Slow breathing shifts the brain's reward signals and raises risky choices

A study published in the journal Neuron finds that deliberately slowing the breath — specifically, making the exhalation much longer than the inhalation — shifts both autonomic physiology and the way the brain values rewards, nudging people toward riskier choices. The paper appeared online on May 28, 2026.

How the experiment worked

A team led by Soyoung Q. Park, with affiliations including the German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE) in Nuthetal, Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, recruited 49 healthy adults aged 18 to 40. Forty-one of them (24 women, mean age 24.8 years) completed the study and entered the behavioural analysis.

Inside an fMRI scanner, participants performed a risky choice task while following one of two breathing patterns: prolonged exhalation, with a fixed 2-second inhalation and 8-second exhalation, or eupnea, their own natural rhythm. Each trial offered a possible win of €10–30 and a possible loss of €5–15, both at 50% probability, and participants had three seconds to accept or reject the gamble. Respiration, cardiac activity, skin conductance and pupil responses were recorded throughout. The study was pre-registered on the Open Science Framework.

What changed in the body

The manipulation worked as intended: exhalation lasted about five seconds longer and breathing slowed by roughly six breaths per minute. Cardiac parasympathetic markers rose strongly — respiratory heart-rate variability increased with a large effect size (Cohen's d = 1.38) and the RMSSD index rose moderately (d = 0.44). Sympathetic markers did not move: neither skin conductance nor pupil size differed significantly between the two conditions, suggesting the technique selectively engages the "rest-and-digest" branch of the nervous system.

Riskier choices, driven by rewards

Under prolonged exhalation, participants accepted more gambles overall, and the effect traced back to rewards rather than losses. The influence of potential gains on decisions was significantly stronger during slow breathing, while sensitivity to potential losses stayed the same; a formal statistical comparison confirmed the asymmetry. Response times and measures of choice consistency were similar in both conditions, so the shift was not explained by inattention or randomness.

Brain and outlook

Among the 35 participants with usable brain and cardiac data, those whose parasympathetic activity increased most during slow breathing showed stronger reward-related activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the precuneus, regions associated with subjective value and self-referential processing. The authors stress that the task was optimised as a proof of principle and that the rise in reward sensitivity may not generalise to other designs. They present prolonged exhalation as a low-cost, easy-to-learn candidate for clinical and high-stakes settings — from anxiety and depression treatment to military and aviation training — while noting that real-world tests are still needed.