Breathing to focus before you study or work

What you're after: calm and awake

To focus, you don't need to be in nap mode, and you don't need to be revved up. You're looking for the middle: a still body and an alert mind.

That's why the patterns in this guide are even. The inhale and the exhale last the same, or close to it, and the pace is slow without making you drowsy. Counting helps all by itself: while you count, your attention is already on one thing.

Three breathing patterns for before you start

Pick one and do it sitting down, with a long back and your feet on the floor, before you open the notebook or the screen.

• Equal breathing (sama vritti). In for 4 seconds and out for 4, with no pauses, for five minutes. It's the simplest and the best one to begin with.
• Box breathing 4-4-4-4. In for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, and hold for 4 with empty lungs, for four minutes. The pauses give your attention more to do. If holding your breath feels uncomfortable, stick with equal breathing.
• Coherent breathing 5-5. In for 5 seconds and out for 5, for five minutes. It's the slowest of the three: six breaths a minute, the pace studies have measured most.

Between one task and the next

The Screen break lasts two minutes: in for 4 seconds, out for 4, and a 2-second rest before you breathe in again. It's designed to let your shoulders drop and your eyes rest between tasks.

Use it when you catch yourself rereading the same line. Look away from the screen, find something far off, and let the count fill those two minutes. Then decide whether to keep going or switch tasks.

What the studies say

There are a few small studies on slow breathing and attention. In one from 2021, by Laborde and colleagues, 78 young adults did three five-minute blocks of slow, paced breathing and, as a comparison, watched television. After breathing they were more accurate on a classic attention test, the Stroop task, and did better on working memory and mental flexibility tasks. They didn't respond any faster. And the improvement wasn't explained by changes in heart rhythm, so the mechanism is still unclear.

In another, from 2017, 40 healthy adults were randomly split into two groups. One received 20 sessions of very slow diaphragmatic breathing, around four breaths a minute, over eight weeks. At the end, that group improved more than the control group on a sustained attention test. That's a much longer and slower training than any pattern in this guide.

A 2018 systematic review by Zaccaro and colleagues, covering 15 studies of healthy people, lists a greater sense of alertness and vigor during slow breathing among its findings, along with more relaxation.

There's less on box breathing. The authors of a 2023 Stanford trial note that it's used in the military to regulate stress and improve performance. That trial measured mood and anxiety, not concentration. Bottom line: the evidence is limited, comes from small groups, and is almost all about slow breathing in general, not about one particular count.

Common mistakes

• Breathing too big. The pace is slow, but the amount of air is normal. If you get dizzy, you're taking in too much.
• Forcing the holds. In box breathing, holding isn't clamping down. If you feel an urge to breathe, shorten the counts or switch to equal breathing.
• Choosing a pattern meant for sleep. Very long exhales are for letting go. Before studying, they can leave you sleepy.
• Doing it with your phone buzzing next to you. Silence notifications for those minutes. Breathing marks the start, but it can't compete with interruptions.
• Expecting it to do all the work. Sleep, food and breaks count for more than any technique.

When to ask for help

If you feel dizzy, tingly or short of breath, stop and breathe at your normal pace. If you have a heart, lung or blood pressure condition, or you're pregnant, check with your care provider before practicing breath holds.

A breathing pattern is a way to get started, not a fix for an attention problem. If you've had trouble concentrating for a long time, and it's affecting your studies, your work or your mood, see a health professional.