A multiday outdoor festival combining breathwork and cold water immersion is associated with reduced trait anxiety in a naturalistic pre-post study
Carina Berglund, Quentin Hallez, Thibault Deschamps, Mathilde Plard
Discover Psychology October 3, 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s44202-026-00914-1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Naturalistic uncontrolled pre-post study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 19 |
| Population | Attendees of the 3-day Festival du Froid (France, 2024) who provided complete paired pre- and post-festival survey data |
| Interventions | Breathwork Cold-water immersion Group movement |
| Duration | 3-day festival; pre- and post-festival assessments |
| Measures | STAI-Trait, resilience and cognitive emotion regulation measures (specific instruments not named) |
| Topics | Anxiety Breathwork |
| Key points | Trait anxiety (STAI-Trait) decreased from a mean of 42.6 before the festival to 39.8 after, a 6.6% reduction (mean difference 2.79 points, 95% CI 0.91 to 4.67; Hedges' g = 0.68), with 16 of 19 participants showing reduced or stable scores. Resilience and cognitive emotion regulation did not change. The authors describe the evidence as preliminary given the lack of a control group and low completion rate. |
Abstract
Abstract Breathwork and cold exposure attract growing public interest, yet little is known about their psychological effects in real-world multi-day formats, and most evidence concerns acute physiological or state-level outcomes rather than more dispositional markers. This naturalistic uncontrolled pre-post study examined whether attending a 3-day outdoor festival combining breathwork, cold-water immersion and group movement (Festival du Froid, France, 2024) was associated with change in trait anxiety, resilience and cognitive emotion regulation. Of the 85 survey responses received, 19 participants (22%) provided complete paired pre- and post-festival data. The STAI-Trait scores were lower after than before the festival ( M pre: 42.6 ± 7.8 vs. M post: 39.8 ± 8.3, − 6.6%; Wilcoxon p = .002; mean difference 2.79 points, 95% CI [0.91, 4.67]; Hedges’ g = 0.68, 95% CI [0.19, 1.16]), which is a moderate-to-large effect by conventional benchmarks; 16 of 19 participants showed reduced or stable scores. Satisfaction was uniformly high; resilience and cognitive emotion regulation did not change. The STAI-Trait was interpreted as a marker of negative affectivity rather than a fixed disposition, and the design was treated as exploratory given the absence of a control group, the low completion rate and the small, self-selected sample. However, these findings provide preliminary evidence that a multi-day breathwork and cold-exposure festival is associated with an acute reduction in negative affective vulnerability and with high acceptability.
Comparable studies
Other non-randomized and open-label trials on breathwork, most cited first.