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Study decoded · health · Emerging
Three Day Breathwork And Cold Water Festival Linked To Lower Anxiety Scores
3-day festival19 completers6.6% score dropNo control group
A naturalistic study published October 3, 2026 in Discover Psychology found that trait anxiety scores were 6.6% lower among attendees of a multiday outdoor event in France pairing cold water immersion, controlled breathing and group movement, compared with their scores before the event.
Researchers surveyed attendees of Festival du Froid, a 3-day outdoor event in France in 2024 combining breathwork, cold water immersion and group movement, using the STAI-Trait questionnaire, a standard measure of general anxiety tendency, before and after the event. Of 85 people who responded to the survey, 19 participants, 22%, provided complete paired data. Average scores were 42.6 before the event and 39.8 after, a difference of 2.79 points or 6.6%, which the authors describe as a moderate-to-large effect by conventional benchmarks. Sixteen of the 19 participants showed reduced or stable scores. Satisfaction with the event was uniformly high. Resilience scores and cognitive emotion regulation, the mental strategies people use to manage difficult feelings, did not change.
The authors interpreted the STAI-Trait measure here as capturing a temporary state of negative affectivity rather than a fixed personality trait, consistent with a short-term shift rather than a lasting change in disposition. Lower anxiety scores after the event were linked to the festival experience, not shown to be caused by any single element of it. Cold water immersion and slow, controlled breathing both engage the autonomic nervous system, the network that governs stress and recovery responses, and this kind of practice is generally understood to help that system settle back down after a stressor.
Trait Anxiety Score Before And After 3-Day Festival (n=19)
Data Panel
- Who
- 19 adults with complete paired data out of 85 survey respondents, age and sex split not reported
- Design
- Naturalistic, uncontrolled pre-post observational study, no control group
- Dose
- 3-day outdoor festival combining breathwork, cold water immersion and group movement, France, 2024
- Primary result
- STAI-Trait anxiety score fell from 42.6 to 39.8, a mean difference of 2.79 points, 6.6%, 95% CI 0.91 to 4.67
- Secondary
- 16 of 19 participants showed reduced or stable anxiety scores; resilience and cognitive emotion regulation scores did not change; satisfaction was uniformly high
- Funding / conflicts
- Funding and conflicts not reported in the abstract
The study had no control group, so nothing distinguishes the effects of cold exposure and breathwork from the effects of three days outdoors, in a group, away from normal routines. Only 22% of survey respondents completed both measurements, and participants self-selected into an event they had already paid to attend, which limits how far these findings extend to other settings. This shows a link, not proof that the festival caused the drop in anxiety scores.
Dr. Axe's Take
A 6.6% drop in anxiety scores after one weekend is modest once you account for the missing control group and the 22% completion rate. I still think the mechanism holds up: cold water exposure and slow nasal breathing both train the vagus nerve, the body's main highway for calming the nervous system, to pull you out of fight-or-flight faster, and doing that outdoors with a group likely adds something people underestimate. You do not need a festival for this. Start with brief cold exposure at the end of a shower, paired with a few minutes of slow diaphragmatic breathing, and track how you feel over a month rather than expecting one weekend to fix chronic anxiety.
— Dr. Axe