How Breathwork Is Changing the Corporate World and Why Leaders Can’t Ignore It
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Rosanna Holmström is a breathwork and nervous system expert, international speaker, and cybersecurity professional. She teaches leaders and high performers how to regulate their inner state and access clarity, resilience, and sustainable performance.
For years, corporate success was defined by how much you could endure, long hours, tight deadlines, and constant pressure. This trend mirrors what other thought leaders are observing, as explored in Why Regulated Leaders Are the Future: Emotional Intelligence in High-Pressure Environments published by Brainz Magazine.
But as I sit here in New York City, one of the most performance-driven and stressed cities in the world, something is clearer than ever, we’ve been measuring performance in the wrong way.
Sustainable performance doesn’t come from pushing harder. It comes from a regulated nervous system, from a body that feels safe and steady. Breathwork, once dismissed as “alternative,” is now entering scientific, corporate, and academic spaces as a legitimate tool for human health and high performance.
My intention in coming to the U.S. was clear, to place breathwork firmly on the academic map. And witnessing the response at Yale University showed me just how ready leaders, researchers, and high performers truly are for this shift.
What is breathwork, and why does it matter at work?
Breathwork is the intentional use of the breath to influence the state of your nervous system. When stress builds, the body sends signals of danger, a racing heart, shallow breathing, tight muscles, scattered focus, reactive decisions. This is survival mode, and many people unintentionally spend years, even entire careers, operating from this place.
You can’t lead, create, or think clearly from survival. From that state, all you can do is react.
But when you slow down your breath, lengthen your exhale, and bring awareness back into the body, something shifts. You activate the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system, the part responsible for clarity, recovery, emotional steadiness, and grounded decision-making.
Breathwork gives you access to the version of yourself who can lead authentically, from a regulated, steady, and emotionally present state.
Why breathwork works (and why researchers are paying attention)
Scientific interest in breathwork has accelerated, with high-quality studies emerging across clinical psychology, workplace wellbeing, and human performance. Three findings stand out, and together, they paint a very clear picture.
A large 2023 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Affective Disorders showed that breath-based interventions significantly reduced stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, with strong effect sizes across all three areas. In other words, breathwork is not a placebo or a “nice to have” - it produces measurable emotional and physiological change.
In the workplace, a 2023 controlled study in Frontiers in Psychology demonstrated that even five minutes of slow, paced breathing improved employees’ mood, reduced anxiety, and increased emotional steadiness. This is particularly relevant for corporate environments where decision-making, communication, and presence matter just as much as output.
And most recently, a 2025 review in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews confirmed that slow, resonance breathing increases HRV (heart-rate variability), improves vagal tone, and strengthens stress resilience, three of the most important markers for cognitive clarity and long-term performance.
Together, these findings reflect a shift in the scientific world. High performance begins with a regulated nervous system. And breathwork is the fastest, most accessible way to influence it.
Breathwork is no longer a wellness add-on. It is becoming a science-backed performance tool, one with growing recognition in both academic and corporate spaces.
Breathwork and athletic performance
In the world of professional sports, milliseconds and emotional control can determine outcomes in my work with athletes, especially high-intensity competitors like MMA fighters, hockey players, and boxers. I’ve seen that breathwork often becomes the difference between reacting and responding.
Under pressure, the sympathetic nervous system fires hard. Heart rate spikes. Muscles tighten. Breathing becomes erratic. Thinking narrows.
Breathwork reverses that pattern. Elite athletes learn to:
Stay calm under pressure
Recover faster between efforts
Maintain focus and emotional control
Perform from clarity rather than panic
Recent sports-science insights support this, slow breathing boosts HRV, enhances vagal tone, and improves both cognitive and physical recovery, all crucial for high-pressure performance.
One MMA athlete I coached told me, “For the first time, I felt in control of my nervous system, even under pressure.”
Different arenas, same physiology. The tools that steady an athlete in the ring can steady a leader in the boardroom.
What happens when we regulate the breath?
Whether I’m working with professional athletes, startup founders, senior executives, or individuals healing from burnout, the principle is the same. When we regulate the breath, the nervous system shifts, and with it, performance improves across every dimension. Athletes learn to stay steady under pressure. People recovering from exhaustion rebuild a sense of inner safety. Teams finally recognise the real source of their exhaustion, chronic sympathetic activation.
And the reality is simple. A chronically stressed leader can’t inspire, stay present, or make grounded decisions.
Breathwork becomes a performance advantage by restoring:
emotional regulation
cognitive clarity
physical recovery
self-awareness
It gives people access to their natural state, one of presence, balance, and genuine wellbeing.
Academic and scientific recognition: Nobel Prize dialogue & Yale University
In 2024 and 2025, I had the privilege of bringing breathwork into two respected academic and scientific environments, The Nobel Prize Dialogue and Yale University.
Nobel Prize dialogue: The future of health
At the Nobel Prize Dialogue, my dear friend and brilliant psychotherapist Roshi Derakshan and I were invited to guide a compact breathwork session for global researchers, scientists, and physicians, people who dedicate their careers to understanding the body, the brain, and human wellbeing through rigorous science. Introducing breathwork in this setting carried a special weight.
For many in the audience, it was the first time breathwork was presented not as something “alternative,” but as a physiologically grounded practice, one that directly influences the autonomic nervous system, emotional regulation, and stress recovery.
When the room fell silent and hundreds of people dropped into their breath at the same time, it was a defining moment. You could feel the collective shift, curiosity turning into experience, science meeting embodiment.
After the session, several people came up to us and shared that they felt more present, calm, and genuinely settled in their bodies for the rest of the event, a shift they weren’t expecting.
Yale University: Two days of breathwork for global leaders
At Yale, I was invited to teach the World Fellows of 2025, a highly selective group of international leaders, founders, engineers, diplomats, and scientists. These are people shaping policy, technology, healthcare, and innovation on a global level.
For two full days, I guided them through a deep immersion in nervous system science, breathwork, and regulation tools designed for high-pressure environments.
We explored:
How the nervous system responds to stress
How breath influences cognitive clarity and decision-making
How to shift from sympathetic activation into steady, grounded presence
How to use breathwork as a tool for recovery, resilience, and emotional intelligence
What struck me most was their openness. These are leaders accustomed to thinking fast and carrying heavy responsibility, and yet the moment that resonated most was the simple act of breathing with intention.
The reflection I heard again and again was the same, a sense of relaxation, presence, and renewed energy rising all at once.
“An amazing experience which left me feeling relaxed and motivated.” – Emma Sky, Director of Yale International Leadership Center.
Seeing breathwork welcomed with respect, curiosity, and genuine enthusiasm in an Ivy League setting was powerful. It showed me that the shift is already happening.
Why breathwork belongs in scientific and corporate spaces
It is rare to see breathwork in academic corridors and even rarer to see institutions not only open to it, but genuinely hungry for it.
This shift mirrors what other thought leaders are observing in corporate culture as well, highlighted in The Burnout Myth: Why Exhaustion Isn’t a Badge of Honor for Leaders, published by Brainz Magazine.
Science and academia are beginning to validate what many of us have felt intuitively for years, nervous system regulation is the foundation of sustainable, long-term human performance and health. And breathwork is finally being recognised as a tool that belongs both in research discussions and in the rooms where leaders are shaped.
The corporate shift
For years, companies rewarded speed, long hours, constant availability, and endless output. But those behaviours come with a high cost, turnover, chronic stress, anxiety, cognitive fatigue, and emotional numbness. In many cases, people don’t return from burnout, and organisations lose talent they can’t replace.
According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety.
Today’s most effective leaders recognise a deeper truth:
Regulated people make better decisions
Calm leadership builds trust faster than pressure ever could
Grounded employees perform better, stay longer, and collaborate more effectively
This shift isn’t about doing less, it’s about doing from a regulated state. We don’t need more productivity hacks. We need calmer nervous systems.
Three breathwork tools you can use today
These are simple, fast, and powerful.
Physiological sigh: Two short inhales through the nose + one long exhale out the mouth. Best for: overwhelm, anxiety spikes, tense moments.
Box breathing: Breathe through your nose. Inhale 4 - hold 4 - exhale 4 - hold 4. Best for: focus, clarity, staying centered.
Extended exhale breathing: Breathe through your nose, inhale 4 - exhale 6-8. Best for: regulation, recovery, emotional steadiness.
These are not just breathing techniques, they are the body’s own built-in mechanisms for regulation.
Breathwork is the competitive edge the corporate world has missed
Breathwork isn’t about performing more, it’s about becoming more present. When the nervous system settles, something powerful happens, thinking becomes clearer, emotions become steadier, communication becomes authentic, and leadership becomes more human. From that place, performance stops being a drain and starts becoming something sustainable, something people can hold without losing themselves.
We are moving into a new era of corporate success, one where regulated humans outperform relentless hustle, and where well-being isn’t a perk but a prerequisite for excellence. Organisations that understand this will lead the future, not because they push harder, but because their people are grounded, connected, and able to show up fully.
Read more from Rosanna Holmström
Rosanna Holmström, Breathwork Expert and International Speaker
Rosanna Holmström is a breathwork and nervous system expert, international speaker, and cybersecurity professional. She helps leaders, founders, and individuals recovering from burnout regulate their inner world and access clarity, resilience, and sustainable energy. Through her brand Breathe With Rosie, she integrates breathwork and nervous system awareness into leadership, culture, and personal transformation.
