Breath-Body-Mind™
Breath-Body-Mind uses breath, movement and attention practices to settle an overloaded nervous system. It was developed by Dr Richard P. Brown and Dr Patricia Gerbarg, world-renowned psychiatrists and pioneers of integrative psychiatry, after decades of studying and researching breath, movement and contemplative traditions alongside their clinical work.
Even a few minutes can change your state, not just your mood: the heart rate settles, thinking clears and focus sharpens. Practised regularly, the techniques rapidly reduce stress and anxiety, optimise heart rate variability (HRV) and reduce inflammation.
At its centre is Coherent Breathing: a simple yet profound technique that synchronises the breath at a specific rhythm of around five breaths per minute. Simple to learn, and yours for life.
It is a portable form of self-regulation you can use in real time: on the way to work, before a difficult conversation, when stress rises, when your mind is racing, or when you cannot switch off at night.
What Breath-Body-Mind is
Calm and clarity: Slow, even breathing settles the heart rate and quietens mental noise. Thinking clears, focus sharpens and many people find themselves more grounded and able to work more effectively.
Nervous system balance and resilience: Coherent Breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, easing the body's stress response and strengthening its capacity to recover, so the system becomes more resilient, not merely calmer. It can also influence GABA, the brain's principal calming neurotransmitter, and reduce oxidative stress.
Cardiovascular resilience: At around five breaths a minute, breath and heart rhythm fall into resonance and heart rate variability (HRV) reaches its optimum. HRV is one of the most useful markers of autonomic flexibility, stress resilience and healthy ageing.
Gut health and inflammation: Research in people with inflammatory bowel disease, including colitis and Crohn's disease, has found improvements in symptoms, anxiety, depression and quality of life, alongside reductions in inflammatory markers.
Sleep, energy and mood: Studies report deeper sleep, less exhaustion and steadier mood, alongside improvements in emotional regulation and anger. Brain fog lifts, and recovery from stressful events becomes markedly quicker.
Flexibility under pressure: These practices strengthen the adaptive flexibility of the body's stress-response systems, so demand can be met and then released rather than held.
Connection and collaboration: Reduced tension, greater empathy and clearer attention can support better working relationships, more effective communication and more effective work.
Some of the benefits
Breath-Body-Mind weaves movement with breathing techniques gathered from wisdom traditions around the world, among them yoga, qigong, martial arts and monastic contemplative practice. Some are practised in movement, others in stillness.
What it is
Anyone: children, adults and older people, at any level of health or previous experience.
If you're pregnant, or living with a heart, lung or mental health condition, you are just as welcome. Simply mention it when we speak and I’ll adapt the practice for you.
It sits comfortably alongside conventional medical care and other treatment you may be receiving.
Who it’s for
Breath-Body-Mind has been studied across a wide range of settings, including stress and anxiety, depression, trauma and PTSD, inflammatory bowel disease, healthcare workers, children and people affected by major disasters and conflict.
Research into slow and coherent breathing also explores its effects on the autonomic nervous system, heart rate variability, inflammation, emotional regulation and the relationship between breathing rhythms and brain activity.
Dr Brown, Dr Gerbarg and their colleagues have gathered their published research in one place here.
The research
Breath-Body-Mind in the Financial Times
The Financial Times recently featured the work of Dr Brown and Dr Gerbarg. In this article, breathwork researcher Dr Guy Fincham describes discovering the slower-paced breathing of Breath-Body-Mind™ as the point at which “true healing” began - accessing deep relaxation, activating the parasympathetic nervous system and “taking off layers of stress”.
Read the Financial Times feature here.
Dr Richard P. Brown is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and trained in psychiatry at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. His path into this work also includes decades of martial arts, yoga and qigong.
Dr Patricia Gerbarg is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York Medical College and trained at Harvard Medical School. Her work has focused extensively on stress and trauma, including people affected by major disasters.
Together they have written extensively on integrative psychiatry and the therapeutic use of breath, including The Healing Power of the Breath.
The two doctors behind it
One of the great strengths of Breath-Body-Mind is that you need no equipment or particular setting. Even a short daily practice can make a difference, and regular practice deepens the effect.
You can also use the techniques in the moment: before something difficult, when stress rises, when your thoughts are racing, or when you need to steady yourself quickly.
In my own practice, Jin Shin Jyutsu self-help and Breath-Body-Mind can also be used together, giving you simple, portable tools for immediate self-regulation, wherever you are, whenever you need them.
Using it in everyday life
Breath-Body-Mind can be used on its own, or woven together with Jin Shin Jyutsu and Homeopathy as part of my integrated packages.
A free 30-minute call with me is the simplest way to find out whether Breath-Body-Mind is right for you.
Working together
When people breathe together, something shifts that conversation alone cannot reach: attention holds longer, tension can soften, and empathy and understanding have more room to return.
These qualities can support better working relationships, clearer communication and more effective work.
I currently teach individuals and small groups of up to five, including friends or family members, older adults, founders and small teams.
Small groups
Breath-Body-Mind has also been taught to people living through extraordinary stress and disruption, including survivors of natural disasters and war, veterans and healthcare workers.
Part of its strength is its simplicity: the practices require no equipment and, once learned, can travel with you wherever you go.