Coherent breathing intends to promote the optimal cooperation of the nervous system with all major physical functions via breathing. By using the appropriate breathing frequency in a regular rhythm and with relaxed exhalation, heart rate variability improves consistently and measurably. This informs about the state of the autonomic nervous system and a good level of variability indicates a strong parasympathicus.
With the help of polyvagal theory, this book highlights the connections between the nervous system and emotional and social functioning. Awareness of relaxed breathing plays a key role for our well---being and for resolving inner issues in psychotherapy and coaching.
In this book, various other techniques and methods of breathing are compared with coherent breathing. It is argued that the latter can claim the position of a method of meta-breathing, as it can be combined with all the other approaches in breathwork and at the same time can serve as a role model for optimal breathing in daily life.
When we are looking for a way to more equanimity, joy of life and motivation, coherent breathing can provide a competent answer. Its theory is based on research on the physiology of breathing, circulation, nervous system and brain. It is easy and simple to learn and to apply in daily life.
The method has proven its value as supportive practice with many forms of mental disorders as well as with trauma healing. Furthermore, it helps effectively with sleeping disorders, panic attacks and states of anxiety.
Sportive people use coherent breathing for improving their endurance performance, and meditators faster access a state of inner peace and awareness with this method.
The book can be ordered as hardcopy, paperback or e-book.
Why is it so appalling when innocent people become victims of violent crimes? Eventually we all have to die some day - whether from aggressive cancer cells, malvolent viruses or a bomb, would not make much of a difference to us whenever it happens. Yet for those who watch destructive acts of human life it is a lot worse when someone dies of an unnatural death. Unnatural means as much as man-made. We are horrified when humans cause the death of other humans.
This horror is connected to our social conditioning. As social beings, we are depended on one another and need a minimum of good-will for our common survival. Now when somone for whatever reason violates this basic norm by sacrificing the life of other people for their own purposes, they irritate all the others who are still in the frame of the basic norm. For the basic norm only works when all join in and participate actively. Every exemption threatens the cohesion of the whole social body. Even the members of terror groups know that principle, as they do not tolerate murder in their own ranks.
In the first place, the insecurity is relieved by the society of the good-willed as they move closer together and call on the responsibility of those who have left the frame. Yet the fear persists as it can happen any time that individuals or groups behave violently and kill innocent people. Presumably this is one of the aims of the evil doers to increase insecurity, as insecurity leads to singularisation. With increasing fear, people first withdraw to smaller groups where they still can feel trust. When fear reaches a higher degree, they more and more feel they can only rely on themselves and want to save their own skin. The bigger the fear, the larger the disintegration of society.
Terror groups themselves are afraid of societies which work with a minimal level of good-will. So they find their best ways for destabilising and disempowering their enemies, the democratic and liberal societies, in random attacks and haphazard assaults - spreading fear and splitting up common sense. A fragmented society cannot provide any resistance to the evil as there are no more valid and accepted norms. Under such circumstances, those with sufficient means of violence can satisfy their greed for power.
The propagandistic fear-makers in our societies support this fragmentation. They want people to step out of the shared consensus and join their seperatist group, which offers an exclusive safety from the evil. The good ones are inside and the evil ones get exluded safely with high walls. Many fearful people prefer a life in a bunker to the risk of encountering the evil in the free space.
So it is crucial that we adopt the responsibility for our fears. We are not their victims but we create them inside of us by falling into confusion and trance by images we see and words we hear. When we explore our fears we realise that their roots are deeper, reaching back to insafeties in our childhood, which get triggered by actual events. We do not have to be dominated by these old fears as soon as we can face them. When we go a step further, we also realise that the evil we perceive on the outside e.g. as violence against innocent people, is existing inside of us as well. It is a derivate of our fears and wants to destroy the trigger of our fears to be freed from the fear.
Thus we might realise that we are not at all "better" than the evil ones but that with some luck we made our landing in relative safety and wealth. So we do not have to act out of our fears and destructive impulses but can enjoy a certain degree of choice and freedom. By gaining more inner peace, the evil on the outside loses any power over our inner world. This is the path of inner reconciliation, which leads us out of fear and insecurity. Now we can fulfill our tasks and responsibilities in society with clarity and strength and meet the evil on the outside with determination.
In systemic view, everything which exists is part and whole at the same time. So being part and being whole is inseparably interconnected and has universal significance. These are attributes of "holons" (the term was coined by Arthur Koestler), the basic elements of the integral world model depicted by Ken Wilber.
All holons have the ability of self-transcendence. This is how subatomic particles become atoms, which then form molecules etc. From one way of existence, totally new forms of organisation can be created. The creation of new holons is called emergence in the case that the attributes of the new holon cannot be derived from the former one. Basic attributes of animals have not been contained in plants; reptiles did not have prerequisites for flying, which the birds developed etc.
The idea of emergence is opposed to a deterministic model of the world which assumes that every development of the future can be calculated supposed that all present conditions are known. A scientist at the time of plants could not have any clue that animals would develop out of them neither which species would come or how they would look like.
In the view of emergence, calculable deterministic phenomena are not the rule in the universe, but the exception. It occurs when a holon loses its ability to self-transcendence. Yet emergence can be found in all areas, from vortex movements in the water to the behaviour of social groups.
Science can explain phenomena created by emergence only retrospectively. In these cases, which are by far the most, it can only work reconstructively. Yet our ideal of science is based on its deterministic version. Science in the strict sense is what allows stable prognosis, which can be checked and counterchecked. Insights without prognosis is speculation, but not science. Yet this form of science can only by applied to anorganic objects in a limited space of observation, like e.g. the laws of gravity which allow prognosis about a heavy object falling to the ground. In the areas of quantum physics, this law does not work anymore and its application on living objects grants only minimal gain of knowledge.
We are so used and acquainted with the deterministic norm of science as it is highly successful in our world of things and technical application, and, when working with objects, we aim at this kind of perfection to make our lives easier. We want a hammer that drills the nails without breaking itself or them. We want a mobile that connects us with our partner when we need to, and not only when it is in the mood to do so. Our perception is not made for observing quantum elements. For the rough structure we can see and touch, the deterministic model of experience and handling is sufficient.
Yet we made the "mistake" to transpose this model of science to all the other areas of reality. Since the invention of agriculture, the model of technical manipulation of lifeless nature entered the areas of living beings. Thus it became a common procedure to render plants and animals to predictable behaviour by breeding and taming them. So they could serve our purposes of gaining nutrition.
This is how the basis of the deterministic model of the world was consolidated. The age of enlightenment, which caused the transition from the religious perception of reality in middle ages to the modern times, which were dominated by rationality and determinism. Though by this, an important part of humanity was displaced to the background. With the victory of the materialistic consciousness, the social plane was subordinated under the economic plane. Economy claimed deterministic thinking and planning, and presented economic constraints and compulsion to increase its influence in society. Economy needs reliable and calculable data for its functioning.
The degradation of the social realm becomes obvious wherever we notice the shortcomings of the materialistic consciousness - in ecological problem zones, in crisis of the financial system, in the growing outsider areas of rich societies, in underdevelopment of regions, in diseases caused by stress. Only slowly, the genuine reality and logics of communication comes to recognition needed to keep modern individuals and societies in balance.
This is how also more space and recognition is created for areas in which emergence can be felt and observed especially and eminently: In the areas of arts and non-technical sciences. They need to be set free of stress for their productivity and creativity, as due to the general tension of the inner and the social systems the powers for self-transcendence are blocked. Instead, too much energy goes towards securing what we already have by using deterministic relations. Structural conservativism is the counterpoint of all orientation using creative emergence.
We can find the difference between emergence and determinism also inside of ourselves. When our nervous system is in the stress mode, it acts in a predictable way. When we get angry, we always react in a similar way. The repertoire of our behaviour is limited to a minimum and the possibilities of our reactions are reduced to very few alternatives. In extremities, we get into a state of total blockage governed by immense fear without any degree of freedom.
As opposed to that, in a state of relaxed or focused awakening, with an active smart vagal modulation according to the polyvagal theory we can enfold our social and creative elements and set smaller or bigger steps in self-transcendence, in the emergence of unexpected news. In these states we feel connected to ourselves and to our fellow beings and we have to trust to contribute fruitfully. Thus we add our individual contribution to the emerging development of humankind and of consciousness.
We do not need to be hypnotized by believing in a model of science following the reactions of lifeless matter without understanding the creativity of emergence. Instead, let us enlarge the field of our vision, thinking and experiencing to the manifold aspects of all different realities, to the surprises and miracles, which evolve out of them continuously and reliably.
“I know what’s good for you, better than you know yourself.” This is what parents will tell their children. The assertion is sometimes communicated verbally, yet it is more frequently translated implicitly into action, in the following fashion: “Do it the way it ought to do be done; I know that and you don’t.”
Parents know more than children do – that is clear as daylight. They basically want what is best for their children. They are supposed and willing to tell them how to do things in life and what is wrong and what is right.
How are children to answer this line of argumentation? Their time on this planet has, after all, been relatively short, and there are many things they do not know much about. They lack knowledge and experience. Therefore, they unquestioningly adopt the ideas of their parents by necessity.
There are, however, two kinds of knowledge that seem to come into play in this matter. One concerns the objects and circumstances of this world: if a traffic light is red, the street must not be crossed. At night it gets dark because the sun no longer shines. Two plus two equals four. Children do not know this when they enter the world but have to learn it and put their trust in people who know better.
The other kind of knowledge concerns what makes a life of goodness and righteousness. In this case, parents draw from their own experience, which is, of course, restricted to their own individual life. Their children started life’s journey a great deal later, at another time and on wholly different preconditions – genetically, psychologically, socially, politically, ecologically, etc. The similarities we see in our children have nothing to do with the fact that they are entirely new people that have never existed before in quite the same way. Therefore, the usefulness of our life experience to them is limited. They might include it as an option when making plans for how to live their lives, but they themselves must decide what seems worth imitating and what they want to go without.
In reality, then, we have no clue as to what is best for another person. Sometimes we arrogate to ourselves that we do but are in fact imposing our views, fearing that we would suffer if they did not do what we thought was the optimal thing to do. Looking at the world from an angle determined to some extent by individual life experience, we have certain expectations and do not want them to be disappointed by others, as that would mean we would have to change our plans.
It is primarily subconscious parental expectations that determine the mode of parenting. These expectations are often the result of frustration in the parents: the seniors expect the juniors to achieve in life what they themselves wanted to achieve but could not. Subconsciously, they view their children as extensions of their own personal entities, who prosper with their every success and shrink with their every failure. Such parents will say, “On the maths exam, we got a ‘B’”, as if they themselves had written the exam and the success were their own. In case of a failure, they will suffer with their child but primarily with themselves. They will pressure the infant into trying harder because it actually is their own self-worth that is at stake.
Such parents also find it difficult to let go of their offspring. They may want to spare their children the errors and detours they themselves made, but in the attempt of doing so they bar them from a fully independent life. It cannot be a good life if it does not follow parental guidelines. Thus, they make their children dependent while remaining dependent themselves – mutual dependency. Acting “to the best of their knowledge and belief”, parents deny their children an independent life.
If children, however, are to turn into mature and self-confident adults, we must foster their self-perception, so that they may increasingly decide for themselves what is best. Thus, they will gain more and more confidence using their own inner guidance to sense where they want to go in life. Only if their parents trust them – unconditionally, though not blindly –, only then can they establish such vital trust in themselves.
“No one knows better what he needs and what is best for him than the person affected. We can therefore not teach one another what is best for us. Not even by the most refined strategies. We can, however, support one another in finding it out for ourselves,” says the person-centred psychotherapist Peter F. Schmid.
Immaturity in Society
The model of intellectual imposition is widespread in society, obviously because it still plays an important part in parenting. Take healthcare: the medical establishment acts as the judge of what is the best therapy for an ailment, but its judgement is in fact rarely based on evidence. After all, for the great majority of applications of a certain medical treatment there may be personal experiences but no empirical data to draw from. Invariably, the medical expert decides what is good for the patient. The patient is never or rarely given the opportunity to contribute his knowledge about his own organism and personality. The healthcare system knows what is best for its flock, even though all it contributes are statistical data and conventional procedures.
It is a third-person perspective that is adopted here: there is objective knowledge that has to be put into practice for salvation to be obtained. The person herself and her knowledge do not enter into the equation and is not asked for her opinion. She is treated like a dependent child, whose dependent status is to be maintained. That is the price of submission to the standard of the third-person perspective as the only trustworthy source of practical knowledge: the irrelevance of subjective knowledge and inner life as sources of information. Patients who contribute by relating their feelings and their knowledge about themselves are disturbing and annoying, like little children asking too many questions instead of doing as they are told.
In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant called for enlightenment, saying, “Have the courage to
use your own inner reason”. Today, we should put it like this: “Have the courage to trust your inner sense.” This courage involves self-determined action out of trust and the blending of both perspectives in life: the objective knowledge science provides and the subjective knowledge our introspection makes available. This courage also means that we expect the same courage to reside within other souls. Then we will never again get the idea that we know better than our children and all our fellow human beings what is best for them.
Intensive breathing has amazing effects. Those who have experienced cold water breathing and have previously been fearful about any contact with cold water, know what we are talking about: Breathing strongly, any fear can turn into a sense of well-being or even ecstasy while in contact with cold water.
The Dutchman Wim Hof has managed a lot of extreme situations with the help of the breath: marathon runs in the Sahara and in snow with bare feet, climbing the Kilimandscharo in shorts without shirt and record time, swimming in the polar sea, staying in ice water with 1 degree C for 80 minutes etc.+
At the Global-Inspiration-Conference 2015 in Teneriffe he has guided over 100 people into the ice water basin to demonstrate that this experience is possible for everyone, with appropriate preparation. And the preparation consists mainly in breathing intensely, making short pauses and continue to breathe intensely.
Breathing Intensely
What happens, when we turn up our energy by breathing strongly and intensely? We do so in different meditations and exercises and feel charged up and activated. Rapid and deep breathing brings the nervous system into the sympathetic mode. Reserves are mobilized and sensitivities set aside. At the same time, the adrenalin production is driven up and the well-known stress hormone spreads throughout the whole body, clearly measurable after 30 minutes of breathing exercises. It brings us into an excited state, which can be pleasant or unpleasant depending on the situation. People with panic attacks know intense breathing as fearful experience, athletes as a downright ecstatic kick.
Adrenalin and the Immune System
Enforced production and release of adrenalin causes an increase in pain tolerance, and additionally the suppression of the immune defense. For in the fight-flight-mode simulated by intense breathing, all available energies are needed on the surface to be able to ward off the thread on the outside. Whatever is not immediately useful for this task is deactivated.
The story is even more complex when we look deeper into the nature of our immune system. Looking at the numerous autoimmune diseases, the reactions of this system seem to be paradox. Designed to protect the body from harmful influences from outside, it can also start to destroy parts of that body. Why is this so? The immune system is equipped with strong and aggressive “weapons” against deadly invaders. In performing its task, it sometime needs to destroy body tissue and other structures. When doing so, the brain gets informed by the lymphocytes and causes the hypothalamus to produce the corticotropin releasing factor (CRH). Subsequently cortisol is released to disrupt the immune reaction.
This is the normal procedure, but when the stress system is out of balance and becomes permanently and chronically over-reactive, two things can happen: The immune system is chronically weakened, which causes hypersensitivity to all kinds of contagious diseases, and the control of the immune system is chronically weakened, which causes auto-aggressive diseases and probably most of the other non-contagious diseases alike.
In an experiment under scientific supervision, a group of Wim-Hof-breathers after a ten days training got an injection of dead E. Coli-bacteria along with a control group. The control group reacted as expected with intense outbreaks of the immune system (fever, shivering etc.). The breathers did not display any or only light symptoms. The Dutch researchers who supervised the experiment stated that the acid-base balance of the blood and oxygen levels shifted from high to low repeatedly during the cycles of the breathing technique.
The acid-base balance [of the blood] and oxygen levels that shifted from high to low repeatedly during the cycles of the breathing technique might have induced a kind of chemical stress, which could lead to this effect. This brought them to the conclusion that we have the potential to handle autoimmune diseases by self-control and exercise. Autoimmune diseases emerge from chronic inflammations and develop into severe illnesses difficult to cure. With these dysfunctions, the human immune system reacts too strong, so that the body gets harmed by a surplus of healing and repairing attempts. These reactions become chronic, and the autoimmune disease is in place.
Yet when we succeed in suppressing the immune reaction by willingly entering an adrenalin state, such suffering can be reduced or healed. When these experiments can be validated by further research, we have a proof of how the nervous system can influence the immune system and we have a door to the ability of steering our immune system by ourselves, in a first-person-perspective with a favorable outlook on curing autoimmune reactions.
Adrenalin and Cortisol: Better than their Reputation
Now we take a closer look to the role of adrenalin (or: Epinephrine). The well-known stress hormone is produced in the adrenal medulla by order of the hypothalamus. About ten minutes after the adrenalin release, cortisol gets produced in the adrenal cortex to protect the body from an enduring high activation by adrenalin. It also cares for increased and longer lasting vigilance on a lower level as adrenalin. The energy reserves emptied by adrenalin get filled up by metabolizing fat, proteins and minerals. Additionally, cortisol increases the performance of the immune system by alerting the immune cells, mainly the leucocytes, and sending them to where they are needed. There is a feedback system, which reduces cortisol release at a certain level of cortisol. Thus the stress reaction is switched off.
Completing the stress reaction in time is the ideal case appropriate for a balanced way of living. It allows us going through challenging situations and integrating them. For this task we need cortisol. Shortage as well as surplus has psychological results (behavioral distortions, depression, sleep disorders). Strong alterations in the cortisol systems occur after traumatization (post-traumatic stress disorder).
The healthy and beneficial stress reaction, which is an emergency solution, can run up physical performance quickly and accurately and suppress it gradually in time. When the stress gets too strong, too intense and too long or when the appropriate time for regeneration is missing, the adrenalin-cortisol-system can get out of balance and produce detrimental consequences.
Breathing and Stress Reaction
There is an obvious connection between breathing and stress reaction:
Releasing adrenalin (e.g. triggered by a threatening stimulus) speeds up the breathing. Speeding up and deepening the breathing, as we do in certain breathing exercises, causes the release of adrenalin.
So when we do intense breathing exercises, the body activates the stress reaction without outer or inner reason. Researchers call this “chemical stress”: The unusual erratic changes in the pH-levels of the blood during intense breathing seem to trigger the alarm reaction on a hormonal level without a subjective feeling of stress or anxiety. Some participants of the Wim Hof group could lift their pH-levels to 7.75 (the tolerance range of the blood-pH is between 7.3 and 7.7) causing a dramatic fall of the CO2-level. We know from science as well as from practicing of breathwork that one of the symptoms of blood alkalosis (=high level of pH) is the “hyperexcitability” of the nervous system. Caused by the reduction of Ca2+ (calcium ions) in the blood, blood vessels contract and a potential for increased electric conductivity occurs. This phenomenon is usually seen as negative as it is frequently connected with anxious and hyper nervous feelings and panic attacks, connected with a loss of control. Yet the Wim-Hof-experiments have shown that it is possible to consciously influence the nervous system and that the electric conductivity of the nerves can be increased or decreased and deliberately moderated with breathing exercises.
This opens new opportunities for self-directing one’s own health. There is an obvious important difference: When we engage consciously in a stress experience e.g. by deepening and accelerating the breathing, the nervous system reacts differently as it realizes that there is no real danger, but a challenge the organism faces on a conscious and an unconscious level. We create an overwhelming situation, which might remind us of previous experiences, but within a situation of relieve granted by our conscious choice and by a stable and securing environment. So we are not overpowered and out of control as in the previous experience, which is triggered. This lays the ground for later integrating the trauma.
How the lungs take up oxygen
Due to their elasticity, the alveoli have a large surface for diffusion to manage the gas exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. In normal breathing, we have the respectable amount of 70 m2 for our disposal and we can enlarge this surface to 100 m2 by breathing deeply. Thus the gas exchange is increased, more oxygen is taken in and more carbon dioxide is given away.
The breathing techniques of Wim Hof allegedly create an even larger surface of the alveoli. When deeply breathing in and exhaling loosely, thirty times, and stopping after the exhale for some time, after repeating this cycle, the breather will feel passively and vibrating. The oxygen level in the blood raises and the level of carbon dioxide sinks. The latter ought to be kept at a minimum while the mitochondria, the energy supplier of the cells, are loaded with oxygen. Setting this energy free, is also called “aerobic dissimilation” or “inner breathing”.
Inner Breathing
Science defines dissimilation as breakdown of organic molecules like fats, carbon hydrates and proteins with the aid of enzymes to generate energy. Basically, this process works without oxygen (=anaerobic dissimilation, which is highly inefficient) or with oxygen (=aerobic dissimilation or inner breathing). So the body cells need a sufficient amount of oxygen for their energy production. This process runs over several steps of a chain: glucose is transmuted into pyruvate by creating two ATP (adenosin-triphosphat)-molecules. When there is enough oxygen, the process moves further by creating up to 30 or 32 ATP-molecules out of one glucose molecule. ATP is essential for any physical movement, from moving muscles to metabolic processes and for the creation of electric signals in the nervous system. Without oxygen – and adequate nutrition – there is no ATP; and with more breathing, there is simply more ATP, while the production of lactic acids is reduced, which keeps the body in an alkaline state. At the same time, with deeper breathing more CO2 is exhaled, the blood pH level becomes more alkaline and thus more aerobic dissimilation can happen. So Wim Hof thinks that we can influence the chemical activity in our cells with his breathing exercises and that we can speed up our energy production when needed.
Mental Work
Besides breathing, mental concentration is used for directing the inner world. He says: “Concentration is energy. Concentration results in electrical impulses (neurons) and chemical messages (neurotransmitters). The pyruvate that provides energy to the mitochondria is boosted further by focused concentration, with this dissimilation resulting in energy, thus concentration and awareness are essential to this exercise. Increased awareness can be achieved by influencing the mitochondrial activity of the brain cells, thus releasing substances in the hypophysis, epiphysis, third eye and pineapple gland to increase awareness. More energy in the mitochondria of the brain cells thus results in the release of substances that have been hidden in the hypophysis and the pineapple gland.”
There is scientific evidence for Wim Hof‘s ability to deliberately suppress cytokinesis. With his method, he could reduce the cytokines in his body by 100%. Cytokines are regulators of the immune system – and a surplus production of cytokines is connected to many diseases. The pandemic Spanish flue in 1918 is said to have mainly killed people with a good immune system, as a cytokine storm was unleashed.
This is why Hof criticizes flat breathing and insufficient nutrition (“eating shit food“) as wide spread attack on the immune system and thus as cause for multiple diseases.
Coherent breathing intends to promote the optimal cooperation of the nervous system with all major physical functions via breathing. By using the appropriate breathing frequency in a regular rhythm and with relaxed exhalation, heart rate variability improves consistently and measurably. This informs about the state of the autonomic nervous system and a good level of variability indicates a strong parasympathicus.
