Effects of Coherent Breathing Breathwork on Mental Health and Wellbeing: A Randomised Placebo-controlled Study

The investigators are conducting a randomised-controlled trial comparing coherent breathing at ~5.5 breath cycles per minute-bcpm (with equal inhalation/exhalation durations of ~5.5secs each) to a well-designed placebo (paced breathing at 12bcpm with equal inhalation/exhalation durations of 2.5secs each). The metric of 12bcpm is in line with guidance from the British Journal of Nursing, Royal College of Physicians, and Johns Hopkins University which state that the average, healthy bcpm should range from: 12-20bcpm, 12-18bcpm, and 12-16bcpm, respectively, hence the investigators chose the minimum/lower bound for the active placebo control group. The main questions that our study attempts to address are: Does coherent breathing (and placebo coherent breathing) lead to improved mental health and wellbeing in a general population adult sample?

The study will be conducted entirely online through the research platform Prolific, so participant data will be anonymous. The investigators will collect self-reports of mental health and wellbeing before and after the four-week breathwork period, along with a follow-up one-month later. Pre-post intervention and follow-up questionnaires will be completed online via the survey platform Qualtrics which will be linked to Prolific. Participants will also be asked how many times they practiced out of the assigned 28 days, to gauge self-reported adherence to the protocol. The investigators can then observe whether self-reported adherence correlates with changes in mental health and wellbeing, if any. Data on the self-reported credibility/expectancy of the breathwork randomly allocated to participants will also be collected, along with open-ended responses on participants' overall experience of the protocol/study.