Pursed Lip Breathing Exercise

Introduction

Pursed Lip Breathing Exercise is a simple and effective breathing technique that helps improve breathing efficiency and control.

You gradually exhale through pursed lips after taking a slow breath through your nose. Pursed lip breathing lowers tension and facilitates physical activity. For pursed-lip breathing (PLB) to be beneficial, the practitioner needs to be proficient in the technique. For the technique to sustain prolonged exhalation, precise coordination is necessary.

The therapeutic effects are transient. The technique is restricted to three to five breaths since extending the duration of the technique results in respiratory muscle exhaustion and much lower than normal carbon dioxide levels in a normal human, which may lead to a fall in brain perfusion pressure and syncope. A person may worsen carbon dioxide retention and air trapping if purse-lip breathing is not used correctly.

Types of breathing

• Eupnea: Normal breathing is called eupnea. It is effortless and occurs spontaneously.
• Hyperpnea: Deep, intense breathing is called hyperpnea. When your body doesn’t get enough oxygen, you may experience hyperpneic breathing prior to, during, or following physical activity. When you take a deep breath at a higher altitude with thinner air or before lifting a large amount of weight, these are examples of hyperpneic breathing.
• Diaphragmatic breathing: Using your diaphragm to assist you in taking deep breaths is known as diaphragmatic breathing.
• Costal: One kind of shallow breathing that makes use of your intercostal muscles is called costal breathing. The muscles that surround and fill the space between your ribs are called intercostal muscles.

Pursed lip breathing

• Position: Sitting position.
• With your back straight and your face, neck, and shoulders at ease, take a comfortable seat.
• Keep a small-diameter straw close at hand if you have one.
• Put the straw in your mouth, take a deep breath through your nose, and then slowly and fully exhale through the straw. Make sure to release your breath completely and gently; do not push it out.
• If you don’t have the straw, you can mimic the contour of your lips by holding an invisible straw in your mouth. Breathe in deeply and slowly, then softly release the air through the pretend straw in your mouth.
• Exhale through the real or imagined straw in your mouth after taking another breath via your nose.
• Inhale deeply into your abdomen. As you breathe in, feel your abdomen rise, and as you exhale, feel it sink.
• You can then add a few counts. Inhale for four counts, for instance, and exhale a bit longer for six or eight counts. For roughly five minutes, keep doing this exercise.

Indications

For those with a range of lung conditions, pursed-lip breathing can help reduce dyspnea. It works well to slow breathing and lessen the effort required to breathe during asthma attacks.

This method, also known as abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing, is taught to patients by doctors, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and respiratory therapists in order to alleviate dyspnea and encourage deep breathing. PLB’s goal is to splint airways open by creating back pressure inside them, which reduces the effort required to move air.

One of the symptoms that medical professionals look for in people who may have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is breathing through pursed lips during both inhalation and exhalation. According to COPD Canada, PLB is beneficial in treating diseases associated with stress and anxiety.

Benefits of pursed lip breathing

If you have COPD, pursed-lip breathing is especially helpful. Your airways collapse when you have COPD. Pursed-lip breathing produces a little amount of back pressure known as positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) by extending the exhaling part of breathing. The airways are kept open by this pressure, allowing trapped carbon dioxide in the lungs to escape.

According to one study, pursed-lip breathing decreased dynamic hyperinflation in COPD patients. When you begin to breathe in before you have completed releasing your previous breath, this is known as dynamic hyperinflation. This lowers the amount of air you can breathe in because you still have air in your lungs from your previous breath.

Anxiety and stress are widespread problems that many individuals deal with daily. Over 30% of adults experience anxiety problems at some point in their lives.

When combined with therapy and other therapies, breathing exercises can be a useful treatment for disorders like generalized anxiety disorder. Ten. These activities can lower heart and breathing rates, elevate mood, and lessen stress. They may work better than mindfulness in some situations.

Mechanism of action

Pursed-lip breathing raises the positive pressure produced in the lungs’ conducting branches. In individuals with high lung compliance, like those with emphysema, this may keep bronchioles open.

Additionally, pursed-lip breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which lowers stress levels during episodes of dyspnea.

Role of PLB in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease 

• Patients with COPD frequently benefit from PLB. PLB is a compensatory technique to help splint open the airways, even if it may not be voluntary for these patients. Mucus plugging, loss of airway integrity, or airway hypertrophy can all cause persistent blockage of the airways in people with COPD.
• Due to increased airway resistance, these alterations in the airways may make it impossible to maintain the proper driving pressure and airflow to maintain a sufficient clearance of carbon dioxide. Inhalation is also impacted by the increased airway resistance, which prevents enough oxygen from entering the alveoli to produce a partial pressure of oxygen required to sufficiently drive the diffusion of oxygen across the alveoli-capillary interface.
• The retention of carbon dioxide reduces the amount of carbon dioxide that diffuses from the blood into the alveoli for excretion, further aggravating the deficient driving pressure for oxygenation. The central chemoreceptors are stimulated to promote breathing until exhaustion when the appropriate mechanism for excreting carbon dioxide and sufficient oxygenation is blunted.
• Peripheral receptors that sense oxygen levels take over as the primary motivation for breathing when chronic hypercapnia reduces the sensitivity of the central chemoreceptors. In these patients, increased pursed lip breathing may be a sign of approaching respiratory collapse.

FAQs

References

• Professional, C. C. M. (2025b, June 30). Pursed lip breathing. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/9443-pursed-lip-breathing
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025a, May 25). Pursed-lip breathing. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pursed-lip_breathing
• The Art of Living. (2025, May 28). Straw Breathing: anxiety solutions Anyone Can practice. Art Of Living (United States). https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/breathwork/breathing-exercises-101/straw-breathing-anxiety
• Gordon, S. (2025, December 8). The benefits of breathing exercises, plus 6 types to try. Health. https://www.health.com/breathing-exercises-8646630
• Nguyen, J. D., & Duong, H. (2025, January 25). Pursed-lip breathing. StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545289/