Coherent breathing, honestly explained

How to do coherent breathing

1. Sit or lie down comfortably.
2. Breathe in gently through your nose for 5 seconds.
3. Breathe out gently for 5 seconds, with no pause in between.
4. Keep that rhythm: six breaths a minute.

What matters is the pace, not the amount of air. Breathe only as much as feels comfortable, no more. The classic training protocol puts it this way: breathe easily and comfortably, not too deeply, and don’t try too hard.¹

One minute at 5 and 5

Six breaths, comfortable, not deep

Breathe along

How fast are you breathing right now?

At rest, adults breathe about 12 to 20 times a minute.¹ Six breaths is less than half that, so it feels unusual at first. Measure your own pace: tap four times, each time you start to breathe in. Just breathe the way you’re breathing right now.

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breaths per minute

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If the slow pace feels hard, experts suggest working your way down from your own pace: a little slower every few breaths, about half a breath per minute at a time.¹ Whether that works better than starting at six right away hasn’t been studied. It’s simply a gentler way in.

What happens to your heart rate

Your heart doesn’t beat like a metronome. It speeds up a little as you breathe in and slows down a little as you breathe out. This natural wave is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia.²

A second loop joins in: the baroreflex. Pressure sensors in your large arteries track how much the artery walls stretch. When pressure rises, the reflex slows your heart right away; when it falls, it speeds it up.² This loop responds with a fixed delay of a few seconds. When you breathe at roughly its rhythm, the breath wave and the reflex amplify each other, like a bell that keeps ringing after it’s struck.¹ For most people, that happens at about six breaths a minute.²

1. At rest, adults breathe about 12 to 20 times a minute.
2. Heart rate rises and falls a little with each breath: slightly faster as you breathe in, slightly slower as you breathe out.
3. At about six breaths a minute, each breath is long and even.
4. Now heart rate swings much further, in step with your breath. That big, even wave is what “coherence” or “resonance” refers to.

Play again

This pace is called the resonance frequency. For adults, experts usually put it between 4.5 and 6.5 breaths a minute.¹ The often-quoted average of 5.5 comes from an early study of just five men.^{2, 3} And whether your personal frequency stays the same is disputed: in one small study, two thirds of people had a different one a week later.⁴

Coherent, resonance, biofeedback: what’s what?

• Coherent breathing usually means one fixed pace for everyone, about five to six breaths a minute, equal in and out, with no holds.⁵
• Resonance breathing uses a pace measured for you personally beforehand, with heart and breathing sensors.⁶
• HRV biofeedback shows you in real time how your heart rate responds, and you adjust your breathing to it.⁶

nowa doesn’t measure your heart rate or your resonance frequency. The exercise in the app is the first kind: it guides you to six breaths a minute.

What the research shows

During practice, your heart rate swings more with your breath. A meta-analysis of 223 studies on slow breathing shows this.⁷ That’s a measurement taken while you practice, not a verdict on your health.

Over four weeks, it gets more interesting. In the largest study of coherent breathing so far, 400 adults practiced about ten minutes a day for four weeks with an audio guide. Half breathed about 5.5 times a minute, the other half 12 times, with identical instructions, the same voice, and the same music. Nobody knew which one was the “real” exercise. Both groups felt less stressed at the end, and by the same amount.⁵

So in this study, the slow pace did no better than calm, guided breathing at a normal pace. The researchers stress that this doesn’t mean coherent breathing helps no one. But the benefit most likely came from what both exercises had in common: a few minutes a day to yourself, breathing calmly with guidance, and the expectation that it would help. Some of it may simply have come with time. These studies tested the technique, not the nowa app.

Your own pace or a fixed six? In the only multi-week study so far to compare the two directly, a personally measured pace brought no clear advantage over a fixed six breaths a minute.⁸ Experts still consider the question open.¹

5 or 5.5 seconds? A longer exhale?

Five seconds in and five out gives you exactly six breaths a minute. With 5.5 seconds each way, it’s about 5.5, the pace used in the large study.⁵ In a short lab session, heart rate swung a bit more at 5.5 than at 6.⁹ Whether that makes a difference in everyday life hasn’t been shown. Pick the pace that feels calm.

Whether your exhale should be longer than your inhale is also an open question. Studies disagree, and at six breaths a minute, a newer study found no difference in heart rate variability.¹⁰

What about your watch?

Many watches show an HRV number. Don’t take it too seriously. Heart rate variability depends on lots of things, including your breathing pace itself, your posture, the time of day, and what you’ve eaten or had to drink.¹¹ And the optical sensors watches use are less accurate than an ECG during slow, paced breathing.⁶ A higher number during practice is normal and isn’t a verdict on your health.

Common questions

Is coherent breathing the same as resonance breathing?

Almost. Coherent breathing usually uses one fixed pace for everyone; resonance breathing uses the pace measured for you.⁶

Do I need to know my resonance frequency?

No. In the only multi-week comparison so far, a fixed six breaths a minute did no measurably worse than a personally measured pace.⁸

How often and how long should I practice?

There’s no proven right amount. In the large study, people practiced about ten minutes a day for four weeks.⁵ More in How often should you do breathing exercises?

Is breathing this slowly safe?

For healthy adults, it’s a deliberate practice pace, not something to keep up all day. At rest, adults breathe about 12 to 20 times a minute.¹ The key is not to breathe more deeply. If you get dizzy, stop.

Does coherent breathing help you sleep?

That hasn’t been shown. In the large study, sleep problems didn’t change in either group.⁵ It can still be a calm part of your evening; more in breathing exercises for sleep.

Do I need a device for this?

No. In the large study, an audio guide was enough.⁵ Biofeedback with sensors is something different from a simple pacer, and results from biofeedback studies don’t automatically carry over to breathing apps.⁶