Chronic stress sits underneath almost every ache, pain, and disease we see today. Acute stress isn’t the problem—your body is designed for that. It’s the short bursts that make you sharper, more focused, more alive. The problem is when stress becomes constant, when the body never gets the signal that it’s safe to come back down. Welcome to modern life—constant stimulation, pressure, noise, and a nervous system that rarely gets a break.
The tricky part is that we can’t control everything happening around us. Life will always have stress. But what most people don’trealize is that we have a tremendous amount of control over how our body responds to that stress—and it all comes back to something incredibly simple: how we breathe.
Two people can be in the exact same stressful situation. One is breathing quickly, shallowly, through their mouth—subtly signaling to the body that there’s danger, that something is wrong, that they’re under threat. To the brain, that looks the same as running from a tiger. The body ramps up, stress hormones rise, inflammation increases, and the system stays activated. The other person, in that same exact moment, is breathing slowly, calmly, through their nose. Their body receives a completely different message: you’re safe. Nothing is chasing you. You can handle this. Same situation—completely different internal response.
This is why breath is so powerful. It’s one of the fastest ways to communicate safety to the nervous system, and one of the most overlooked drivers of chronic stress and inflammation.
One of the simplest ways to understand how your breathing is impacting your body is through something called your BOLT score, which stands for Body Oxygen Level Test. It’s a quick, practical way to measure how well your body tolerates carbon dioxide—something that’s directly tied to how efficiently you breathe and how regulated your nervous system is.
Here’s how you measure it: sit comfortably, take a normal breath in through your nose and a normal breath out, then gently hold your breath after the exhale and start a timer. You’re not holding as long as you possibly can—you’re simply timing how long it takes before you feel the first natural urge to breathe again (a slight contraction in the diaphragm, a swallow, or the desire to inhale). Then you stop the timer and breathe normally through your nose. That number is your BOLT score.
And this is where it gets really interesting. Most people are much lower than they think.
If your score is under 10 seconds, that’s a sign your body is in a high state of stress and over-breathing. Between 10–20 seconds is still a dysregulated state—common, but not optimal. Around 20–30 seconds, you’re starting to see better tolerance and more stability. And once you’re above 30 seconds, that’s where the body is functioning efficiently, calmly, and with a much more regulated nervous system. Many high performers and well-regulated individuals sit in the 40+ range.
The goal isn’t perfection—it’s improvement. Because as your BOLT score increases, your body becomes less reactive, more resilient, and far less driven by chronic stress.
So how do you improve it?
It starts with awareness. Most people are unknowingly over-breathing all day long—breathing through their mouth, breathing too fast, breathing too much. The shift is learning to breathe less, slower, and through your nose. Nasal breathing is key because it naturally regulates airflow, improves oxygen delivery, and signals safety to the body.
Throughout your day, begin to notice your breath. Are you breathing through your mouth or your nose? Is your breathing fast and shallow, or slow and controlled? Even small adjustments—closing your mouth, slowing your breath slightly, extending your exhales—start to retrain your system.
You can also practice light breath holds, similar to how you test your BOLT score, to gently build tolerance to carbon dioxide over time. This isn’t about pushing or forcing—it’s about gradually teaching your body that it’s safe to tolerate higher levels of CO₂, which is what allows oxygen to be delivered more efficiently to your tissues.
And just as important—your breathing during sleep matters. Mouth breathing at night is one of the biggest contributors to low BOLT scores and chronic stress. Supporting nasal breathing while you sleep, whether through awareness or simple tools, can make a significant difference.
The bigger picture here is this: you don’t need to eliminate stress from your life to heal. That’s not realistic. But you can change the way your body experiences stress.
Your breath is constantly sending signals to your nervous system—either reinforcing stress or reinforcing safety. And over time, those signals shape how your body feels, functions, and heals.
So instead of trying to control everything around you, start with what you can control.
Your breath.
Because when you change the way you breathe, you change the way your body responds to life. And that changes everything.
