Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Volitional breathing techniques can modulate stress, affective states, and attention, yet their potential for brief, work-compatible recovery remains largely unexplored. Fast-paced breathwork, involving increased respiratory rate and depth, could be particularly suited as a workplace microbreak due to its acute sympathetic activation followed by autonomic recovery. In this controlled laboratory experiment, 60 employed knowledge workers completed the Attention Network Test (ANT) and self-report measures of affect and task engagement before and after a 15-minute microbreak, randomly assigned to either an audio-guided fast-paced breathing exercise or a psychoeducative podcast control. Control participants showed an increase of attentional capture by task-irrelevant spatial cues post-break, while breathwork participants did not. Breathwork participants maintained posterior alpha power at pre-break levels during the subsequent task, whereas the podcast group showed a significant increase in alpha power, indicating progressive attentional disengagement. Breathwork produced a transient increase in heart rate variability at the end of the microbreak, reflecting a brief autonomic rebound that did not persist into subsequent task performance. These neurophysiological and behavioral effects were not paralleled by differential subjective engagement or affective ratings. These findings support fast-paced breathwork as a scalable, accessible recovery technique for maintaining attentional resources during cognitively demanding work.</p>