Breathe First: The Missing Foundation in Veteran Mental Health
- IW Modalities Committee
- Jan 11
- 3 min read
The data is irrefutable… Breathwork is the fastest, most portable "lever" we have for quickly managing emotional pain. It quickly regulates the sympathetic nervous system and moves you out of a threat-saturated state. Clinical evidence suggests that breathwork produces improvements in stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. It shifts the autonomic physiology and increases parasympathetic “braking”.
Additionally, it is the foundation for successfully implementing many other alternative modalities, such as:
1. Sweat lodges
2. Cold plunges
3. Meditation
4. Intense workouts
5. Plant medicine experiences
Breathwork functions as a stabilizing foundation that lets those modalities become therapeutic rather than overwhelming. It does this by strengthening autonomic regulation, interoception, and flexible emotional regulation. Breath is not merely relaxation. It is physiology that has been measured, and the evidence has been wild. It changes your CO2-O2 balance, the way your heart and lung couple together, and vagal nerve signaling, which collectively regulate emotions. Randomized trials showed breathwork improved mood more than mindfulness and meditation alone. But when mindfulness and meditation were paired with breathwork, all showed increased value.
In a sweat lodge ceremony, heat stress helps people learn how to deal with anxiety and panic attacks by mimicking threat states. Breathwork provides a direct counter-skill. Paced breathing regulates the nervous system while maintaining presence, meaning-making, and grounding.
Cold Plunge Therapy spikes the autonomic system. Breathwork helps the body determine whether the spike is treated as "emotional training" or a threat. In a clinical study, a group using breathwork plus cold plunge showed the largest reduction in perceived stress.
Most meditation styles and formulas use 'attention to breath' as the most reliable anchor. A neurophysiology study of meditative practices showed that regulated and attentive breathing shifts the autonomic balance via the respiratory vagal nerve. Basically, breathwork makes meditation easier by moving the system from "too active to sit still" into a workable window.
Exercise and working out are some of the strongest evidence-based interventions for depression. Breathwork augments your workouts by allowing you to be mentally calm and focused during exertion. It supports recovery and emotional regulation capacity that extend beyond the workout itself.
Plant medicine retreats involve intense emotional healing and somatic sensations. For example, psilocybin-assisted therapy has been shown in clinical settings to produce large reductions in depression. Ibogaine has been shown to cure addiction in 85% of patients. Breathwork helps people navigate the plant medicine ceremony much more smoothly by being able to come back to the body and build self-confidence while working through an emotional release.
Navy SEALs and Marine Corps Special Operators now incorporate breathwork into their training. Exercises are used pre-mission (focus), during the mission (moving through spiked emotions), and post-mission (grounding and releasing tension).
If you are interested in learning more about breathwork, here is a short Wim Hof video about the benefits of breathwork.
And if you are interested in experimenting with breathwork for real, here is a beginner morning breathwork routine you can follow. There are thousands of breathwork routines on the internet, so feel free to experiment around and find what works for you!
Example morning breathwork routine (Wim Hof–style, 3–5 steps)
Sit or lie down somewhere safe (not in/near water; not while driving).
Do 20–30 deep breaths at a comfortable pace (stop if you feel overwhelming dizziness).
After the last exhale, hold your breath until the first strong urge to breathe (no forcing).
Inhale fully, hold ~10–15 seconds, release. Repeat 2–3 rounds (the goal is consistency, not heroics.)
Finish with 1–2 minutes of slow nasal breathing to downshift and stabilize (this targets vagal tone more directly than high-ventilation patterns).
Sources:
Breathwork and Mental Health
Wim Hof Method Research
Breathwork for Veterans / PTSD
Exercise and Mental Health
Psychedelic / Plant Medicine Clinical Research
Sweat Lodge Research / Safety
VA Resources on Breathwork
Wim Hof Method Official Resources
