Have you ever stopped to think that as you read these lines you are producing a unique biological signature? Every inhalation and exhalation you take right now carries with it a personal imprint as distinctive as your fingerprints. A group of researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science just proved that our breaths They are so distinctive that they allow the identification of a person with an accuracy of 96,8%.
But the discovery goes further: these breathing patterns reveal hidden details about our mental health, anxiety levels and even our body weight.
When the nose becomes a detective
Timna Soroka she thought it would be impossible. “I thought it would be really difficult to identify someone because everyone is doing different things: running, studying, resting,” says the researcher. Instead, the opposite happened: after monitoring 97 volunteers for 24 consecutive hours, the breathing patterns turned out to be “remarkably distinct.”
The device developed by Professor's team Noam Sobel It is light and discreet: it is positioned on the nape of the neck and uses thin silicone tubes positioned under the nostrils to record the incoming and outgoing airflow. Nothing invasive, just continuous monitoring that captures what normally escapes: the micro-variations, the pauses, the personal rhythms that make our way of inhaling and exhaling unique.
Unlike traditional tests that last a maximum of 20 minutes, this research recorded entire days of breathing. The result? A level of precision that rivals the most advanced voice recognition systems.
The brain that signs in the air with breaths
“You would have thought that breathing had been measured and analyzed in every way possible,” Sobel says. “Instead, we’ve discovered a whole new way of looking at breathing. We think of it as a readout of the brain.”
Breathing is not as automatic as it seems. It is governed by complex neural networks that extend from the brainstem to the cerebral cortex. Each brain is unique, and this uniqueness is reflected in breathing patterns. As if each person had their own “style” in managing oxygen.
The researchers identified 24 different respiratory parameters: duration of pauses before inspiration, expiration time, asymmetry between the nostrils, flow variability. These elements combine in respiratory signatures stable over time. Some participants returned after almost two years: their patterns were still perfectly recognizable.
When Anxiety Breathes Differently
But there’s more. These breaths don’t just identify us; they tell our inner story. People who scored higher on anxiety questionnaires showed shorter inhalations and more variability in pauses during sleep. We are not talking about diagnosed clinical disorders, but about subtle nuances that manifest themselves in the way of breathing.
Body weight can be read in your breathing. Sleep-wake cycles leave traces in nasal patterns. Even behavioral traits emerge from the analysis of airflow. It is as if the nose were an open window to our physical and emotional states.
As we have highlighted in previous articles, the analysis of how we take air in and out of our mouths and nostrils is opening unexpected diagnostic frontiers. But this research goes further: it suggests (converging with Eastern disciplines) that modifying breathing patterns could influence our mental well-being.
The future that breathes
“We intuitively assume that the way we’re depressed or anxious changes our breathing,” Sobel says. “But it could be the other way around. Maybe it’s the way you breathe that makes you feel like you can’t take a deep breath. Maybe that’s what makes you anxious or depressed.”
If so, deliberately modifying breathing patterns could become a therapeutic tool. Not just diagnosis, but treatment. Researchers are already exploring whether mimicking “healthy” breathing patterns can improve emotional states.
Of course, years of research are still needed to validate these clinical applications. But the idea is fascinating: breathing differently to feel better.
Open questions
The discovery also raises questions about privacy. If breathing is as identifying as (and more than) a fingerprint, every place where we breathe could theoretically collect biometric data. Hospitals, offices, means of transport: everywhere there are sensors capable of detecting airflow.
Published on Current Biology, the study opens up scenarios that go far beyond simple identification (though those alone are crazy). Transforming breathing from an unconscious act to a window onto the inner world? A small device, 24 hours of monitoring, and suddenly every exhalation tells who we really are.
