For many people, healing begins with talking. We name what happened, we explore how it felt, and we build understanding of why certain patterns persist.

Talk therapy is profoundly effective, particularly for insight, meaning identification, and relational repair, and yet for many people, there comes a point where understanding alone stops creating change.

We know the story but the body still reacts in ways we can’t control. This is where breathwork (and somatic approaches more broadly) can become a valuable complement to psychological therapy.

Why the Body Matters in Healing

Trauma is not stored only as a memory or belief, it’s also encoded in the body.

Research in neuroscience and trauma psychology shows that overwhelming or unprocessed experiences are associated with lasting changes in nervous system functioning, emotional regulation, and physiological stress responses (van der Kolk, 2014).

This helps explain a familiar experience in therapy: 

A person may intellectually know they are safe, yet still feel anxious, numb, hypervigilant, or emotionally overwhelmed.

Somatic therapies follow a bottom-up rather than top-down approach. Rather than beginning with cognition, they engage sensation, breath and physiology to create an environment for the nervous system to update its perception of safety directly.

Completing the Body’s Stress Cycle

When the body perceives threat (physical or emotional), it naturally initiates a stress response. Heart rate spikes, rate of breathing changes, and muscles mobilise for action.

This response is designed to resolve.

In natural conditions, stress is discharged through movement, shaking, crying, vocalisation, or rest. When this discharge is interrupted (as is common with emotional, relational or chronic stress), the nervous system may remain partially activated.

Emily and Amelia Nagoski describe this as an incomplete stress cycle, where the body stays physiologically ‘on’ even after the threat has passed (Nagoski & Nagoski, 2019).

Over time, unresolved activation may contribute to anxiety, emotional dysregulation, chronic tension, fatigue, or difficulty returning to calm. Rather than disappearing, unexpressed emotional energy tends to remain stored until conditions feel safe enough for completion.

How Breathwork Accesses Emotional Processing

Breath is one of the most direct access points to the nervous system.

Certain breathwork approaches (particularly those involving continuous or faster breathing) intentionally create controlled physiological activation. When facilitated safely, this activation can temporarily quiet the analytical mind and increase access to emotional and sensory processing.

Research shows that changes in breathing patterns can significantly influence autonomic nervous system state, emotional arousal, and stress hormone regulation (Jerath et al., 2015).

In practice, breathwork can:

• Bring suppressed emotions or sensations into awareness
• Increase interoceptive (felt-sense) awareness
• Allow emotional expression without needing verbal recall
• Support physiological discharge and nervous system recovery

Emotional expression during activation breathwork may include tears, shaking, warmth, imagery, vocal release, or deep stillness. These responses are not forced, they arise organically when the body feels safe to complete what was previously interrupted. 

Safety and Containment are Essential

Emotional intensity alone is not therapeutic.

Without appropriate safety, pacing and support, intense experiences can overwhelm the nervous system and reinforce trauma patterns rather than resolve them.

Trauma-informed breathwork prioritises:

• Clear consent, choice and agency
• Education about physiological responses
• Regulation before, during and after activation
• Gradual exposure rather than forced catharsis
• Time for grounding and integration

This aligns with trauma research emphasising that healing occurs not through reliving trauma, but through regulating processing within a window of tolerance (Siegel, 1999).

When safety is present, emotional expression becomes integrative rather than retraumatising.

Integration: Where Change Consolidates

The release itself is only part of the process.

Following emotional discharge, the nervous system often enters a period of settling and reorganisation. This is where reflection, insight and behavioural change become possible.

People commonly report:

• Reduced emotional reactivity
• Greater clarity around past experiences
• Increased capacity to stay present during stress

Repeated experiences of safe activation followed by integration can gradually retrain the nervous system’s default responses to support longer-term emotional resilience rather than temporary relief.

Breathwork as a Complement to Therapy

Breathwork is not a replacement for counselling or psychotherapy, particularly for complex or developmental trauma.

Used responsibly, it best functions as a complement modality, supporting the body’s role in healing alongside cognitive and relational work.

For some people, breathwork offers access to emotions that have been difficult to reach through words alone. For others, it helps rebuild trust in bodily sensations after long periods of shutdown or dissociation.

At its best, breathwork does not force change. It creates the conditions for the nervous system to complete processes it has been holding unfinished.

Practical Support

For individuals interested in exploring breath-based somatic work alongside therapy, it’s important to work with practitioners who are trained, trauma-informed and collaborative in their approach. 

If you’re curious, my work uses breath as a nervous system regulation and integration tool with a strong emphasis on safety, pacing and client agency. Sessions are designed to complement existing therapeutic support rather than override it.

More information can be found via https://www.lizho.co/emotional-release or by calling 0423 657 918.

Liz Ho is a breathwork coach specialising in performance, recovery and nervous system conditioning, located in Melbourne, Victoria.

References

van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

Nagoski, E., & Nagoski, A. (2019). Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Ballantine Books.

Jerath, R., Edry, J. W., Barnes, V. A., & Jerath, V. (2015). Physiology of long pranayamic breathing: Neural respiratory elements may provide a mechanism that explains how slow deep breathing shifts the autonomic nervous system. Medical Hypotheses, 85(3), 486–496.

Siegel, D. J. (1999). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. Guilford Press.