Commonly dismissed as a waste product, CO₂ actually plays one of the most critical roles in how your cells function.
In reality, it’s not an extraneous byproduct at all — it’s the switch that triggers oxygen release, activating the very process your cells rely on for repair and regeneration.
Oxygen is the fuel stored in your car’s gas tank.
When you turn on your car and let it run, it only uses a small amount of that fuel to maintain its baseline. It isn’t until you press the gas pedal that real fuel consumption begins.
CO₂ is that pedal.
When CO₂ rises, your body “accelerates,” prompting hemoglobin to deliver oxygen to the body more quickly.
And here’s the part that completes the cycle: once hemoglobin releases that oxygen, its binding sites open back up — allowing it to collect a fresh supply on its next pass through the lungs.
It’s a use-and-reload rhythm, just like any fuel system.
The result? Better blood flow, more usable energy, and a body that repairs itself more efficiently.
So the very compound once considered to be nothing more than “exhaust” is actually one of the body’s most important defenses against becoming exhausted.
So if CO₂ is doing all this heavy (and healthy) lifting inside your body, what does that actually translate to in real life?
Here are five science-backed benefits that show why CO₂ is far more important — and far more powerful — than most people ever realize.
Most people assume oxygen goes exactly where it’s needed the moment you breathe it in — but that’s not how your body works. Oxygen doesn’t leave hemoglobin until something tells it to. That “something” is carbon dioxide.
As CO₂ rises in a working tissue — whether the cells are tired, stressed, repairing, or under metabolic strain — it signals hemoglobin to release oxygen more freely.
This is the Bohr Effect, and it's the foundational reason CO₂ is essential for energy, endurance, and cellular repair.
In simple terms:
CO₂ → more oxygen released → more oxygen actually used.
Without enough CO₂, hemoglobin holds onto oxygen too tightly. Your blood can appear fully saturated, but your cells can still be starved — a kind of “pseudo–low-oxygen” state where energy drops and tissues struggle to function.
But when CO₂ is present at healthy levels, the opposite happens. Oxygen gets delivered exactly where it’s needed, circulation increases, and your mitochondria — the engines that power your cells — produce energy more efficiently.
The outcome is something you can feel:
Clearer thinking, steadier energy, and a system that can more readily meet its daily demands with far less strain.
If oxygen delivery is the start of energy production, your mitochondria are where the real magic happens.
These tiny “power stations” inside your cells turn oxygen into ATP — the energy that keeps you moving, thinking, healing, and functioning. However, your mitochondria cannot produce energy efficiently without enough CO₂. Inside the mitochondria, CO₂ is created as a natural part of the Krebs cycle — and when it rises, it does two major things.
Healthy CO₂ levels keep your cells in an “oxidized,” balanced state where oxygen is actually usable.
This means:
When CO₂ is low, the opposite happens:
Your cells fall back on glycolysis — the body’s inefficient emergency system — which produces only 2 ATP per glucose molecule and floods the tissues with lactate, a byproduct that builds up when oxygen can’t be used properly.
Research shows that when CO₂ rises in tissues it can activate signals that increase mitochondrial biogenesis.
In plain English: CO₂ helps your body build more power stations.
More mitochondria → more total energy → stronger tissue performance and better resilience.
This is why CO₂ therapies have been shown to:
More oxygen delivered + more mitochondria to use it = a body that runs on clean, steady, efficient energy instead of stress-based backup systems.
When your CO₂ is optimized, your cells aren’t just powered — they’re upgraded.
Inflammation and oxidative stress are two of the biggest drivers of aging, soreness, and chronic disease — but most people don’t realize that low CO₂ is one of the conditions that allows these problems to flourish.
When CO₂ levels drop, tissues become more alkaline and more electrically reactive. That shift increases the production of inflammatory molecules, encourages lactate buildup, and makes cells more vulnerable to oxidative damage.
Healthy CO₂ levels, on the other hand, do the opposite. They help keep the internal environment balanced, calm, and oxygen-friendly — preventing inflammation before it snowballs.
So what does CO₂ actually do to keep your cells stable?
Lactate builds up when oxygen can’t be used efficiently, and high lactate is closely tied to inflammation and tissue stress.
Because CO₂ improves oxygen release and mitochondrial function, it naturally reduces runaway lactate accumulation — helping tissues function without entering an emergency, inflammatory state.
Studies across human and animal tissues show that CO₂ is a powerful ROS inhibitor — meaning it prevents the sparks of oxidative stress that damage proteins, DNA, and cell membranes. With more CO₂ present, your cells generate fewer inflammatory byproducts and maintain a more balanced state.
Polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) are extremely vulnerable to oxidative damage. When CO₂ is low, they oxidize more easily — producing “lipid peroxides,” compounds that trigger inflammation and cellular dysfunction.
Raising CO₂, even temporarily, has been shown to completely suppress the process that leads to lipid peroxide formation, giving cells a protective buffer against oxidative injury.
Inflamed cells tend to swell with excess water. CO₂ prevents this by gently acidifying the intracellular environment, allowing water to be released. This reduces irritation, supports normal metabolic flow, and prevents the kind of chronic swelling associated with tissue degeneration.
Your nervous system runs on electrical signals — and how easily and effectively those signals fire matters.
CO₂ plays a direct role in setting that signal threshold.
When CO₂ levels are low, nerves become overly excitable. They fire too quickly, fatigue faster, and struggle to return to baseline. This state is commonly associated with muscle tension, jitteriness, heightened stress responses, and difficulty calming down once the system is activated.
Heightened CO₂ levels shift that dynamic.
CO₂ helps stabilize nerve membranes and raises the threshold required for a signal to fire. Simply stated, this means that your nervous system becomes less reactive and, by proxy, more controlled.
Signals are still sent when needed, but without constant background overstimulation. This results in less tension, fewer stress spikes, and a nervous system that can both activate and also settle back down appropriately.
The takeaway?
CO₂ doesn’t blunt your nervous system responses; it refines them by helping your nervous system operate with precision instead of under pressure.
Circulation is the delivery system that makes every other benefit of CO₂ possible.
As a natural vasodilator, rises in CO₂ signal blood vessels to relax and widen — increasing blood flow toward tissues that are stressed, repairing, or metabolically active.
When CO₂ levels are low, the opposite occurs. Blood vessels remain more constricted, circulation becomes less responsive, and tissues are forced to rely on slower, less efficient workarounds. Over time, this can contribute to cold extremities, stagnation, delayed repair, and the buildup of metabolic waste.
At the tissue level, circulation isn’t just about blood movement — it’s about oxygen exchange. CO₂ supports that exchange by keeping blood vessels responsive and oxygen delivery efficient. When circulation works this way, tissues aren’t forced to “fight” for resources. Rather, oxygen arrives where it’s needed, waste products are carried away efficiently, and cells can shift their focus from survival to repair.
This is why healthy CO₂ levels are often associated with warmer extremities, improved tissue tone, faster recovery, and a general sense of physical ease.
In that sense, CO₂ does improve circulation, but — in doing so — it also restores the conditions that allow tissue health to maintain itself.
Understanding why CO₂ matters is only half the equation. The real impact comes from creating the conditions that allow CO₂ to rise to healthy, functional levels — consistently and safely.
That’s easier said than done.
While your body is designed to respond to carbon dioxide, modern life often limits how much of it you generate — and how effectively it reaches the tissues that need it most. Stress, inactivity, injury, inflammation, and inefficient breathing patterns can all suppress CO₂ signaling, even when oxygen intake appears normal.
That’s where intentional CO₂ exposure becomes powerful.
Most ways of increasing CO₂ — breathing techniques, movement, metabolic support — rely on your body creating the signal internally. That works, but it’s often slow, uneven, and limited by stress, injury, fatigue, or mitochondrial inefficiency.
CO₂ immersion takes a different approach.
By surrounding the body with a controlled CO₂ environment, carbon dioxide diffuses directly through the skin and into underlying tissues. This creates an immediate, localized CO₂ signal — without requiring exertion, breath manipulation, or metabolic strain.
In practical terms, a CO₂ immersion suit allows you to:
- raise tissue CO₂ levels directly
- trigger oxygen release via the Bohr Effect
- improve circulation where it’s most restricted
- stimulate mitochondrial signaling and repair
All while the body remains relaxed, receptive, and responsive.
Under normal conditions, oxygen is delivered primarily to tissues that generate enough carbon dioxide to signal metabolic demand. This prioritization is efficient, but it also means that tissues affected by inflammation, inactivity, injury, or poor circulation may struggle to receive the oxygen they need to recover efficiently if they are not generating a strong enough CO₂ signal.
By increasing CO₂ directly in the tissues, the body responds as if those cells are metabolically active — increasing blood flow, releasing oxygen, and clearing metabolic waste in areas that would otherwise remain under-served.
One of the unique advantages of CO₂ suit immersion is that it delivers a strong biological signal without adding stress.
Exercise, breathwork, and metabolic challenges all raise CO₂ — but they also tax the nervous system. CO₂ immersion, by contrast, activates the same oxygen-delivery and circulation pathways while allowing the body to stay in a parasympathetic, recovery-focused state.
For many people, this makes it an ideal tool for:
- restoring circulation in underactive or stagnant tissues
- accelerating tissue repair during injury or inflammation
- lowering physical strain while maintaining cellular support
- promoting recovery when movement or intensity is limited
CO₂ suit immersion works with your physiology, not against it.
The body still naturally determines where to direct blood flow and how much oxygen to release. The difference is that CO₂ immersion provides a clearer, stronger signal — allowing the body to respond more efficiently and extend oxygen delivery across a wider range of tissues than normal signaling alone can reach.
Instead of forcing intensity or artificially driving output, CO₂ immersion strengthens the body’s own communication pathways. Circulation adjusts where demand exists, oxygen is released where it can be used, and recovery processes are supported without adding stress to the system.