The Science
The Breathe to Flow system™️ is based on the newest science and the theory of how mind and body are intrinsically connected.
Your body is the gateway to your mental state.
The Breathe to Flow System
A simple and effective system. Our program is based on the science-based Breathe to Flow system™️ and tailored for maximum effect and high participation rates in a workplace setting.
ICE
Breathing
For high-stress situations or just before sleep with a set of techniques used by both Elite Soldiers and buddhist monks.
WATER
Breathing
A powerful way to quickly balance your nervous sytem. It will bring you down when you're too wound up and bring you up if your energy is down.
FIRE
Breathing
Energizing breathing technique that gets you sharp and focused right away without any caffeine.
The mind-body connection pyramid
Want to dive a bit deeper? Take a look at the human pyramid, the underlying model of the Breathe to Flow System™️. In the western world, we often focus more on the top of the pyramid, while disregarding the base of our being—our DNA and biology—which exert invisible power over everything we perceive and do.
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The state of your biological body colors your conscious perception of the world.
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During high stress, you lose full access to executive functioning (cultural brain).
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You can control your stress reaction and give space back to your executive functioning through breathing, touch, and movement. Breathing is the most accessible.
Your flexible mental capacity that enables you to reflect, plan, and think rationally, and respond in a way you deem beneficial long-term.
Drawbacks: Shuts down during high stress. Slow and prone to error and biases.
Cultural
Executive functioning
Your backbone, your training, and all of your learned beliefs that are hard to shift. Solid and requires little energy.
Drawbacks: Takes effort to change.
Habitual
Beliefs, training, habits
Your inner reptile system, focused on survival, using quick decisions and reactions. Very fast and reliable, takes no conscious effort.
Drawbacks: Rigid and unchangeable.
Biological
Breathing, Touch, Movement
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Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Books
Healing Power of the Breath
Dr. Brown and Dr. Gerbarg (2012, Penguin Books)
These teachers are some of the must humble and yet deeply knowledgable people I've met.
In The Healing Power of the Breath, Dr. Richard P. Brown and Dr. Patricia L. Gerbarg provide a different way to treat stress: breathing. Drawn from yoga, Buddhist meditation, the Chinese practice of qigong, and other sources, their science-backed methods activate communication pathways between the mind and body to positively impact the brain and calm the stress response.
Breath - The New Science of a Lost Art
James Nestor (2020, Penguin Books)
A must-read if you want to dive deeper into breathing. Very well-researched book that gives an overview of the history of breathing.
Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head.
The Oxygen Advantage
by Patrick McKeown (2015, Piatkus)
A highly recommended book for those interested in how breathing applies to sports and movement in general. Very solid scientific background from one of the world's leading experts in breathing.
McKeown introduces readers to the "Oxygen Advantage," an innovative but complex breathing technique that purportedly improves overall health... McKeown's confident attitude should help his book appeal to a wide audience.
-Publishers Weekly
Scientific Studies
The list below includes research that support our method with scientific background and studies. It's important to keep in mind that science is always in development and that no study holds the final truth. With that in mind, we try to only include well-documented science and to always be critical with the studies we base our work on.
This document includes references to many of the relevant studies I’ve found for breathing. With research, it's important to know that *lots* of published studies are overturned and found to be lacking or even wrong. Science is a work-in-progress forever - as is this document.
The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5455070/#B13
The Neurological Link Between Mind and Breath:
Breathing above the brain stem: volitional control and attentional modulation in humans
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jn.00551.2017
The Vagus Nerve & Diaphragmatic breathing
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6189422/
Nitric oxide and the paranasal sinuses
https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.20782
Buteyko Breathing & Asthma
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14752538
Meditation & Longevity
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057175/
Humming sound and nitric oxide
https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.200202-138BC#.V17Y-GZubzA
6 Breaths per minute (Resonant / Coherent Breath) & HRV
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5575449/
The Bohr Effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_effect
Yoga Breathing / Respiratory Health & Capacity
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5496990/
Slow Breathing for Anxiety
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00467/full
The Nasal Cycle
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/609283/
Right vs Left nostril
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3978938/
Synchronized Breathing for Running
https://www.outsideonline.com/2416993/synchronized-breathing-running-study
Breathing to Decrease pain (Breath holding)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25930190/
The potential of nitric oxide releasing therapies (...)
Inspiring Articles
This is a list of the most interesting and enlightening articles we've come across. None of them contain outlandish claims or parabole about what breathing can do to cure diseases or in other ways be a miracle cure. The articles are meant to give you more inspiration and input for learning more about the topics you find most interesting. Enjoy!
The Ultimate Guide to Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
Part 1 - Measurement setup, best practices, and metrics.
https://medium.com/@marco_alt/the-ultimate-guide-to-heart-rate-variability-hrv-part-1-70a0a392fff4
Cleveland Clinic: Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/21773-heart-rate-variability-hrv
Proper Breathing Brings Better Health
Stress reduction, insomnia prevention, emotion control, improved attention—certain breathing techniques can make life better. But where do you start?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/proper-breathing-brings-better-health/
What Is “Email Apnea” and How It Is Slowly Killing Us
https://jromeroachon.medium.com/what-is-email-apnea-and-how-it-is-slowly-killing-us-ca5a8cbe3710
What Is Languishing, and What Can We Do About It?
https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-languishing-5181172
American Lung Association:
Five Ways You Might Be Breathing Wrong
https://www.lung.org/blog/you-might-be-breathing-wrong
The Air You Breathe Is Full of Surprises. A fun thought... each day you're breathing in the last exhale of Julius Caesar
Twenty-five sextillion molecules: Simon Worrall, “The Air You Breathe Is Full of Surprises,” National Geographic, Aug.13, 2012.
Respiratory Rhythm, Autonomic Modulation, and the Spectrum of Emotions: The Future of Emotion Recognition and Modulation
A really thorough and deep article about how breathing and emotions are connected. "... could greatly improve public mental health by providing at-home biofeedback for greater understanding of one’s mental state and for mind–body affective treatments such as breathing exercises."
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01980/full