What is SAPS Breathing Technique?

SAPS breathing combines a breathing technique scientifically-proven to improve mood and reduce stress with the Shift. The SAPS technique takes the guesswork out of breathwork, and maximizes its impact.

SAPS stands for Shift-assisted Physiological Sigh. 

The Physiological Sigh was recently shown to help improve mood and reduce stress in a study conducted by a team at Stanford Medicine that included neuroscientist Andrew Huberman.

Daniel, our resident therapist (and cofounder!) created the SAPS breathing technique based on these findings. SAPS helps standardize and regulate the Physiological Sigh to simplify the practice and allow anyone to achieve a more positive mood and reduce stress.

How to perform the SAPS technique by licensed therapist Daniel Epstein.

Daniel is a licensed therapist. He's also a Komuso cofounder. Here he demonstrates the SAPS technique. Daniel created this technique based on the findings of the study above and the best practices he's developed during 12 years of helping his patients manage stress and anxiety and improve their overall mental and emotional health.

What is SAPS Breathing Technique?

SAPS breathing combines a breathing technique scientifically-proven to improve mood and reduce stress with the Shift. The SAPS technique takes the guesswork out of breathwork, and maximizes its impact.

SAPS stands for Shift-assisted Physiological Sigh. 

The Physiological Sigh was recently shown to help improve mood and reduce stress in a study conducted by a team at Stanford Medicine that included neuroscientist Andrew Huberman.

Daniel, our resident therapist (and cofounder!) created the SAPS breathing technique based on these findings. SAPS helps standardize and regulate the Physiological Sigh to simplify the practice and allow anyone to achieve a more positive mood and reduce str

How to perform the SAPS technique by licensed therapist Daniel Epstein.

Daniel is a licensed therapist. He’s also a Komuso cofounder. Here he demonstrates the SAPS technique. Daniel created this technique based on the findings of the study above and the best practices he’s developed during 12 years of helping his patients manage stress and anxiety and improve their overall mental and emotional health.

The slow exhale through pursed lips is an important call out in the Stanford study. The Shift is designed to mimic the pursed lips exhale.

Why is a pursed lips exhale so important? Because it slows the exhale, which activates the vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system, which turns off our fight-or-flight response and turns on our rest-and-relax response.

The Science behind SAPS.

In a study recently published in Cell Reports Medicine, the team at Stanford Medicine studied breathing techniques and mindful meditation to learn more about these stress management tools and how they impact our overall well being.

They found that the cyclic sigh, or Physiological Sigh, was the most effective technique at improving mood and reducing our stress response.

“Using a mixed effects model, we show that breathwork, especially the exhale-focused cyclic sighing, produces greater improvement in mood (p < 0.05) and reduction in respiratory rate (p < 0.05) compared with mindfulness meditation. Daily 5-min cyclic sighing has promise as an effective stress management exercise.”

Furthermore, the study demonstrated that the cyclic sigh technique was more effective than mindful meditation.

“Overall, breathwork was more effective than mindfulness meditation in improving positive affect, an effect that got larger with more adherence to the protocol. Participants in the exhale-emphasized cylic sighing group had the highest increase in positive affect throughout the course of the 1-month study.”

Why SAPS breathing works?

In his video explaining the findings and how to perform the Physiological Sigh, Huberman explains why this technique works.

The alveoli in our lungs are little sacks of air that help increase the volume of air we can inhale. Because of the way we tend to breathe involuntarily (read: shallow breathing and overbreathing), these sacks of air collapse, thus reducing the volume of air we can take in, our levels of oxygen decrease over time, and our levels of carbon dioxide increase. This creates a signal that activates our body’s stress response.

The double inhale causes the alveoli to open, increasing the amount of air we can take in. This increases the oxygen in our bloodstream and allows us to offload more carbon dioxide in the slow, extended exhale.

What if I don’t have a Shift?

If you don’t have a Shift, don’t worry. You can simply purse your lips and slowly exhale.

The Shift-assisted Physiological Sigh is designed to take the guesswork out of this technique. But you can and will achieve some of the positive benefits of the cyclic sigh technique without the Shift.

However, the important part of this equation, and the path to experiencing long-term, dependable mood enhancement and stress relief comes when you make a habit of this breathwork technique.

As you’ll see in a number of reviews for our breathing tool, the Shift not only helps people breathe better, it serves as a reminder to breathe better throughout the day. Wearing the Shift around your neck or on your wrist orattached to your keychain or backpack delivers a subtle reminder to hit pause and focus on your breath. 

So whether you are taking a moment to perform the SAPS technique, or just be more conscious of how you are breathing, the Shift can help you.