Our breathing rhythm can help us store and retrieve information better. This is suggested by a study that analyzed the brain activity of 18 volunteers while they were learning or trying to remember what they had learned. Accordingly, information reaches our memory best when it is presented while inhaling. When we breathe out, it is easier for us to reactivate memory content. However, it is still unclear whether the findings can be directly transferred to learning strategies that emphasize breathing.
Our breathing primarily serves to supply our body with oxygen. But it also seems to have a far-reaching influence beyond that. Previous studies have shown that the way we breathe in and out influences the rhythm of our neuronal activity and can help us learn both when we are awake and help us store new information while we sleep. However, the mechanisms behind it are only partially understood so far.
Learn to the rhythm of your breath
A team led by Esteban Tarrasó from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) has now evaluated data from 18 test subjects who learned to associate 120 pictures with certain words for an experiment. These associations were queried directly after the learning phase and again after a two-hour nap. Meanwhile, the researchers recorded the volunteers’ breathing rhythm and recorded their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG).
This showed that if the corresponding cue word was presented during or shortly before inhaling, the test subjects were better able to remember the corresponding picture. “However, the EEG shows that the actual retrieval of memories takes place during the subsequent exhalation,” reports Tarrasó’s colleague Thomas Schreiner. “Our data therefore suggest a kind of functional dichotomy: inhaling is a favorable moment for receiving the cue, and exhaling is a favorable moment for the actual reconstruction of the memory in the brain.”
Synchronization with brain activity
The EEG recordings also provided insight into the underlying mechanisms: During exhalation, both the alpha waves, which are associated with relaxed alertness, and the beta waves, which are associated with active concentration, weaken. At the same time, those neuronal patterns that were active during learning are reactivated – an indication of the retrieval of memory content. “Our results show that both important neural signatures for successful remembering were modulated together during exhalation,” the team reports.
In some test subjects, brain activity fluctuated more with the rhythm of breathing than in others. “It is remarkable that the strength of this connection between breathing and the brain is related to individual memory performance,” say the researchers. “The stronger the interaction between breathing and the neuronal reactivation processes, the better the memory performance.” However, it is still unclear whether this harmony between breathing and brain activity can be consciously promoted. In the current study, the test subjects maintained their natural breathing rhythm and focused entirely on the memory task.
“In order to find out whether strategies suitable for everyday use can be derived from our findings, studies with targeted breathing manipulation would be necessary,” says Tarrasó. It is also unclear to what extent breathing also influences the recall of long-ago memories. “The underlying mechanisms suggest that breathing also plays a role here,” says Tarrasó. “Taken together, our results suggest that breathing may act as a scaffold for episodic memory retrieval in humans by coordinating the neural conditions that support effective remembering.”
Source: Esteban Bullón Tarrasó (LMU Munich) et al., The Journal of Neuroscience, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1221-25.2025