07/17/2025
🧠💨 Struggling with anxiety? Your breath might be a powerful (and overlooked) tool for relief.
A 2023 review of 16 clinical studies found that breathwork interventions—especially slow diaphragmatic breathing—significantly reduced anxiety symptoms in adults with clinically diagnosed anxiety disorders, including:
🔹 Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Chronic worry and tension? Slow, deep belly breaths helped calm the nervous system and promote emotional regulation.
🔹 Panic Disorder (PD): Sudden panic attacks? CART (Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training) helped restore healthy CO₂ levels and reduce frequency and intensity.
🔹 Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD): Fear of judgment? Slow breathing techniques lowered physical symptoms like heart rate and tension.
🔹 Phobias and Agoraphobia: Paired with panic, paced breathing and CART showed real promise.
🫁 Why it works:
Slow diaphragmatic breathing—6 to 10 deep breaths per minute—engages the parasympathetic nervous system, quiets the stress response, and improves vagal tone. The result? Less tension, more calm.
✨ Breathwork is accessible, low-cost, and rooted in science. It’s not a one-size-fits-all fix, but when tailored to your diagnosis, it can offer a meaningful path to healing—one breath at a time.
📖 Banushi et al. (2023), Brain Sciences
