Table 3.

Characteristics of eligible breathing-based intervention studies.

Author(s), Date	Population	Anxiety Measure	Interventions	N	Mean (SD) Pre-intervention Score	Mean (SD) Post-intervention Score
Change to Breathing Interventions versus Control
Zeidan et al., 2010	Undergraduate students 48F, 34 M Median age 19 years	STAI	Deep breathing exercises 20 min Live training*	27	40.19 (10.80)	29.41 (6.34)
			Sitting 20 min	26	35.19 (10.47)	36.0 (12.41)
Telles et al., 2019	Healthy male volunteers Mean age 28.4 [8.2] years	STAI	Alternate nostril breathing (ANB) 18 min	50	38.66 (10.94)	38.00 (11.44)
			Quiet sitting 18 min	50	38.06 (8.83)	34.24 (9.29)
Attention to Breathing Interventions versus Control
Telles et al., 2012**	Indian army males and healthy males Mean age 33.7 [7.0] years	STAI	Breath awareness 45 min Live training*	70	43.71 (9.09)	44.21 (8.50)
			Music 45 min Audio recording	20	44.90 (15.16)	41.25 (15.11)
Telles et al., 2019	Healthy male volunteers Mean age 28.4 [8.2] years	STAI	Breath awareness (BAW) 18 min	50	37.70 (10.93)	35.12 (10.55)
			Quiet sitting 18 min	50	38.06 (8.83)	34.24 (9.29)
Wolfe et al., 2023	Adults 58.6% F, 51.4% M Aged 18–35 years	STICSA-S	Breath awareness 17.5 min Audio recording	61	14.25 (2.71)	14.51 (3.38)
			Basic instruction unrelated to thoughts and emotions (Attention control) 11.7 min Audio-recording	50	14.64 (3.31)	16.82 (4.23)

STAI, Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State Version; STICSA-S, State-Trait Inventory of Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety-State Somatic Version. *Live-training-facilitator/experimenter present in session to instruct, teach and demonstrate technique to participants. **Telles et al. (2012) included three intervention groups: yoga, breath awareness, and music control. We included data from the breath awareness and the control group as this was more relevant to the research criteria.