Thinking Healthy and Stress Reduction

09/11/2026

01/11/2026

Depression and food: a look at Tim Spector’s "Good Mood Food"

As regular readers will know, I have often discussed the SMILES trial led by Professor Felice Jacka at Deakin University. Published in 2017, it provided important evidence that improving what we eat could help people experiencing depression. Over 12 weeks, participants receiving dietary support had greater improvements in depressive symptoms than those receiving social support. Around 32% of those completing the dietary intervention reached remission, compared with 8% in the comparison group (Jacka et al., 2017).
Improving what we eat is one part of a comprehensive treatment plan for depression. Its place is alongside psychological therapy, medication where appropriate, physical activity, sleep, social connection and attention to the circumstances affecting a person’s life. These are all areas we pay attention to at Thinking Healthy. Most participants in SMILES were already receiving medication, psychological therapy, or both.
Now Professor Tim Spector, scientific co-founder of ZOE, has released *Good Mood Food*, created with ZOE. I have my copy, and I am impressed. With Melbourne Cup week upon us, I suspect putting more variety and nourishment on our plates is a sounder investment than my ability to pick a winner.
The book brings the discussion into the kitchen. Its science introduction was written with Dr Federica Amati, with more than 100 recipes developed with Kathryn Bruton. The emphasis is on varied plant foods, colourful ingredients, fermented foods and practical cooking. Quick meals and options for cooking ahead acknowledge something that matters when we are depressed: knowing what might help and having the energy to do it are different things (Spector, 2026b).
For me, this is its appeal. Research becomes useful when we can translate it into something we can prepare, afford and enjoy eating.
There is considerable overlap with Mediterranean-style eating: vegetables, fruit, beans, lentils, wholegrains, nuts and olive oil, with fish and other foods contributing to the overall pattern. These approaches need not exclude meat. The modified Mediterranean diet used in SMILES included lean red meat, chicken, eggs and dairy, as well as fish. The trial tested an improvement in the whole eating pattern, supported by a dietitian (Jacka et al., 2017).
Where do our gut microbes and inflammation fit?
Our gut microbiota—the community of microorganisms living in our digestive system—helps process what we eat and interacts with our immune system. A beneficial microbial community can support the regulation of inflammation. Spector describes how microbes break down dietary fibre into substances including short-chain fatty acids, which can help regulate immune activity. Feeding these microbes is one reason for including a variety of fibre-rich plant foods in our meals (Spector, 2026b).
"Anti-inflammatory” does not mean switching inflammation off. We need inflammation to respond to infection and injury. The aim is a well-regulated response that settles when its work is done. Persistent, low-grade inflammation may contribute to depression in some people, making this a relevant part of the food and mood discussion. It is one possible pathway among several, rather than an explanation for everyone’s depression (Spector, 2026b).
A substantial study published in *Nature* this year, with Tim Spector among its authors, strengthens the evidence connecting diet, gut microbes and physical health. Drawing on data from more than 34,000 people, researchers identified microbes associated with dietary patterns and health markers, including inflammation. In another 746 participants from two dietary intervention trials, microbes associated with more favourable health markers increased, while those associated with less favourable markers decreased (Asnicar et al., 2026).
That is useful evidence that dietary change can shift our microbial community. The study did not directly test depression treatment, however, so we cannot use it to claim that those microbial changes relieved depression.
Recent treatment research gives us reasons for encouragement, although findings are not uniform. A review in *Nutrition Reviews* found that Mediterranean dietary interventions reduced depressive symptoms across five randomised trials, but rated the evidence as low certainty (Bizzozero-Peroni et al., 2025). Another review found no statistically significant benefit, with very low certainty for most results (Tavakoly et al., 2025). Larger and longer studies will help clarify who benefits, by how much and under what circumstances.
My view is that *Good Mood Food* is a useful, inviting contribution to this conversation. Its value lies in helping us turn an interest in food and mental health into everyday meals. We can appreciate that contribution while keeping our expectations proportionate to the evidence.
And we can begin gently. Add some lentils to a familiar soup. Try another vegetable. Keep a simple meal available for a difficult day. If someone is struggling, helping with shopping, cooking or sharing a meal may make these changes possible.
Food deserves a place in comprehensive care. So do pleasure, practical support and kindness towards ourselves when preparing dinner feels like a considerable achievement.
**References**
Asnicar, F., Manghi, P., Fackelmann, G., Baldanzi, G., Bakker, E., Ricci, L., Piccinno, G., Piperni, E., Mladenovic, K., Amati, F., Arrè, A., Ganesh, S., Giordano, F., Davies, R., Wolf, J., Bermingham, K. M., Berry, S. E., Spector, T. D., & Segata, N. (2026). Gut micro-organisms associated with health, nutrition and dietary interventions. *Nature, 650*, 450–458. [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09854-7](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09854-7)
Bizzozero-Peroni, B., Martínez-Vizcaíno, V., Fernández-Rodríguez, R., Jiménez-López, E., Núñez de Arenas-Arroyo, S., Saz-Lara, A., Díaz-Goñi, V., & Mesas, A. E. (2025). The impact of the Mediterranean diet on alleviating depressive symptoms in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. *Nutrition Reviews, 83*(1), 29–39. [https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuad176](https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuad176)
Jacka, F. N., O’Neil, A., Opie, R., Itsiopoulos, C., Cotton, S., Mohebbi, M., Castle, D., Dash, S., Mihalopoulos, C., Chatterton, M. L., Brazionis, L., Dean, O. M., Hodge, A. M., & Berk, M. (2017). A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the ‘SMILES’ trial). *BMC Medicine, 15*, Article 23. [https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0791-y](https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0791-y)
Spector, T. (2026a). *Good mood food*. Jonathan Cape.
Spector, T. (2026b, October 15). *Introducing Good Mood Food*. Gut Feelings with Professor Tim Spector. https://timspector.substack.com/p/introducing-good-mood_food
https://timspector.substack.com/p/introducing-good-mood-food
Tavakoly, R., Moosburner, A., Anheyer, D., & Cramer, H. (2025). Effect of different dietary patterns on patients with depressive disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. *Nutrients, 17*(3), Article 563. [https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17030563](https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17030563)
You can find 'Good Mood Food' by Tim Spector on Amazon Australia:
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1787336476
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1787336476

30/10/2026

When Checking the News Becomes Part of the Worry

Some of the news is disturbing, and it can be difficult to know which reports deserve our attention. Social media brings us breaking stories before the facts are established, followed by predictions, arguments and confident explanations. We can finish reading feeling less sure of what to believe, or simply more uneasy, than when we started.

There are two difficulties here: the uncertainty coming at us, and our capacity to tolerate not knowing. There is evidence that intolerance of uncertainty has increased over time. Researchers comparing 52 North American studies found an increase between 1999 and 2014, alongside growing internet use and mobile-phone uptake. That does not prove technology caused the increase, but it raises a question: does ready access to reassurance give us fewer opportunities to practise not knowing?

Our feeds also give us a selected picture of events. Clicking on a disturbing story can register as interest, and we may then be shown more stories on that theme—even if we clicked because we were concerned or doubtful. Seeing the same or similar claims repeatedly can make them feel more believable, even when several posts are simply repeating one unverified story. After a while, it can seem as though danger is everywhere.

Our predicting brains contribute too. They draw on past experience—our “old libraries”—to anticipate what might happen next. Give a worried mind a frightening headline and a few gaps in the story, and it can produce a dreadful future. We may feel that imagined future in our bodies, with tension, an unsettled stomach or difficulty sleeping. Those feelings are real, but they don’t establish that the prediction is accurate.

We can pause and ask, “What do I actually know? What am I assuming? Is there something useful I can do?” Sometimes checking provides an answer. Sometimes we need to let the question remain open and choose when to check again. The discomfort may linger, but we can practise continuing with our day while some things remain unresolved.

A short meditation

Sit comfortably and notice your feet on the floor. Keep your eyes open if you prefer, and let your breathing come and go naturally. Bring to mind an uncertainty that feels manageable today, then notice where your mind goes. What does it predict? Are there words, pictures or imagined conversations?

Notice what happens in your body too. You might acknowledge, “My mind is trying to work this out. Of course I would like an answer; this matters to me.” There is no need to force yourself to relax.

Feel your feet again, listen to the sounds around you or look around the room. Ask yourself, “Can I leave this unanswered for these few moments?” If the urge to check appears, give yourself a little time before deciding what to do. Before finishing, consider what needs your care in the next hour. The washing, the garden and the people around us still need some attention.

I’ve written a longer article, “When the News Leaves Us Unsettled”, with references to the research and Elissa Epel’s The Stress Prescription. You’ll find it under Understanding Ourselves on the Thinking Healthy website. It is the second major article, immediately after Safety vs Safeness.

Counselling, mindfulness and self-compassion skill development

22/10/2026

Counselling and relationship support in Alexandra and online across Australia.

At Thinking Healthy, John Julian and Joanna (Jo) Walz offer a warm, thoughtful space to talk things through, understand recurring patterns and develop practical ways forward.

We support people experiencing anxiety, low mood, stress and relationship difficulties, drawing on compassionate, evidence-based approaches tailored to each person’s circumstances.

John is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with more than 47 years’ experience. Jo is a qualified social worker with a Diploma of Community Services and a Bachelor of Social Work.

John and Jo offer joint appointments by agreement, bringing two perspectives to your care for the usual fee of a session with one therapist. Medicare rebates are available for eligible individual appointments with John under a Mental Health Treatment Plan.

Clients can also choose to see Jo independently as a private fee-for-service client. Medicare rebates do not apply to these appointments.

Both individual and relationship counselling are available in person in Alexandra and by telehealth across Australia. WorkSafe enquiries are also welcome.

To enquire about appointments, please call 0439 901 795 or email [email protected].

www.thinkinghealthy.com.au

Please feel welcome to share this post with someone who may find it helpful.

08/10/2026

Why do I practise both sitting meditation and mindful movement?

Restful Clarity

People sometimes ask me why, after so many years of meditation, I continue to practise both sitting meditation and mindful movement, particularly qigong and walking.

For me, they are not separate practices but complementary ways to cultivate awareness, compassion, and a more settled relationship with life. We are, after all, not just our brain or mind. We are interrelated in our bodies, brains (embodied brains), minds, and the enormous number of relational worlds that we interact with each day.

I sometimes say that trying to still the mind is like trying to catch the wind in a butterfly net. The harder we try, the more frustrating it becomes.

Meditation isn't about stopping thoughts. It's about changing our relationship with them.

Sitting meditation gives us an opportunity to notice thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations without automatically reacting to them. We gradually develop greater awareness, patience, emotional flexibility and compassion towards ourselves and others. Our attentional ability also grows.

Mindful movement, including qigong and walking, brings that same awareness into the moving body. We notice balance, breathing, muscle tension, posture and the changing sensations of movement. It can help release unnecessary tension, support physical wellbeing and bring us into a more embodied relationship with ourselves and our surroundings.

Both practices can help us become less caught up in habitual patterns of thinking and reacting. They complement one another beautifully. Sitting helps us learn to be present in stillness; movement helps us learn to remain present in action.

After all, most of our lives are spent moving, relating, working and responding to the world around us.

The aim isn't to have a perfectly still mind. It's to develop a more flexible, aware and compassionate relationship with our whole body–brain–mind, with other people and with the world we inhabit.

We don't need to catch the wind. We can learn to notice it, feel it and move with it.

In the end, I find that I experience restful clarity more often while moving through the day, as well as when sitting. Even when my mind is all over the place, I am more often able simply to notice what is happening and be with it, without needing to change it.

Wind moves through the trees
Thoughts drift across open skies
Restful clarity

29/09/2026

Six months after the fires: why am I still on edge?

Around Alexandra and Murrindindi, the fires may be over, but a smell of smoke, wind or a helicopter can still bring a sudden feeling of alarm. You might sleep poorly, check for updates repeatedly, or wonder why you are reacting when other people seem fine.

I call the patterns our brains learn from experience old libraries. An old library may recognise something that resembles the fires and alert your body before you have checked what is happening today.

When that happens, try three steps:

Check the facts. Look at VicEmergency and follow any current advice.

Notice your response. “My old library has raised the alarm. What can I see and hear around me right now?”

Choose one useful action. Follow your fire plan if needed. If there is no current warning, decide when to check again and return to something that helps you feel grounded or connected.

You do not need to force yourself to feel calm. If fire reminders are still affecting your sleep, relationships or everyday life, counselling can help you understand the pattern and find a way through it.

The longer article is on Thinking Healthy’s Understanding Ourselves page: https://www.thinkinghealthy.com.au/understanding-ourselves.php .

Send a message to learn more

17/09/2026

Understanding Interpersonal Neurobiology and Integration: Nine areas of integration

Interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) explores how our brain, mind, body and relationships continually influence and shape one another.

Integration means bringing together parts of ourselves that may usually operate separately—our bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories, relationships and sense of identity—so that they can communicate and work together.

The aim is not to make every part the same. Each part keeps its own role, but no single thought, emotion, memory or bodily reaction has to take control of the whole person.

For example, we might notice that our body feels frightened, recognise that an older predictive library has been activated, examine what is actually happening now, and choose how we want to respond. We don't ignore the feeling, nor the broader emotion that is part of it (remembering all emotions have a function), but we also don't let it become our whole reality.

The table below describes nine areas in which this linking can occur. Together, they help us respond to life with greater awareness, flexibility and choice.

17/09/2026

How integration changes our emotional lives

Why can a brief event—an unanswered message, a change of plans or a critical comment—sometimes activate hours of anxiety, anger or shame?

Compassion Focused Therapy helps us understand that emotions are not defects. They are coordinated body–brain–mind–relational responses that draw our attention to something important and prepare us to act.

Our threat system detects danger, rejection and uncertainty. Our drive system helps us pursue goals and resources. Our soothing and safeness system supports settling, connection and care. Emotional wellbeing does not come from eliminating any of these systems. It comes partly from helping them communicate more effectively.

Psychiatrist Dan Siegel calls this integration: allowing different parts of our experience to remain distinct while linking them into a more coherent whole.

Siegel describes nine domains of integration:

Consciousness—recognising that a thought or emotion is something occurring within awareness, rather than the whole of reality.
Vertical integration—connecting bodily sensations and survival responses with conscious thought and understanding.
Bilateral integration—linking words and analysis with bodily, emotional, contextual and imaginative experience.
Memory integration—recognising when an older predictive library is shaping our response to a present event.
Narrative integration—developing a coherent life story that includes difficulty without allowing difficulty to define everything.
State integration—recognising that our frightened, angry, confident, playful and caring states are different parts of one person.
Interpersonal integration—remaining connected with another person while retaining our own perspective, needs and boundaries.
Temporal integration—learning to live with change, uncertainty, ageing, loss and the limited nature of time.
Identity integration—developing a sense of self that is larger than any single emotion, role, mistake or achievement.

Imagine receiving a short message from your manager: “Please see me tomorrow.”

Your stomach tightens. Your mind predicts criticism. An older memory of being humiliated at work is activated. You begin thinking, “I always get things wrong.”

Integration allows more of the system to participate:

“My body has detected possible danger. An older library has been activated. I do not yet know why my manager wants to see me. I can acknowledge the anxiety, settle my body and wait for more information.”

The anxiety is real, but it is no longer the whole story.

Integration does not mean experiencing only positive emotions. An integrated person still experiences sadness, fear, anger, shame and disappointment. The difference is that the emotion can be felt, understood and communicated without either being suppressed or controlling the whole system.

Compassion helps us reach this position:

“This emotion is real and important, but it is not the whole of me, the whole of this situation or the only guide to what I should do next.”

I have explored this more fully in a new article bringing together Compassion Focused Therapy, emotions and Dan Siegel’s nine domains of integration on the webpage

Counselling, mindfulness and self-compassion skill development

10/09/2026

Three New Mindfulness Programs — Online Course, Practice Day and Marysville Mini-Retreat

Hello everyone,

I am pleased to offer three new mindfulness programs this spring: an eight-session online course, a Day of Embodied and Relational Mindfulness in North Brighton, and either a one-day program or an extended 1¾-day mini-retreat in Marysville. All three programs are suitable for beginners, as well as experienced practitioners wishing to renew or deepen their practice.

NEW EIGHT-SESSION ONLINE MINDFULNESS COURSE

Embodied, Compassionate and Relational Mindfulness

Tuesday evenings, 6.00–8.00 pm**
Beginning Tuesday 6 October 2026**
**Eight sessions over nine weeks, with Melbourne Cup week off**
**Online**

**Cost: $360**
**Professional fee with PD recognition: $450**

No one will be excluded solely because of their capacity to pay.

This new course brings together traditional and contemporary approaches to mindfulness. It draws upon Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Compassion-Focused Therapy, neuroscience, evolutionary understandings of the human mind, and relational approaches to wellbeing.

The course will explore mindfulness as more than something that happens privately inside our heads. We will examine the continual interaction between the body, brain, mind and relational world:

* Body: sensations, movement, posture, breathing and the signals through which the body communicates.
* Brain: prediction, attention, learning, and the nervous system’s patterns of threat, drive and safeness.
* Mind: thoughts, emotions, feelings, images, meanings and awareness.
* Relational: how other people, groups and environments shape us—and how our presence and behaviour affect them in return.

The program will include guided meditation, breathing practices, gentle qigong and yoga-based movement, practical psychological approaches, group discussion and opportunities for reflection. Participants will also receive guidance in developing a regular home practice.

We will look at the strengths and limitations of traditional and contemporary forms of mindfulness. The aim is not to achieve a permanently calm or thought-free state, but to develop greater awareness, compassion, flexibility and freedom in how we respond to life.

People with a current Mental Health Treatment Plan may be eligible for a Medicare rebate under **Medicare Item 80171 for sessions in the eight-session online group program only**. After the Medicare rebate, any remaining course fee is negotiable according to the person’s capacity to pay, including their level of disposable income. Please contact me confidentially if you would like to discuss this.

---

A DAY OF EMBODIED AND RELATIONAL MINDFULNESS

**Saturday 19 September 2026, 10.00 am–3.30 pm**
**St Stephen’s Café, 111 North Road, North Brighton**
**Cost: $45 — BYO lunch**

This in-person day will provide an experiential introduction to mindfulness, meditation and the Body–Brain–Mind–Relational framework.

Mindfulness is often presented as something we do privately inside our own minds. During this day, we will explore how our experience and wellbeing arise through the continual interaction of the body, brain, mind, other people and the environments in which we live.

The day will include guided meditation, mindful breathing, gentle qigong and yoga-based movement, periods of silence, reflective discussion and relational mindfulness practices.

Using psychological and neuroscience research, we will explore how earlier experiences can become automatic Body–Brain–Mind–Relational “libraries” through which we predict and interpret what is happening now. We will also consider how repeated experiences of awareness, compassion, connection and safeness can gradually help us revise old libraries and develop new ones.

The emphasis will not be on performing the practices perfectly or achieving a special state. It will be on learning to notice what is happening across the body, brain, mind and relational world—and developing greater choice in how we respond.

No previous experience of meditation, qigong or yoga is required. All movement practices can be adapted to individual needs.

The day also provides an opportunity to experience some of the practices and ideas that will be explored more deeply during the eight-session online course.

---

**A DAY OF PRACTICE AND MINI-RETREAT IN MARYSVILLE**

**Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October 2026**
**Attend Saturday as a one-day program, or continue on Sunday for the full 1¾-day mini-retreat**

This third offering provides an opportunity to go more deeply into meditation practice while retaining clear introductory guidance for people who are new to meditation.

Saturday will be structured around practice periods of approximately 20–25 minutes, followed by brief inquiry and discussion. Practices will include:

* Zen sitting meditation
* preliminary Tibetan calm-abiding meditation
* an introduction to mantra through the Pure Speech blessing and mantra
* a number of brief Christian mindfulness/meditation practices
* mindful walking
* lying-down body meditation
* nature meditation

We will also explore contemporary neuroscience and some interesting ways in which mindfulness, meditation and contact with nature can support the body, brain, mind and relational world.

Those attending on Sunday will continue more deeply into the sitting, walking and nature-based meditation practices. The extended format will allow more space for silence, settling, inquiry and the gradual development of practice. This is an urban-style retreat where you attend each day and organise your own accommodation and breakfast and dinner meals. Those coming on Friday will be welcome to have dinner at John's house in Alexandra and an early-morning brief garden tour.

**Costs:**

* For residents of Murrindindi Shire, attendance on Saturday is by donation. Those continuing on Sunday pay $40, including Sunday lunch.
* For people living outside Murrindindi Shire, the Saturday program costs $60, including lunch.
* For people living outside Murrindindi Shire attending the full 1¾-day mini-retreat, the cost is $150, including lunch on both days.

Each of the three programs can be attended independently. People are welcome to begin with whichever format best suits their interests, experience and circumstances.

**Places are strictly limited. The October Marysville program can accommodate a maximum of 14 participants.**

**Bookings, enquiries and confidential fee discussions:**

John Julian
Accredited Mental Health Social Worker
[[email protected]](mailto: [email protected])

08/09/2026

A useful small study on breathing and acute stress.

Researchers randomly allocated 66 university students to one of three conditions before a stressful five-minute public-speaking task:

Box breathing: inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold for four.
Prolonged exhalation: inhale through the nose for three seconds and exhale slowly through pursed lips for six seconds, repeated once every 30 seconds.
Normal breathing.

The two controlled-breathing groups practised for five minutes before the speech and for one minute afterwards. Unlike the normal-breathing group, they did not show the same increases in heart rate, self-reported anxiety or salivary alpha-amylase, a marker associated with sympathetic nervous-system activation. Neither technique improved or impaired performance on the subsequent mental-arithmetic and Stroop tests. Cortisol declined in all three groups, so the study did not demonstrate an effect on the hormonal stress response.

My commentary

This is an interesting and practically useful finding. It adds to the evidence that deliberately changing the breath can change the state of the body-brain-mind, particularly immediately before a predictable stressful event. Five minutes of breathing is accessible, inexpensive and easily taught. Importantly, the exercises reduced physiological and subjective stress without impairing cognitive performance.

However, the headline claim that breathing exercises “prevent stress spikes” needs some qualification. This was a small study of 66 university students exposed to a relatively mild, artificial stressor involving prerecorded rather than live judges. The results show reduced short-term reactivity under these particular laboratory conditions; they do not yet establish that the techniques will reliably prevent stress responses during genuinely dangerous, prolonged or emotionally complex situations. Nor did the study demonstrate a cortisol effect or determine whether the benefits persisted.

The study is also quite limited when compared with the full range of breathing techniques available. It examined only box breathing and one intermittent prolonged-exhalation exercise. It did not compare continuous slow-paced breathing at about six breaths per minute, resonance-frequency or heart-rate-variability biofeedback, diaphragmatic breathing, gentle nasal breathing, coherent breathing, cyclic sighing, alternate-nostril breathing, traditional pranayama, Qigong breathing, breath retraining for over-breathing, or simple mindful awareness of the natural breath. Different methods may serve different purposes, and a calming technique suitable before public speaking is not necessarily the best technique for panic, sleep, persistent anxiety, respiratory dysfunction, cardiovascular regulation or meditation.

The wider evidence suggests that slow-paced breathing can produce modest immediate improvements in heart rate, systolic blood pressure and heart-rate variability. Nevertheless, longer-term emotional and health outcomes remain less certain, and responses vary between people. Breathing practices are therefore best understood as skills to be learned, practised and matched to the person and situation—not as a single quick technique or universal cure. As with most forms of body-brain-mind regulation: practice, practice and practice.

References

Balban, M. Y., Neri, E., Kogon, M. M., W**d, L., Nouriani, B., Jo, B., Holl, G., Zeitzer, J. M., Spiegel, D., & Huberman, A. D. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1), 100895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895

Laborde, S., Allen, M. S., Borges, U., Dosseville, F., Hosang, T. J., Iskra, M., Mosley, E., Salvotti, C., Spolverato, L., Zammit, N., & Javelle, F. (2022). Effects of voluntary slow breathing on heart rate and heart rate variability: A systematic review and a meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 138, 104711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104711

McAllister, M. J., Martaindale, M. H., Sutton, N., & Andersen, J. P. (2026). Box breathing and prolonged exhalation reduces markers of physiological stress reactivity in response to a virtual Trier Social Stress Test. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 27, 100360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2026.100360

Shao, R., Man, I. S. C., & Lee, T. M. C. (2024). The effect of slow-paced breathing on cardiovascular and emotion functions: A meta-analysis and systematic review. Mindfulness, 15, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02294-2

Zaccaro, A., Piarulli, A., Laurino, M., Garbella, E., Menicucci, D., Neri, B., & Gemignani, A. (2018). How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psychophysiological correlates of slow breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 353. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353

Background. The psycho-physiological changes in brain-body interaction observed in most of meditative and relaxing practices rely on voluntary slowing down o...