Is Anxiety Overbreathing?, Breath→Body→Mind, and The Walking Diabetic

1. The Key to Breath-Linked Mind Control

“Research where people consciously change their breathing rates has shown that different ways of breathing can encourage particular frequencies to dominate across the brain, which can take us to a more alert and focused state or to a more relaxed and drowsy one. There’s only one catch…breath-linked mind control only works if you breathe through your nose.”

- Caroline Williams, Move

Nothing to add to this one 😊

2. The Breath->Body->Mind Pathway

“If mind and body are one, we can do more than change the body by changing the mind; we can change the mind by changing the body.”

- Ellen Langer, Ph.D., The Mindful Body

Although Dr. Langer wasn’t referring to breathing, this principle has been demonstrated perfectly in breath research.

A 2002 study found that emotional states produce similar breathing patterns across people. Remarkably, the opposite was also true: breathing in specific patterns can induce specific emotions.

In other words, we can influence how we feel by changing how we breathe…we can “change the mind by changing the body.”

3. What if Anxiety is Partially Just Over Breathing?

Anxiety isn’t just in your your. It may also be worsened overbreathing.

Here’s how it works:

1. When we breathe too much, CO₂ drops.

2. When CO₂ drops, cerebral blood flow drops.

3. When cerebral blood flow drops, anxiety gets worse.

Slow breathing—when done correctly—helps interrupt that loop.

If you’d like the blueprint and reference sheets on how to do it right, check out The Anxious Person’s Breath Manual.

P.S. Physiology is always more complex than a single sentence. But the CO₂–brain blood flow relationship is so robust that researchers even quantify it: For every 1 mmHg decrease in arterial CO₂, cerebral blood flow reduces roughly 2%. Pretty crazy.

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