Down Regulation Breathwork? Why you need to know about it!
How Slowing Your Breath Unlocks a Calm, Clear, Regulated Nervous System
Introduction: Why Down Regulation Matters
Not all breathwork is about activation, intensity, or deep emotional release. Sometimes, powerful shifts happen in the slowing down. In a world that constantly pulls us into high alert, down regulation breathwork gives your nervous system the signal it’s been waiting for: You’re safe. You can relax now.
This article explores what down regulation breathwork actually is, how it works physiologically, and why it’s essential for trauma healing, sleep, digestion, and emotional balance.
What Does "Down Regulation" Mean?
Down regulation simply means shifting your nervous system from a state of stress (sympathetic mode) into a state of calm and recovery (parasympathetic mode).
When you down regulate through breath, you're doing three key things:
Slowing the breath
Lengthening the exhale
Activating the vagus nerve
This combination tells your body: “The danger has passed. It’s safe to switch into healing mode”.
Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic
Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that runs automatically, it regulates your heart rate, breathing, digestion, and more without you having to think about it. It has two main branches, and they’re constantly working to keep you in balance:
1. Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)
This is your “fight, flight, or freeze” response, your body’s built-in survival mode.
When the sympathetic system is active, your body prepares for perceived danger or threat by:
Increasing heart rate and blood pressure
Pumping blood away from your gut and into your muscles
Releasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol
Heightening alertness and tension
Suppressing digestion, immunity, and long-term repair systems
This response is designed for short bursts, to help you run from danger or respond to crisis. But in modern life, emails, traffic, deadlines, notifications, and unresolved stress keep this system chronically switched on.
This is what we mean by sympathetic overdrive, your body is stuck in “go mode” even when there’s no immediate threat.
2. Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)
This is your “rest, digest, and repair” state, the system responsible for recovery, integration, and long-term health.
When the parasympathetic system is active, your body:
Slows the heart rate
Lowers blood pressure
Activates digestion and nutrient absorption
Supports immune function
Releases calming neurotransmitters like acetylcholine
Restores balance to your entire system
You can’t heal trauma, process emotion, or recover from illness in sympathetic overdrive. You need to be in parasympathetic regulation to truly rest and repair.
Research suggests that most people spend 70–80% of their day in a low-grade sympathetic state. That means their bodies are constantly in alert mode, even when there’s no real threat. Over time, this baseline stress becomes normal, which is why many people find it almost impossible to relax.
On weekends, holidays, or even in quiet moments meant for rest, like reading a book or sitting in silence, their system stays restless. The body has become so used to tension that it no longer recognises stillness as safe. This is where down regulation breathwork becomes essential: not just to calm the system, but to retrain it to understand what rest actually feels like.
Why This Matters for Breathwork
Most people spend their days hovering in low-grade stress without even realising it. That’s why practices like down regulation breathwork are essential.
By changing your breath pattern to be slower, deeper, and more rhythmic, you send a direct signal to your brain through the vagus nerve: “The threat has passed. You’re safe”.
This shifts the system back into parasympathetic mode, bringing calm not just to the body — but to the mind, emotions, and decisions that follow.
It’s not just about breathing slower. It’s about changing how your body experiences the world.
Breath as a Remote Control
Your breath is the only part of your autonomic system you can consciously control. By changing how you breathe, you can influence:
Heart rate
Blood pressure
Cortisol (stress hormones)
Brainwave states
When you inhale slowly, exhale even slower, and breathe deeply into the diaphragm, you stimulate the vagus nerve, which turns on the parasympathetic system. This is what triggers the feeling of calm.
Brief breath holds (like in box breathing) can also support nervous system balance by gently increasing CO₂ and slowing reactivity.
Key Techniques in Down Regulation Breathwork
These are some of the most effective down regulation breathing techniques used in trauma-informed and nervous-system-focused approaches:
Extended Exhale Breathing
Inhale for 4, exhale for 6 or 8
The longer exhale boosts parasympathetic response and slows the heart
Box Breathing (Square Breathing)
Inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4
Balances the system and supports emotional regulation
4-7-8 Breathing
Inhale for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8
Used for anxiety, sleep, and rebalancing the system
Resonance Breathing (5.5 in / 5.5 out)
Matches the natural rhythm of your cardiovascular system
Maximises HRV and puts the body into coherence
In practices that use conscious connected breathing, the breath is used to intentionally train the nervous system to move between stress and relaxation. Fast, intense breathing activates the sympathetic nervous system, followed by long breath holds that trigger the parasympathetic response. This intentional switching helps condition the body to better handle real-life stress, so when difficult moments come, your system knows how to come back to calm.
In IMD, we apply a similar principle: helping you build nervous system flexibility, so you’re not stuck in one mode. The more you practice, the easier it becomes to shift between effort and ease, tension and release, activation and rest.
When and Why to Use Down Regulation Breathwork
Best used:
Before sleep
After intense emotional release
During panic or high stress
After exercise or up-regulation breathwork
To regulate mood or prepare for meditation
Avoid during:
Activities requiring alertness or activation
Times when energy or expression is the goal
What It Feels Like
Down regulation breathwork typically brings on:
Slower heart rate
Tingling or warmth in the limbs
A sense of groundedness
Mental clarity
Emotional softening
It’s not a dissociative or numb state. It’s presence. Calm. Regulation.
Why We Use It in IMD Breathwork
Even in our most intense IMD journeys, we always end with a down regulation phase. It’s not just a cooldown, it’s a conscious shift back into safety. This moment helps stabilise the nervous system, integrate emotional release, and bring participants back into the body with clarity and calm.
But recently, we’ve taken this even further.
Behind the scenes, we’ve been developing a completely new set of dedicated down regulation journeys. While our core focus will always be deep emotional release and trauma integration, we recognise that people also need spaces to slow down, soften, and just breathe.
These new journeys are not about pushing. They’re about resetting.
Designed to be deeply relaxing and parasympathetic-driven, these sessions offer more than stillness, they teach critical breathing techniques you can apply in daily life. Whether you’re calming anxiety, winding down before sleep, or self-regulating during a stressful moment, these are tools you’ll return to again and again.
Each journey is themed around one of the elements:
Water for emotional flow and gentle release
Wind for mental clarity and breath rhythm
Fire for restoring calm energy without stimulation
Earth for grounding yourself in the chaos of life
You’ll start to see these journeys appearing in each IMD city as additional, stand-alone classes. They’re perfect for when your nervous system needs support, but your body doesn’t need intensity. For rest, reset, and recovery.
One of the reasons we created these new journeys is because the full IMD trauma-release session isn’t suitable for everyone. Some people may have contraindications, be new to breathwork, or simply not feel ready for a deep emotional process. Down regulation breathwork, on the other hand, is accessible to almost everyone.
That means we can reach and serve more people, while still helping them experience the powerful benefits of conscious breathing… safely, gently, and with intention.
They’re also incredibly effective in other settings:
🧘♂️ Retreats & Mixed Modalities
These journeys complement more active practices like movement, cold exposure, yoga, or coaching. They allow participants to integrate what they’ve processed and return to the body with a deep sense of safety.
🏢 Corporate Wellness
One of the most overlooked applications of down regulation breathwork is in the workplace. Running a weekly one-hour session within a company gives employees a powerful reset tool, helping them return to work less stressed, more clear-headed, and emotionally regulated.
Here’s the science: When you’re in a high-stress state (sympathetic overdrive), the prefrontal cortex — the part of your brain responsible for decision-making, logic, and impulse control — becomes less active. The amygdala, which is tied to emotional reactivity and threat detection, takes over.
That means stressed employees are more likely to:
Make poor decisions
React emotionally
Avoid creative problem-solving
Burn out over time
Teaching people to pause, breathe, and down regulate isn’t just good for wellbeing, it’s good for business. When employees learn how to regulate their nervous system, they experience better focus, higher productivity, fewer sick days, and improved emotional regulation.
A calm nervous system supports clearer communication, sharper decision-making, and greater resilience under pressure. It reduces reactive behaviour, improves conflict resolution, and helps teams collaborate more effectively.
In short, teaching your team how to breathe doesn’t just lower stress, it raises the standard of how they work, lead, and show up.
Because nervous system healing isn’t just about releasing the big emotions.
It’s about building resilience, creating balance, and giving people the tools to reset, whether they’re at home, at work, or navigating everyday chaos.
And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is…
breathe gently.
Final Thoughts: Less Can Be More
Down regulation is a quiet kind of power. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t always come with tears or catharsis. But it builds the foundation for everything else… rest, resilience, clarity, and healing.
In a world that glorifies hustle and noise, stillness is a revolution. And the breath is how we begin.