Breathwork for Burnout: Why Breathing Is the Fastest Way to Regulate Your Nervous System

I remember the moment it clicked for me, not in a therapy room, not in a coaching session, but 50 metres underwater.

As a freediver, you learn very quickly that your breath is not just about oxygen. It's about state. Before a dive, the way I breathe determines everything, whether my body enters the water relaxed and efficient, or tense and burning through air. The breath is a direct line to the nervous system. And once I understood that underwater, I couldn't unsee it on land.

When I burned out, twice, one of the clearest signs was how I breathed. Shallow. Fast. Chest-only. Sometimes holding my breath without realising. It sounds small. But that breathing pattern was keeping my nervous system locked in high alert, 24 hours a day. No wonder I couldn't rest even when I had time to.

Why Burnout Lives in Your Breath

Burnout is not just mental exhaustion. It's a physiological state, your nervous system has been in sympathetic overdrive (fight or flight) for so long that it no longer knows how to switch off. Your cortisol is dysregulated. Your sleep is disrupted. Your digestion is off. Your body is running as if there's a threat, even when you're sitting at your desk drinking tea.

Here's the remarkable thing: your breath is the only part of your autonomic nervous system you can consciously control. Heart rate, digestion, hormone release, these all happen automatically. But the moment you change how you breathe, you directly influence all of them. You can manually shift your body from sympathetic (stress) to parasympathetic (rest and recover) in minutes.

This is not a metaphor. It's neuroscience. Slow, extended exhales activate the vagus nerve, the key pathway of the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing cortisol, lowering heart rate, and signalling to your brain: you are safe.

What I Learned from Freediving That Changed How I Coach

In freediving training, we practice something called a "breathe-up": a pre-dive breathing sequence designed to calm the mind and body completely before descending. You slow your breath. You extend your exhale. You let go of tension in your face, your shoulders, your jaw. You don't try to take in more air, you try to need less.

The parallel to burnout recovery struck me immediately. Most of us living in chronic stress are doing the opposite of a breathe-up. We're hyperventilating through life, more input, more speed, more effort. The antidote isn't a productivity hack. It's learning to need less stimulation. To tolerate stillness. To exhale.

I now use breathwork in almost every coaching session, adapted from both my freediving practice and my training as a yoga and meditation teacher since 2011. And consistently, it's the practice that clients say creates the fastest, most noticeable shift.

3 Breathing Techniques for Burnout Recovery

🌊 1. Extended Exhale Breathing (for immediate calm)

Inhale for 4 counts. Exhale for 6–8 counts. Repeat for 5 minutes.

The extended exhale is the fastest way to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. You can do this at your desk, before a difficult meeting, or when you wake at 3am. It doesn't require a yoga mat or a quiet room. Just your breath.

🌊 2. Box Breathing (for mental clarity and focus)

Inhale for 4 counts. Hold for 4. Exhale for 4. Hold for 4. Repeat for 4–8 rounds.

Used by Navy SEALs and elite athletes to regulate stress under pressure. It balances the nervous system without sedating you, ideal before important decisions or when burnout fog makes thinking feel impossible.

🌊 3. Diaphragmatic Breathing (to unlearn shallow chest breathing)

Place one hand on your chest, one on your belly. Breathe so only your belly hand rises. Exhale fully. Do this for 10 breaths before bed.

Most burnt-out professionals breathe exclusively into their chest, a pattern reinforced by stress. Diaphragmatic breathing retrains the body to use its full respiratory capacity, improving sleep, reducing anxiety, and restoring energy over time.

A Note for High Achieving Expat Women Especially

If you're living and working abroad, navigating a new culture, perhaps in a second language, without the support network you had back home, your nervous system is carrying more than most people around you realise. The invisible labour of cultural adaptation, of managing identity across different worlds, of high-performing while often feeling like an outsider, is real and cumulative.

Breathwork doesn't fix these structural stressors. But it gives your body a way to process and release them, rather than accumulating them until something breaks. Think of it as a daily pressure valve, small, consistent, and profoundly effective.

Where to Start

Start with just 5 minutes of extended exhale breathing every morning before you open your phone. That single habit, done consistently, will begin to shift your baseline nervous system state within two to three weeks.

If you'd like to go deeper, to understand what your nervous system is doing and how breathwork fits into a fuller burnout recovery, I'd love to connect. Book a free 30-minute discovery call and let's explore what your body is telling you.

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