breathwork a Day Actually Do?
Five minutes is a manageable place to start a habit. But when a headline promises that a short breathing session will improve your performance, it helps to ask: which kind of performance, and what did the researchers measure?
The short answer
A 2023 randomized study found that daily five-minute breathing practices improved mood over one month. Breathwork, especially exhale-focused cyclic sighing, produced greater improvements in positive mood and reductions in respiratory rate than mindfulness meditation. Athletic performance was not measured.
Read the study: Balban et al., Cell Reports Medicine (2023).
What did the researchers compare?
Participants practiced one of three breathing approaches or mindfulness meditation for five minutes daily. The breathing approaches were cyclic sighing, box breathing, and cyclic hyperventilation with retention. The researchers compared changes in psychological and physiological outcomes.
What does this mean for athletes?
Mood and physiological arousal are different outcomes from race times, strength, or endurance. The study provides evidence relevant to emotional well-being and stress management; it does not show that five minutes of breathwork makes someone run faster or increases VO₂ max.
When planning your own routine, start by naming the outcome you care about. A pause before a busy day and a training session aimed at improving race performance have different purposes. Choosing a clear purpose makes it easier to decide which evidence is relevant.
Building a routine around a clear goal
Choose a regular time for practice and keep a brief note about your experience. You might record whether you completed the session and how you felt afterward. Treat that journal as a personal reflection, not proof that a physiological adaptation occurred.
Ayro offers guided sessions with visual, audio, and haptic cues. Those features can help organize your practice. This study did not evaluate Ayro, so its findings should not be presented as a clinical result for the app.
Frequently asked questions
Does five minutes of breathwork improve endurance?
This study cannot answer that question. Endurance needs to be measured directly in research designed to test it.
Should I judge a session only by my fitness metrics?
Match your tracking to your purpose. A session intended as a quiet break does not need to become another performance test. Keep personal impressions separate from claims about measurable fitness changes.