How Your Pupils Dance with Your Breathing
Ever notice how your eyes subtly change when you breathe in or out?
It’s not just your imagination—science shows that your pupils actually sync with your breath. A recent study published in The Journal of Physiology (Yellin et al., 2025) found that your pupils shrink slightly when you inhale and widen when you exhale.
This rhythm happens automatically with every breath you take.
Why This Matters?
Most people think pupil size only changes because of light, focus, or emotions. But now we know that breathing is also directly connected to vision.
This discovery reinforces what we see every day in Vision Therapy (VT) and Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation (NOR):Vision is not just about your eyes. It’s about how your brain, body, and breath work together.
The Connection to VT & NOR
In our clinic, we help patients retrain how their brain and eyes work together after concussion, stroke, or developmental challenges. Breathing plays an important role in that process—because every breath shifts the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which controls stress, relaxation, and pupil size.
Calm the Nervous System
- The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) has two sides: “fight-or-flight” (sympathetic) and “rest-and-digest” (parasympathetic).
- Inhalation tips the balance slightly toward sympathetic activity → pupils constrict, vision narrows for detail.
- Exhalation activates parasympathetic activity → pupils dilate, vision expands into the periphery.
- Syncing visual activities with breathing helps balance the ANS, keeping patients calmer and more focused.
Focus vs. Expand
- On inhale, the ANS primes the brain for detail and concentration.
- On exhale, the ANS supports relaxation and peripheral awareness, helping patients access the “big picture” view of their environment.
- This is especially powerful for people recovering from concussions, stroke, or visual field loss, where stress can literally “close in” their world.
Whole-Person Healing
Many patients struggle with fatigue, anxiety, or sensory overload. Integrating breath into visual rehabilitation makes therapy about more than seeing better – it’s about feeling calmer, safer, and more connected to themselves and the world around them.
Why Peripheral Vision Expansion Matters?
Peripheral vision is critical for:
- Balance and movement — knowing where your body is in space.
- Driving safety — noticing what’s happening around you, not just in front.
- Sports and performance — reacting quickly to motion in the environment.
- Confidence — reducing the sense of being “boxed in” or overwhelmed. Exhaling helps unlock this wider field of view—something we can consciously train and strengthen in therapy.
In Simple Terms
Your eyes are breathing with you. Every inhale and exhale shifts how your pupils—and your brain—process the world. That’s why in Vision Therapy and Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation, we don’t just train the brain and its connection to the eyes.
We work with the whole person—vision, breath, body, and mind—to restore balance, clarity, and confidence.
✨ Takeaway: Next time you pause for a deep breath, remember—on your exhale, your vision is naturally opening up to the world around you.
Reference: Yellin N, Tomaka I, Hale J, Dolensek N, Brooks JL, Garfinkel SN, Critchley HD, Haggard P. The pupillary respiratory‑phase response: pupil size is smallest around inhalation onset and largest during exhalation. J Physiol. 2025 Feb;603(4):803–821. doi:10.1113/JP287205
A new way of seeing, being and doing to self empowerment
Shirley S. Ha, HBSc., OD, FOVDR, FNORA, COEP
Neuro-Developmental and Rehabilitative Optometrist
