Here’s what happens when you take a breather

Here’s what we think happens when you take a breather. And here’s why you should care, according to the latest science.

Researchers from the University of California, University of Kentucky, Columbia University, and University of Denver published a paper in 2024 proposing that when we meditate, practise yoga, pray or engage in any other practices that they call “contemplative”, we are helping our body heal at a cellular level. This is a big step forward in our understanding of exactly why things like meditation and yoga are good for us.

Here’s what the researchers think is going on.

We are prone as humans to viewing the world through a fretful lens – wondering where the next stressor will come from, worried about things that have happened, or might happen. Contemplative practices help to perform a manual override on that hypervigilance.

Imagine you slow down during a hectic workday to do a quick body scan: closing your eyes, breathing deeply, and noticing how your body feels from toe to top. This simple breather is likely to be signalling three things, according to the research:

1. Physical safety. It tells our brains that the environment is safe, that we can switch off the “fight or flight” activation – we aren’t in physical danger – and it’s OK to slow down.
2. Social safety. Where we might usually be taking up precious brain capacity worrying about who is out to get us, or who doesn’t like us, this body scan signals to our brain and body that the coast is clear, and that it’s unlikely anyone is out to get us.
3. Psychological safety (Note: not the same kind that Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson attributes to high-performing teams). When we can establish physical and social safety, we can also switch off the part of our brain scanning for problems. We start to interrupt ruminating thoughts, unhelpful thinking patterns, and maybe even the self-dialogue that calls us up on every little mistake.

When we achieve these three types of safety, researchers think that magic starts to unfold inside our bodies. We activate a “deep rest” state, something that is most common during high-quality sleep, but is pretty hard to achieve otherwise. When we are in deep rest mode, we are kicking the calming side of our nervous system into action – the part that helps us to rest, restore, digest. This is in direct opposition to the side of our nervous system that can dominate our days – the fight, flight system that keeps us activated, switched on, ready to respond.

The “calming side”, otherwise known as our parasympathetic nervous system, puts our body into a restoration mode. Key to this is the cellular optimisation process implicated in countless health outcomes, where our DNA is repaired, our cell walls get strengthened, and we clear out the nasty waste that builds up in our cells (and lots more). When we go through this optimisation process, we feel better, age more slowly and reduce risk from illness and disease, among other beneficial outcomes.

And it looks like this engagement in deep rest builds up over time, causing long-term changes to the way our nervous system functions. In other words, the more we engage in contemplative practices to regulate our stress response, the easier it will become to achieve a state of deep rest, and the less likely we are to get into a state of prolonged stress in the first place.

Fascinatingly, researchers argue that sleep – while it should be the deepest rest of all – is too often compromised by us not feeling safe when we are asleep. Loud sounds at night, exposure to threats, and high levels of stress throughout the day are thought to impact on our nervous system even when we sleep, leaving us feeling physically and psychologically vulnerable and blocking our ability to really, deeply rest. If so, contemplative practices, like yoga and meditation, might be a good add-on for people who aren’t sleeping well, both to top-up deep rest during the day, and improve sleep quality at night.