Your Breath Shall Set You Free 

By Niraj Naik 
 
About Niraj 
 
Niraj Naik first discovered the power of breath in a wellness center called Nirvana in 
Reading, England, where he found peace and solace in their saunas from his highly 
stressful career as a community pharmacist. It was here that he began to intuitively 
extend his exhalations and make toning sounds with his voice to bring him into a deep 
meditative state. To the surprise of other spa members, he was able to stay in the saunas 
for much longer than everyone else - up to 1 hour at a time at 90ºC temperatures. 
 
Doubting the intentions of the pharmaceutical industry, Niraj left, and he began working in 
the Head Office of one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains where he implemented a 
healthy shopping list system, providing life-changing and life-saving information to 
members/patients on diet, nutrition, and holistic health. This is where Niraj was first 
branded as “The Renegade Pharmacist” when corporate management deemed the 
programme too “risky”​ b​ ecause it could impact the profits of the chain. 
 
Niraj was overwhelmed with dread at the thought of having to return to his career in the 
pharmaceutical industry where he would have to dish out pills to patients he knew he 
could help recover. He became a patient himself, and was diagnosed with stress-related 
depression and an autoimmune disease called Ulcerative Colitis. Housebound and at rock 
bottom, Niraj faced two options: undergo a colonoscopy or act as a guinea pig for a 
previously untested pharmaceutical drug. 
 
Faced with this new reality​,​ Niraj’s dear friend, Swami Ambikananda, came to the rescue 
and explained to Niraj that he actually had a new gift. That if he created a third option by 
using the holistic practices of ayurveda, yoga, meditation, and pranayama (breath) to heal 
himself without the use of medication or surgery, he would become a great role model to 
others. 
 
With a newfound motivation, Niraj returned to the sauna, revisited his instinctive methods 
of stress relief, and practiced all that he was learning about extended exhalations, breath 
retention, and chanting/toning techniques. Combined with his own style of self-hypnosis 
and visualization, he had discovered the catalyst for his cure. Niraj was rapidly healing his 
mindy, body, and spirit. 
 
Swami’s prophetic vision unfolded as Niraj 
quickly became known around the world for his 
website, therenegadepharmacist.com where he 
published some of the Internet’s most viral 
articles of all time relating to holistic health and 
spiritual growth. He became a host of Wim Hof 
Ice Bath Events after teaming up with the 
superhuman yogi and they found that they 
shared a lot in common. 
 
Niraj began training with Dr. Prakash Malshe and 
gained a great understanding of the medical application of yoga and the science behind 
why certain pranayama techniques can influence the physiology for healing and 
heightened states of consciousness. 
 
From this, Niraj formed the curriculum of SOMA Breath, a system based on the ancient 
traditional yogic practices before they were altered by modern day practitioners of a 
dogmatic and often misunderstood yoga. 
 
Today, SOMA Breath is a thriving online school and community with members from all 
around the world who come together to support one another on their journey of health 
and spiritual growth. SOMA Breath is also being taught at wellness centers and retreats 
on the island of Koh Phangan, Thailand, as well as across Europe, the USA, and the rest of 
Asia.  
 
Niraj owes a lot of SOMA Breath’s success to the SOMA tribe. His ultimate vision is to 
create an holistic school that does not rely on one single guru, but instead the tribe 
becomes the guru. Using social community building tools where the tribe can network 
and support each other, new wisdom, knowledge, and skills can be reviewed collectively 
and implemented in the overall SOMA Tools For Life System. As the tribe grows, so do 
you. 
 
 

INTRODUCTION

Breath Works 
“So I just finished a breathing class with Niraj Naik. It was the single most weirdest, 
most spiritual, most amazing moment of my life… Full stop.” Andy, Bali. 
 
That was it: the final confirmation I needed. Breath really works. 
 
I had just facilitated a SOMA Awakening breathwork experience at a friend’s villa 
located in Uluwatu, Bali. Participants experienced a profound, transformative, and 
psychedelic journey stimulated by a combination of hypnosis, tribal rhythmical music, 
and pranayama breathwork techniques. A short hypnotic induction guided the 
participants to set an intention that arises through the awareness of their true core 
desire.  
 
For Andy, his wish was to experience proof in the existence of a spirit world through a 
religious experience.  
 
Andy was the least likely candidate to be taking a class like this, let alone to experience 
the results he had! The son of a preacher, Andy rebelled throughout his life against the 
religious views of his family and became a devout pro-scientific atheist in the process. 
He really wanted to prove his disbelief in anything remotely spiritual wrong.  
 
After just one session of a SOMA Awakening, Andy became an instant convert. 
 
It was in this session that I also became a full convert to the power of breathwork. After 
successfully using simple pranayama techniques taught to me by Swami Ambikananda 
- a well respected yogi from England - to help me heal a chronic autoimmune condition 
when I had decided that medication was not an option. 
 
The continuous miracles I have either witnessed or been a part of since that time have 
been an ongoing testament to the profound power of breath. My journey to this point 
sparked my interest to discover exactly why and how breath works. 
 

The Awakening
We live in a time where we desperately need creative minds and visionaries to join 
forces and solve the immense problems that face humanity. The financial system, 
healthcare, and the environment are suffering because of a broken system. 
 
The schooling system has educated generations ​out​ of this creativity and crushed 
billions of souls in the process. Modern societies have become robotized and turned 
into obedient servants, propping up a corrupt and crumbling economic system, which is 
slowly destroying our planet. 
 
Most people are experiencing life through a sleeping trance, but to change things we 
must wake up! There was a time however where things were different, a time in our 
ancient history that we can learn a lot from. 

The Legend Of Soma 

The legend of Soma tells of a sacred ritual that the ancient Rishis would indulge in 
during the Golden Age of the Vedic tradition. In this time period the population was 
much smaller and resources were more abundant. Communities lived peacefully and 
harmoniously. 
 
This legendary ritual is said to have involved the ingestion of a psychedelic plant; the 
identity of which has still not been confirmed by historians. Apparently, this was a 
mysterious and magical ritual that would allow the Rishis to commune with the Gods 
and have direct divine downloads of wisdom that would aid the betterment of society. It 
is also thought to be the same ritual that would allow the Rishis to create superhuman 
powers, overcome death, and lead to immortality.  
 
This sounds like a myth, however new emerging science is beginning to back up many 
of the claims held in our spiritual past. 
Substance To Spirit
These inspirational visions would go on to inspire the verses of the Rig Veda, an ancient 
text that forms the origins of yoga, ayurveda, tantra, Hinduism and Buddhism. However, 
according to the legend, Soma eventually ran out. This forced communities to go inward 
in order to seek new ways to create to the same ecstatic states that allows connection 
to the divine. 
 
Another result of this long process for the Rishis was the realisation that we all possess 
our own version of every single drug or medication that exists in nature and that breath 
control is the method that awakens our “inner pharmacy”. 
 
Scientifically, Soma could be described as a molecule that gives the same result as 
ingesting a quantity of DMT and other psychoactive chemicals when it is released in the 
body. It sustains itself long enough inside the brain to produce visual and psychedelic 
effects when we activate it with our breath. 
 
This molecule is found in very small amounts in our bodies. We also naturally produce 
tryptamines like melatonin and serotonin, which are structurally very similar. It has been 
hypothesised that either DMT or a combination of tryptamines are released both when 
we dream and just before we die. This explains the reason for the vivid dream-like 
hallucinations and “near death” experiences you get after consuming DMT in larger 
amounts. This is why DMT is also referred to as the “spirit molecule”. 

Spirit To Science
Breathing practices are important to yoga, tantra, and shamanic cultures. The word 
“Spiritual” has its roots in the Latin “Spirare”, which means “to breathe”. The word 
“Conspire” (Latin “Conspirare”) means “to breathe together”. In fact, the original rituals 
of modern day organized religions have a breathwork component to them as they are 
believed to lead us closer to God or the divine (just like the Rishis). 
 
An ancient pranayama breathwork technique called ​Nisshesha Rechaka Kumbhaka, ​or, 
holding your breath beyond the comfort zone for a short period of time, creates a 
physiological state known as intermittent hypoxia that induces brief periods of 
lower-than-normal blood oxygen levels. 
 
If practiced correctly according to legend, this breathwork ritual will lead to eternal 
youth and immortality by producing Amrita, also known as ​the nectar of Gods​. 
 
Perhaps Amrita is in fact the movement of somatic stem cells around the body. Stem 
cells have the ability to turn into any other cell and are found in greatest numbers when 
you are in the womb as an embryo, a time when you literally exist in a state of hypoxia, 
where the oxygen levels inside the womb are about 10% of the outside world. Once you 
are born, the stem cells hide away in places of low oxygen such as bone marrow. New 
treatments are emerging that extract stem cells from your body, in hope that one day 
they can be used to recreate organs. This can cost upwards of $20,000.   
 
However, ​new research​ shows that ​intermittent hypoxic training​ in which you create 
brief periods of low blood oxygen levels, can produce results almost instantly by 
stimulating stem cells to come out of hiding and move around the body to places where 
they can heal and regenerate healthy cells for your organs. 
 
This form of therapy has been used by ​Russian doctors​ for decades to treat diseases 
such as coronary heart disease, and to improve recovery time from injury and athletic 
training. Stamina and endurance is also improved as intermittent hypoxia stimulates the 
production of new muscle tissue, red blood cells, and even blood vessels. 
 
Using a combination of scientifically proven breathwork techniques, rhythmical and 
euphoric music, guided meditation, and imagery I have developed a remarkable process 
for reaching heightened states of consciousness and ecstatic bliss. It has even been 
described as a “psychedelic orgasm on DMT” by a modern shaman.  
 
Through a more therapeutic variation of this same process, the layers of your mask peel 
away and reveal your true nature. You cannot help but become your authentic self. You 
connect deeply to who you truly are. Through this awareness comes the path to truth. 
Through this profound truth you learn exactly the difference between what is good for 
you and what no longer serves you. You can remove negativity and attachment to the 
past, fully embrace the present, and be at your very best every single day. 
 
This is evolution of SOMA Breath. 
 
 
 Your Breath Shall Set You Free..
 
Do you know what the original meaning of “spiritual” is? 
 
It comes from the Latin, “Spirare”, which means to breathe. 
 
Inspire, to breathe in 
 
Conspire, to breathe together 
 
Many cultures throughout history have breathed together in some ceremonial way, and 
sacred rituals involving breath are a common thread between priests and religious 
leaders of many religions. 
 
Until 1386 the word “conspire” simply meant to breathe together. After the word 
“conspiracy” became known, the root word “conspire” took on a new meaning: to plot 
something wrong, evil, or illegal. 
 
The power of breathing together as a group practice was hidden for centuries due to the 
misdirection of a powerful word. Could the reason for this misdirection be due to an 
assumption that people meeting up to do breathwork rituals must be up to no good?  
 
Think of it this way: in the 1300s, the divide between rich and poor became more 
apparent than ever before. Those who took part in the breathwork rituals typically 
became the more prosperous and healthy members of society. Perhaps a rejected 
member chose to speak badly of this community, or perhaps an envious lower class 
society decided that these people were evil and greedy. 
 
However, modern science now shows us that when we breathe together in certain ways, 
some very interesting and positive occurrences arise; especially to your heart, feelings, 
and emotions. In fact breathing together may be the one thing that can solve the root 
cause of a lot of the problems of society - disconnection and social isolation, which 
create anxiety and depression on an epidemic scale. 
 
SOMA Breath 
In Thailand I lead breathwork ceremonies inside a giant meditation pyramid. Groups of 
us sat in circles, facing each other, moving hands up and down our bodies to conduct 
the energy of each long rhythmical inhale and exhale to beat-driven, trance-inducing 
music, with the inevitable symphony of orgasmic bliss emanating from the choir of 
breathers. This is a typical Soma awakening breathwork ritual.  
 
To anyone from the outside looking in, we must all look incredibly strange. In fact, we 
may even look intimidating, possessed, crazy to someone who has never encountered 
this before. 
 
However, in each SOMA session, new friendships, new loves, intimacy, and deep 
connections arise from this magical ritual. Soma has no doubt made a hugely positive 
impact on the members of our spiritual community in Srithanu, a small village located 
on the east side of the island of Koh Phangan. 

My Story
Back in 2010 my life could not have been more different. I was housebound, depressed, 
and seriously sick with a chronic illness called ulcerative colitis. For a number of years 
prior to this I had felt incredibly socially isolated and disconnected. I had become 
increasingly disillusioned with the way society had become in England. Especially in my 
career as a pharmacist, working for a very corrupt and broken system. Standing mostly 
in one spot dishing out pills all day long like a Big Pharma robot slave, I was surrounded 
by moody, miserable, and negative people and a boss who only cared about the profit 
we made that day. I was in living in a waking trance: a perfectly programmed existence 
that was in no way serving my best interests. 
 
My life revolved around the familiar pattern of wake up, coffee, sit in traffic, get to work, 
more coffee, complain with colleagues, complete my robotic and soulless work with 
minimal breaks, endure the endless mindless natter and gossip about the latest TV 
shows and celebrities who I had never heard of; McDonald’s for lunch, pizza for dinner, 
drink more coffee, sleep late, party hard, and consume a lot of alcohol and recreational 
drugs at the weekends to escape from the madness and misery my life had become. I 
felt I no longer fitted into the culture I grew up in and I feared that maybe this is all that 
life had to offer. I had no idea the impact of this fear until much later, when it all 
compounded into my diagnosis of a severe case of ulcerative colitis. 
 
In many ways, this was my blessing. It was through my sickness that I first discovered 
the potential of simple breathing exercises to relieve stress and even heal conditions 
ruled out as incurable by conventional medicine. When I asked whether there was any 
cure for ulcerative colitis, the doctor told me to shut up and keep taking the meds. But 
the side effects had taken their toll and the last option remaining was to surgically 
remove my colon. I could not accept that. By sheer fate alone a now very close friend of 
my family, and a world renowned yoga teacher, Swami Ambikananda, came to the 
rescue and taught me pranayama breathing exercises and simple lifestyle changes 
based on yoga and ayurveda. 
 
I really felt the power of these breathing exercise when finding peace and solace in a 
sauna after a hard days work. I would frequently visit a wellness center called Nirvana in 
my home town of Reading, England. I instinctively started to extend my exhalation and 
even make toning sounds with my voice this would bring me into a deep meditative 
state. To the surprise of other members of the spa, I was able to stay in the sauna for 
many times longer than everyone else, up to 1 hour at 90ºC+ temperatures. I felt the 
normal meditative state was expanded inside the sauna. I had a closer connection to 
my soul and spirit. The sauna was my temple and I regularly attended to worship. 
 
Miraculously, within a few months I was back on my feet at full health. Within a year I 
was living on a tropical island doing what I love for a living! Looking back on my healing 
journey, I know that the pranayama breathing exercises were the major catalyst to my 
recovery. 
 
This motivated me to delve deeper into researching exactly how and why something as 
simple as breathing could make such a profound change in my life. 
 

The records
 
Yogi Ramachakara, in ​The Science Of Breath​, the acclaimed book on yogic breathing 
published in 1903, writes extensively on how and why rhythmic breathing is the secret to 
attaining physical, spiritual, and even psychic mastery according to the master yogis in 
India. 
 
In 1969, ​Swami Rama​ baffled scientists by stopping his heart beat for 17 seconds. He 
even managed to raise the temperature of one side of his hand up by 10 degrees, and 
the other side down by 10 degrees by willpower alone. This proved for the first time, that 
under controlled conditions, we can consciously influence our autonomic nervous 
systems. 
 
However, these are just impressive displays that appear like magic and should not 
distract you from what more is possible. What Swami Rama was trying to show us is 
that by learning yoga and pranayama we can actually reclaim control over our 
physiology and psychology. We can become liberated and not only live longer more 
healthy lives, free from diseases, but also create a closer connection to the divine. 
 
In more recent times, a close friend and mentor of mine, W ​ im Hof​ ‘The Ice Man’, also an 
accomplished yogi, broke several world records and also shocked scientists by being 
able to stay in ice for 2 hrs without his core body temperature changing. He was also 
able to withstand the effects of an e-coli infection by willpower alone. He then went on 
to prove for the first time during a scientific experiment that you could train others to do 
the same. 
 
HeartMath Institute​, a group of scientists who have done a lot of great research on the 
effect of breathing on physiology, ran another very interesting study called Achieving 
Collective Coherence. They discovered that people who breathe together in a special 
rhythm create a phenomenon known as collective coherence. According to HeartMath, 
when we are in a coherent state, virtually no energy is wasted because our systems are 
performing optimally and there is synchronization between heart rhythms, the 
respiratory system, blood-pressure rhythms, and so on.  
 
Among the many benefits of personal coherence are increased composure, more 
energy, clear thinking, enhanced immune-system function, and hormonal balance. 
 

The Science

Why You Should Breathe Consciously

Breathing is the only physiological function that can be both voluntary and involuntary. 
You can consciously control your breath or you can ignore it and let your body breathe 
on its own. You cannot live without breathing so by letting go of conscious control, your 
breathing falls under the control of your most primitive part of your brain that deals with 
survival. This is the realm of your unconscious mind where emotions, thoughts, and 
feelings (of which we may have little or no awareness) can become involved, disrupting 
the rhythm of your breath. This means your breath can become incoherent and irregular 
when you lose conscious control over it. 
 
Have you ever driven a car all the way home to realise that you don’t remember much 
(or any) of the journey? This is because a familiar route has become an autopilot habit. 
You still have conscious control. However, if you completely let go of all conscious 
control, or even drive under the influence of alcohol, you may not see that child suddenly 
run across the road. 
 
Breathing is much the same in that if you let go of conscious control of it by taking it for 
granted, or if you live your life under the constant influence of distraction, noise, and 
ignorance, your erratic breathing and thinking may also land you in grave danger. 
However, when you place our attention on our breathing, you can turn conscious 
breathing into a positive habit.  
 
By consciously focusing on your breath you stimulate the cerebral cortex. The cerebral 
cortex is the largest region of the cerebrum in the mammalian brain and plays a key role 
in memory, attention, perception, cognition, awareness, thought, language, and 
consciousness. Through the power of intention and certain breathing exercises that you 
are about to learn, you will be able to stimulate the growth of new brain cells in this 
region of the brain for enhanced brain function. Make conscious breathing a daily 
meditation practice and your breath shall truly set you free. 
 

Nose Breathing Versus Mouth Breathing

We naturally take our breath for granted, and as a result, we are never taught how to breathe. It
is therefore very common for people to shallow breathe through their mouths, especially under
times of stress.

What happens when we mouth breathe?

Breathing through the mouth usually only fills up the upper lobes of the lungs, which have more
sympathetic nervous system receptors and a more stimulatory response in the body that can
release stress hormones. This may have evolved to help us under times of great exertion and
stress, when greater volumes of oxygen may be needed, along with a boost in our sympathetic,
flight or fight response.

When you work out intensely you will naturally breathe through both your nose and mouth to
bring in more oxygen to supply your muscles’ demands. However, under times of emotional
stress you may also breathe through your mouth more when in fact you do not need the excess
oxygen as you are not physically active. This can lead to extra unnecessary stress on the body
and more stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system than is actually required.

What happens when we nose breathe?

Your energy levels are directly linked to the function of your lungs as this is where oxygen is
absorbed into the body. Your lungs extract oxygen from the air primarily on the exhalation. As
your nostrils are much smaller than your mouth, the rate of air flow into your lungs is reduced.
Air exhaled through your nose creates extra back pressure and the air is retained for longer
inside your lungs. This gives more time for oxygen to be absorbed into your bloodstream.

Breathing through your nostrils also filters, cleans and conditions the air so that you breath
higher quality air into your lungs. As nostril breathing also warms the air, it flows into the lower
part of the lungs where there are more parasympathetic receptors. This helps you stay calm and
relaxed. If you are competing in sports, simply breathing through your nostrils can stimulate the
parasympathetic nervous system to maintain more focus. In some cases you will need extra
oxygen and so breathing through both your nostrils and mouth at the same time will ensure you
do not over stimulate your sympathetic nervous system.
 

Where Intention Goes, Breath Flows 

When you have erratic thoughts or are in a low emotional state such as fear, anger, or 
anxiety your breathing becomes erratic and and so does the rhythm of your heartbeat. 
When you are in emotional states like passion and joy, your breathing becomes more 
smooth, consistent, and rhythmical, and your heart rhythms become more coherent.  
 
You can create heart coherence by changing your attention to creating a more positive 
intention by focusing on gratitude, forgiveness, or a scene of success rather than 
failure. By bringing your attention to your breath and breathing more consciously, you 
can change the quality of your emotions and heart rhythms. 
 
The way we measure the quality of heart rhythms is by measuring a factor called Heart 
Rate Variability, or HRV. 
 
What Is Heart Rate Variability (HRV)?
You may not be aware that your heart beats at a slightly different pace all the time, 
meaning the distance between one beat and the next is constantly changing. The 
variability of the change in the interval between each individual heart beat can be 
measured as Heart Rate Variability (HRV). 
 
You can tell a lot about your performance and health just by monitoring your HRV over 
the course of a day. Your heart rate fluctuates throughout the day as it adapts to 
changes in your physiology, energy, and stressors. If your heartbeat were totally 
consistent, it would be a sign that your heart cannot adapt to stress anymore, and you 
are about to die! So, HRV is a measure of how much your heart rate fluctuates, i.e. the 
time difference in the intervals between each heartbeat indicating that your heart is 
adaptive and resilient to stress.  
 
According to ​Dr. Alan Watkins​, a medical doctor and neuroscientist who uses HRV 
extensively to improve performance and productivity, there are now some 19,000 
published scientific papers that explore the different aspects of HRV and it can be used 
for the following: 
 
• HRV can predict illness and death crucial for succession planning. 
• HRV quantifies energy levels and levels of dynamism crucial to performance. 
• HRV is directly linked to brain function crucial to effective decision making. 
• HRV relates to individual identity which is highly relevant to authentic leadership. 
 

How HRV is related to breathing 

When you inhale, you stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and your heart rate 
goes up. When you exhale, you stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and your 
heart rate goes down. Through rhythmic breathing you can create cardiac coherence 
because your heart rate begins to vary in a consistent way with each breath - a more 
efficient use of energy. 
 

The 3 Factors For Heart Coherence 

1. Rhythm​ - Your ratio of inhale to exhale should be consistent. For example: 4 
seconds in, 4 seconds out, or, 4 seconds in, 8 seconds out in a continuous 
 manner is consistent. However if you breathe 2 seconds in, 4 seconds out, then 3 
seconds in and 8 seconds out, and so on, it is not smooth and consistent. So 
breathe to a rhythm, breathe in beats! 
2. Smooth​ - Your breath should be a smooth flow in and out. There should be no 
breaks or stutter to your breath. An easy way to ensure this is to breathe in 
through your nostrils (you should always breathe in through your nostrils and 
avoid mouth breathing as much as possible) and breathe out through your nose 
or your mouth, however when you breathe through your mouth, purse your lips a 
little so that your exhale is slow and smooth. Imagine making the sound of an 
ocean wave and bring your awareness to the sound your breath makes. 
3. Intention​ - Coherence of your heart rhythm is influenced by your emotions. It is 
much harder to get into flow states and coherence if you are feeling down or your 
mind is clouded by negative thoughts. A simple way to solve this is to bring your 
awareness to something you are truly grateful for, for example a loved one, 
something you love to do, or the delicious meal you just ate. The sense of 
gratitude has been proven in various studies to change your emotional state from 
low to higher very fast! 
 

Eliminate The Pause 

The easiest way to ensure you begin to breathe with rhythm is to eliminate the pause 
between each breath. It is often this pause that creates irregular breathing patterns that 
leads to incoherent HRV patterns. Keeping your breath smooth, connected and circular 
with no pause is the foundation for effective rhythmic breathwork.  
 
With that, there is a point when holding your breath for a certain length of time 
(kumbhaka) can be the key to unlocking your superhuman potential. We will discuss this 
in depth later. 
 

What Is The Optimum Breath Rate?

This really depends on the result you are looking for.  
1. Heart Coherence:​ S ​ tudies show​ that HRV is increased most by breathing at a 
rate of 5 or 6 breaths per minute (5 seconds in, 5 out) with an equal I:E 
(inhale:exhale) ratio. However, coherence still occurs with any ratio as long as 
you breathe rhythmically. One of the goals of pranayama is to bring your normal 
day to day breath rate down to at least 5 or 6 breaths per minute, or even half 
that. According to yoga - longevity is dependent on your breath rate - the less you 
 have to breathe, means the more efficient your physiological functions are, and 
so less the impact of oxidative stress, and the longer you live! 
2. Flow States:​ Heart coherence and getting into flow using your breath depends on 
rhythm, smoothness, and intention. An active breath rate of 6-10 breaths per 
minute is adequate for creating the higher energetic states needed for positive 
emotions like passion and joy. ​Passion​ is the number one predictor of flow and 
peak performance. More rapid breathing should always be followed by breath 
retention (kumbhaka) in order to bring the physiology back into balance. 
3. Rest & Digest:​ ​Studies show​ that by extending the exhale time, or breathing in an 
I:E ratio of 0.5, results in more of a relaxation response reporting increased 
relaxation, stress reduction, mindfulness, and positive energy compared to just 
slowing down the breathing rate. Your parasympathetic nervous system switches 
on which controls your rest and digest mode. Do a few rounds of this before and 
after eating to avoid indigestion. 
 

The Ideal Inhale:Exhale Ratio

According to the Yoga sutras, the ideal way to breathe is with a ​slow rechaka​. Rechaka 
means exhalation in sanskrit. The ideal ratio is when your exhale is double your inhale 
time (= 0.5). This ratio is also shown in studies to be the optimum time needed for 
increased relaxation, stress reduction, mindfulness and positive energy. This can be 
explained physiologically as exhalation stimulates the parasympathetic nervous 
system. You also absorb most oxygen on your exhale, so this also adds to the increase 
in positive energy.  
 
When you breathe in this ratio, the conscious focus and effort required to extend the 
exhale stimulates the cerebral cortex. This is a very important region of the brain that 
deals with things like thought, awareness, memory, attention, and language. By bringing 
your attention to slowing down your exhale, your thoughts become more focused, your 
parasympathetic nervous system is switched on, and your emotions become more 
calm. 
 

The Butterfly Effect Of Coherence

What ​Heartmath​ also discovered is that by simply being in the presence of coherent 
people you can become coherent. Like the butterfly effect, one small change in 
coherence in a person could make a great shift in coherence across the world. The 
more coherent our world is, the better for all of us. SOMA Breath shows us that every 
person is capable of achieving, increasing, and maintaining our personal and social 
coherence. 

Physiology

Directed Neurogenesis
Neuroplasticity is the concept that your brain can change. Neurogenesis is the ability for 
the brain to grow new brain cells. Numerous studies, especially on stroke victims who 
have brain damage, now demonstrate that your brain can regenerate and repair 
damaged areas. What is even more amazing is that new emerging research shows us 
that it is possible to actually self-direct neurogenesis and intentionally grow new brain 
cells in the areas desired. 
 
Dr Jeffrey Schwartz​, a leading researcher of brain dysfunctions, and Sharon Begley, a 
Wall Street Journal science columnist, conducted great research together on a 
phenomenon of self-directed neuroplasticity. In 1989, while treating patients with 
obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), using a therapy based on Buddhist mindfulness 
meditation, they discovered that patients were able to reshape their brains to diminish 
or remove obsessions. 
 
In 1995, Alvaro Pascual-Leone at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and 
Stroke, had a group of volunteers practice a five-finger piano exercise, and another 
group simply think about practicing the piece, using mental visualizations of practicing 
each note at a time. He discovered that those performing the mental rehearsal 
produced as big a change as the group who carried out the actual movements! 
 
With Soma Breath you will learn how to use the power of intention and visualization 
combined with the physiological effects of breathwork and meditation to stimulate and 
self-direct brain growth in areas that would be appropriate to you. 
 
A Soma Breath coach is expertly trained in facilitating directed neurogenesis. 
 

Music Is The Language Of The Soul 

Quantum science shows we are all connected in some way on an energetic level. 
Thoughts and emotions affect your hearts electromagnetic field, which affects our 
environment. Music also has a m ​ easurable physiological effect​ based on whether you 
resonate with it or not, and music that resonates with you has the ability to light up all 
areas of your brain and boost low alpha brainwaves associated with optimum cognitive 
function. 
 

A quick exercise
Listen to two pieces of music, one you love and one that you really hate… 
 
How do you feel after listening to each one? 
Do you feel contracted or expanded? 
Do you want to relax and enjoy or run away? 
 
When we have high vibrational emotions like love and passion, we produce coherent 
frequencies in the electromagnetic field that radiates from the heart - like listening to a 
piece of music that you love. Low vibrational emotions like fear and hate produce 
discordant frequencies, just like when a piece of music is out of tune. 
 
We intuitively know which vibrational state we are in by tuning into the emotions we 
feel. When we radiate high vibrations by choosing to feel love, we shift our frequencies 
into coherence. Every individual thought, intention, emotion, and what we feel 
energetically impacts our environment, which affects the collective vibrations on a 
global level. By simply breathing in rhythm to music that is beautiful and soothing to 
you, we can create a natural state of physiological coherence. This physiological state 
of coherence will rub off on others around you by simply being in their presence - this is 
the power of collective coherence at enhancing the consciousness of the entire planet. 
 

Book mark

Kumbhaka

The Secret Tool Of The Super Human Yogi’s 

Life is a series of inhales and exhales. Your thoughts are excited by breath. When you 
press pause on your breath, you press pause on life itself. Your mind becomes still and 
your thought files reassemble. You go into the deepest meditative state. It is like 
pressing defrag on your computer when it becomes slow and cluttered in order to make 
it run faster. Pausing your breath is your personal defrag button… if done in the right 
way. Your brainwaves drop into low alpha and you become more at one with your 
subconscious mind. Your power of intention and self hypnosis is dramatically increased 
when you pause your breath. This pause is called K ​ umbhaka. 
 
In yoga there is another way to pause your breath called N ​ isshesha Rechaka 
Pranayama​. This means “to hold your breath beyond the comfort zone”. When you hold 
your breath for long enough, you trigger a positive stress response in the body so that it 
adapts to a low oxygen environment. This leads to the production of more red blood 
cells, new blood vessels, and even dormant parts of your brain waking up. It has an 
overall strengthening effect on your body. 
 
The mechanism for this can be explained by the fact that holding your breath lowers 
oxygen levels in your body and creating a state called intermittent hypoxia (brief periods 
of low oxygen). Russian scientists trying to improve athletic performance in the 1970s 
discovered the numerous health benefits of this state when they noticed that when 
people when up to high altitudes with low oxygen for brief periods of time they would 
report an improvement in the symptoms of a variety of chronic health conditions such 
as hypertension and chronic inflammation. 
 
A mechanism to explain these health benefits is the “awakening” of somatic stem cells 
in the body, which can only survive in hypoxic conditions. The systemic hypoxia created 
by kumbhaka enables the movement and proliferation of stem cells to areas in the body 
that require healing. They can also be directed towards the growth of new stronger cells 
in areas such as your heart and brain. 
 
A side effect of this process is generating heat in the body. It is actually the same 
technique used by Himalayan yogis to survive extremely cold conditions. 
 
Getting the correct dose of kumbhaka is very important. Another important factor is the 
use of certain yogic energy locks to avoid the energy generated by hypoxia from 
disrupting other physiological functions. Too much hypoxia for too long can lead to 
more harm than good. Too little and it will not work at all. 
 

Charming The Snake

At first when you practice Kumbhaka you may experience a strong sense of fear when 
holding your breath as we are all so conditioned into feeling an urgency to breathe. This 
fear response is initiated in your reptilian brain, a region of the brain we have in common 
with birds and reptiles. 
 
The reptilian brain is the most primitive part of the brain and will instinctively trigger you 
to breathe much sooner than you actually need to. It is driven by the need to survive at 
all costs. It controls the body's vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body 
temperature, and balance. It deals with sexual urges and the instinctive drive to 
procreate. It gets angry in response to danger, and most of all it deals with fear. If you 
imagine you have 3 different people inside your brain, your reptilian brain is the horny, 
hungry, and fearful one. It likes to take revenge and get angry, however it would rather 
run away than fight, but fight to the death it shall if your survival depends on it. It is also 
the reason why you may choose survival and security over following your more ‘risky’ 
passions in life. 
 
The second region of the brain to evolve is the limbic system. It is driven by the need to 
fulfil desire and satisfy hunger. The main structures of the limbic brain are the 
hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. It deals with emotions, desires, and 
our value judgements. Memories of positive or negative experiences in early life create 
imprints and conditioning that lead to hard-wired habits programmed deep into your 
limbic system. Most of our subconscious behaviours are formed in this region of the 
brain. Both the reptilian and limbic system are core components of the subconscious 
mind. 
 
The third and most evolved region of the brain is the neocortex also considered the 
‘human’ part of the brain as it is what really distinguishes us from other animals. It is 
driven by the need for connection and belonging. This region of the brain deals with 
reasoning, imagination, creativity, and problem solving. It is where the higher intellectual 
functions reside and it is consider the seat of compassion and forgiveness. It oversees 
the rest of the brain and it moderates the impulsive and instinctive responses of the 
reptilian and limbic brain. This region is the seat of the conscious mind. 
 
Under perceived stress, we are in a struggle for survival. It is our reptilian and limbic 
regions of the brain that dominate. The fundamental drivers are money, sex, and food or 
fuel. When any of these areas of life go off balance your reptilian brain is switched on 
and you are at risk of making very irrational decisions or actions. 

Charming the Snake

A pulse oximeter will show you that you actually have a lot more oxygen in your blood 
than you perhaps thought. For most people, unless you have a serious lung problem 
such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), your SpO​₂​(peripheral capillary 
oxygen saturation) levels are usually around 97-100% and remain that high even after 
holding your breath for 30-45 seconds, the average time it takes before you will feel the 
first urge to breathe again.  
 
To trigger the positive stress response that brings the health benefits of kumbhaka you 
need to reach a ​target of 85% SpO​₂​or less, that requires you to hold your breath for 
around 1 minute and 30 seconds or more. To really experience the full benefits of 
kumbhaka your breath retention time needs to be 2-3 minutes to give enough time for 
the stem cells to proliferate and move around the body. 
 
You may now be wondering: how do you hold your breath for that long? Surely that’s 
impossible and you would die! It is actually very possible to hold your breath for several 
minutes. The current world record is 24 minutes, set by Aleix Segura Vendrell in 2016. 
The method free divers like Aleix use is to breathe pure oxygen first to eliminate as 
much carbon dioxide as possible from the body.  
 
This is because it is actually your carbon dioxide levels that signal your brain to breathe 
again, not the lack of oxygen. The yogis somehow knew this thousands of years ago 
and so would use rapid rhythmic breathwork to breathe in more oxygen and to breathe 
out as much carbon dioxide as possible before practicing kumbhaka. This essentially 
tricks your brain into allowing you to hold your breath for even longer. 
 
When you learn how override this sense of fear and can remain calm despite the 
response of the reptilian brain, you can liberate yourself from the overactive protective 
instinct of the subconscious mind. 

Reprogramme The Subsconscious Operating System With Conscious

Breathwork
 
When you learn to consciously override the first urge to breathe, a sense of peace and 
calm will wash over you like a wave of good feelings, as you realise you did not die. 
Eventually, with further practice you will reimprint a less impulsive fear response. Your 
instinctive hardwired response to fear is reprogrammed and calmed down. Imagine that 
your subconscious mind is like the operating system of a supercomputer. It gets 
programmed with a set of conditioned beliefs and habits that are like computer apps or 
imprints wired into the circuits that are your subconscious mind’s go-to instructions on 
how to respond or act. These bio-circuits influence your decisions, actions and 
interactions throughout life. 
 

Irrational vs Rational Fear and Why Neither Are Your Fault

 
Imagine this: You want to cross a busy road. Your hardwired instruction in the circuit of 
your reptilian brain that deals with your survival responds, “cars equal danger” and your 
body immediately responds to an instinctive command of stop, look, and wait until the 
road is safe to cross. Some people may have overridden this instinctive command by 
playing a game of dare as kids and not getting hit by a car. A new imprint would replace 
the old and the dare-playing child may now be less careful when crossing the road 
again. This could end in tragedy. In some cases a learned response to fear is very 
rational and can save our life. 
 
It is when fear becomes irrational that it causes obstacles in our life. A classic example 
is the fear of public speaking. In many cases people really want to speak in public as it 
would help their career a great deal, however they feel paralysed by the fear response 
that overwhelms them when the time comes. This makes them believe they can never 
talk in public and they will instinctively avoid doing so at all costs, hampering their 
potential for success in their career or business.  
 
Panic attacks, excessive sweating, losing train of thought, forgetting words, and 
stuttering are common reactions that you may notice when you see a person on stage 
trembling with fear. This same example also applies to the extremely common fear of 
approaching a person of the opposite sex that you are really attracted to for the first 
time. It is considered an irrational fear because you are not going to die from doing it! 
 
So why does your body react in this way?  
 

FOFO: The Fear Of Feeling Out

The Most Dangerous Epidemic Spreading Across The World

 
Back in the times of our tribal ancestors, if you were rejected by the tribe it would mean 
you were totally alone in the world. Something as trivial as not being able to dance could 
end in this rejection. If you were born a lighter or darker skin color than everyone else, 
such as an albino, or if you were much smaller or weaker than other members of the 
tribe you would most likely be excluded, and off on your own you would have to go.  
 
Unless you were a real Renegade and managed to create your own competing tribe 
elsewhere, you would be outcasted, fail to pass on your genes, and would inevitably die 
a fast and painful death. Humans are not top of the food chain. The fear of this ever 
happening is perhaps the greatest fear of all and it still drives a lot of human behaviour 
to this day. 
 
It seems we have moved on a lot since those tribal ancestral times, but is that really 
true? The Fear Of Feeling Out or excluded is still a driving factor in a lot of human 
behaviour. The human need for belonging, connection, and love are perhaps the 
greatest human needs of all, and it is hardwired deep into the bio-survival circuit of the 
human reptilian brain.  
 
Think back on your own life at how many things you have done, decisions you have 
made, which events you did or did not attend, books you did or did not read, clothes you 
wore or would never dream of wearing simply to fit into the culture you felt most 
attracted to. Marketing and advertising is all designed to create cultures within cultures, 
and to lose the deep seated fear of feeling out, to get you to the buy stuff that makes 
you feel more “in”. 
 
Depression and anxiety is a serious epidemic around the world. A big reason for it is this 
growing movement towards becoming tribal cultures again. You may be at risk of 
depression if you feel you have been excluded by your “tribe” because for example you 
do not earn as much money as them and you can’t afford to go to the same places. 
Perhaps you do not feel connected to your workmates, peers, friends, or even family. 
Perhaps you made some big life changes, but they don’t understand so they think you’re 
weird. Until you discover a new “tribe” that makes you feel more “in”, you may suffer 
from depression or anxiety, especially if it is your own family who are beginning to 
exclude you. 
 
The good news is that you can actually respond better to change and become more 
adaptive by controlling this primal fear response. This can help you prevent the fear 
from manifesting into something much worse like chronic disease and depression. 
Instead of overreacting and letting the fear take over your life, you can learn to “charm 
the snake”, get back into your flow, and find or create a new tribe that lives by your 
values. 
 
It is also this irrational fear that makes you consume things you do not really want, or 
conform against your own will just to fit in, or never be able to speak in public or freeze 
at the sight of a person you admire. This is not really you - it’s the reptilian brain, and by 
charming the snake and making it your friend, it can help you significantly lead a more 
happier and fulfilled life. 
 
It is by learning simple breathing exercises that you can become cool and calm when 
bombarded with negative comments, insults, or rejection. You can become a liberated 
superhuman! 
 

How To Control FOFO 

Fear and hardcore survival instincts are hardwired within the first few interactions of 
your life and they are the hardest of all to shift. Higher yoga rituals are designed to 
reprogram these. Conscious breathing is the first reprogramming tool of the yogis. The 
reprogramming power is especially enhanced if you turn the practice of kumbhaka into 
an active meditative process using visualization and incantations. This is an extremely 
effective way to charm the aforementioned snake, as your reptilian brain does not 
respond to words and logic - it prefers images and symbols. 
 
You may be familiar with the sensations and side effects of fear: sweating, blushing, 
inability to think straight, freezing up, or even making a crazy instinctive reaction that 
ends in embarrassment, such as saying the wrong thing or getting into an unnecessary 
fight. 
 
Strong emotions such as fear shuts down your cerebral functions as your limbic 
reptilian brain takes control. Instead of directing blood flow to activities like thinking or 
contemplating, your brain is aimed solely towards your survival under any cost.  
 
Fear leads to physiological changes that prepare you to be more efficient in a 
dangerous system. Your brain becomes hyper alert, your pupils dilate, your breath 
capacity increases, breathing gets faster. Your heart rate increases and so does your 
blood pressure. Blood flow to your muscles increases, too, while blood flow to organs 
that deal with digestion decreases or even stops completely because they are not as 
important when you need to escape danger. 
 
The ‘Off Switch’ For Stress 
The human species has not evolved to adapt to the current societal pressures. In our 
ancestral past this fear response would be a valuable protection mechanism in the 
threat of danger from wild animals or invading tribes. However in today’s time, instead 
of wild beasts or warriors attacking us, it is our boss at work, deadlines, taxes and bills 
to pay. These emotional stressors creates the same physiological response, and unlike 
animals who have an off switch for stress, humans do not. Many of us wallow in an 
ocean of stress hormones, and unless we do something about it, the stress will 
inevitably lead to disease or even kill us.  
 
Often poor digestion is the result of less blood flow to the digestive organs due to the 
flight or fight response being switched on for too long. Poor digestion is a major cause 
of chronic disease, low energy, and poor performance.  
 
Unless you learn to control the stress response it can wreak havoc over your health and 
life!  
 
The good news is that breathing rhythmically and practicing kumbhaka are two tools 
that help us to consciously turn off stress and charm the snake. Rhythmic breathwork 
followed by kumbhaka is also the magical process for creating the Soma within. 
 
We discuss the science and the method of kumbhaka in more depth in the Soma 21-Day 
Awakening Protocol​. 
 

Why Is AUM The Sacred Sound Of Creation?

According to the ancient yogic texts, AUM or OM is considered the sacred sound of 
creation. If you take a closer look at exactly ​what happens physiologically​ when you 
make this sound, it may well be the most simple ‘creative’ tool available.  
 
The yogis are not the only people to chant single tones like AUM. The tibetan monks, 
tuvan throat singers of Mongolia, and various other tribal cultures sing in single tones. 
When you make a single tone sound for an extended length of time you are naturally 
extending the exhale. You stimulate the cerebral cortex which in turn also calms down 
the hypothalamus and even pain receptors. What is interesting is that this may explain 
why people scream or yell when they get hurt too. 
 
Making a single tone stimulates the vagus nerve, your brainwaves produce more alpha 
and theta waves, which is the state hypnotherapists like to get their subjects into as it is 
the time when suggestions work best. Through the power of intention and visualization 
you can stimulate the creation of new brain cells in the cerebral cortex.  
 
AUM is actually 3 syllables: Ahhh, Ooooohh, and Mmmmmm. 
 
Each of these tones creates a vibration in a different area of the body. 
● Ahhh = Stomach/Abdomen  
● Ooooohh = Heart/Chest/Throat  
● Mmmmmm = Brain/Pineal/Pituitary Gland 
 
Through this toning sequence you can vibrate and stimulate the endocrine glands and 
energy centers of each of these areas of your body. This has the power to create, 
restore, and revitalise the cells and organs important for your optimum living. The 
highest tone of Mmmm that stimulates your higher cortical functions and glands of the 
pineal and pituitary. Toning also has the power to alter consciousness and your ability 
to create reality itself. 
 
By combining rhythmic breathwork, kumbhaka, harnessing sexual energy, and toning 
you now how a powerful process for awakening your creativity, ability to manifest, and 
your brain and cognition enhancing power! 
 

The AUM Meditation 

When you chant AUM, you naturally extend your exhalation. This has the effect of 
switching off your sympathetic nervous system and activating your parasympathetic 
nervous system. With this exercise, your brainwaves will flow naturally into the alpha 
state and your third eye chakra will be activated. This is where your pineal gland is 
located. 
 
In many ancient cultures the pineal gland is considered to be “the seat of the soul”, and 
this scientific AUM meditation can be used to enhance the activity of the pineal gland. 
This allows you to connect with the divine and the universal consciousness. Deep 
meditation in this state enables you to receive divine inspiration, heightened creativity 
and divine knowledge. 
 
Soma Sauna 
Saunas​ were first utilised some 4000 years ago and plenty of research has been carried 
out on the health benefits. Sauna is one of the top methods utilised to flush toxins from 
the body as it causes you to sweat profusely, forcing toxins such as heavy metals to the 
surface of your skin. A deep sweat is a great way to release toxicity from the body 
which has built up from exposure to various environmental elements such as pollution 
and the additives commonly found in refined foods we consume.  
 
Saunas have even been found to burn calories and aid in weight loss due to your body’s 
elimination of toxins, which in turn increases your metabolism. Saunas have also been 
found to greatly reduce the stress hormone cortisone, which has been linked to weight 
gain. Studies show that athletes who regularly use saunas have higher endurance due 
to increased blood flow. 
 
A recent finding also shows that saunas promote a natural hormone called HGH 
(human growth hormone), which is vital for maintaining healthy tissue, organs and 
muscles which begin rapidly degenerating with age. HGH is also necessary for strong 
sexual health into good age, therefore sauna are powerful for supercharging your sexual 
energy. 
 
For me, going to a sauna and steam is akin to going to church. I have developed my own 
sauna meditation ritual based on simple pranayama breathwork exercises and 
visualization techniques to reach altered states of consciousness. During this ritual a 
deep meditative state with a surge of low alpha and theta wave activity is achieved 
where I can consciously control my autonomic nervous system and influence the 
powers of the brain stem. If you believe in the law of attraction and manifesting, it is this 
ritual that is the key factor for my own ability to create the reality I want. 
 
 

What Happens When You Breathe Together

If you watch a baby in their mother’s arms you will see how the baby’s breathing syncs 
to the mother’s. You will also notice that if you are spending a lot of time with one 
person, your breathing pattern will match theirs. Forms of therapy such as NLP and 
hypnotherapy model this phenomenon and the therapist will alter their breathing 
patterns to match their clients to create instant rapport. 
 
If you are on a date and want to create instant rapport, or if you want to experience 
deeper connection during love making, simply breathe together in the same rhythm or 
match your rate of breath to theirs. Studies have also shown that couples tend to 
naturally sync their heart and breath rhythms together, it’s a sign of love and 
connection. 
 
By breathing to a rhythm together as a group we can create a harmonious energy 
between each person as our heart rhythms synchronise, creating rapport and a stronger 
bond between the group. This is the power of collective coherence at creating a better 
community for all. 
 
Soma Awakening experiences are greatly enhanced as a group. The connection, 
friendships and bonds created by breathing together is what makes this such an 
important tool for building community. 
 

Science Of Immortality & Becoming Superhuman

In The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, he shares miraculous 
stories of superhuman yogis who have become immortal and live in the mountains of 
the Himalayas. These are questionable claims, but it may be a real truth that can be 
explained by having a deeper understanding of yoga and its effect on your physiology 
and stem cells. So the theory claims that if we can activate our stem cells we should be 
able to live longer disease free lives as we can keep regenerating healthy cells and 
replace old ones.  
 
In Pranayama, the breathwork component of yoga, the most revered breathing 
technique is called Kumbhaka. This involves different types of breath retention or 
simply holding your breath either in (puraka) or out (rechaka). Through the process of 
yoga, by steadily increasing your retention times, it is claimed you can reach a state of 
eternal bliss called samadhi and become immortal. 
 

What happens when you hold your breath?

So let’s recap: 
When you hold your breath you build up CO​₂​and deplete O​₂​in your bloodstream. The 
longer you hold your breath, you become hypoxic. If it continues for too long the lack of 
O​₂​will have serious consequences - we need O​₂​for life to exist. However short periods 
of hypoxia known as intermittent hypoxia have been shown in various studies to be 
beneficial to health. This is where the magical effect of intermittent hypoxia kicks in. 
Intermittent Hypoxic Therapy (IHT) encourages this. 

Uses & Contraindications Of IHT

IHT improves mitochondrial function and can enhance athletic and sports performance. 
IHT can be beneficial for the treatment of a wide range of degenerative diseases, 
including: 
 
● Chronic heart and lung diseases 
● Hypertension 
● Asthma and chronic bronchitis 
● Liver and pancreatic diseases 
● Anxiety and depression 
● Iron-deficiency anaemia 
● Lack of energy and fatigue 
 
IHT is contraindicated in case of: 
 
● Acute somatic and viral diseases 
● Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD-II and COPD-III) 
● Chronic diseases with symptoms of decompensation or terminal illness 
● Individual intolerance of oxygen insufficiency 
● Cancer, unless IHT is prescribed by a doctor 
● People with epilepsy, pacemakers or heart arrhythmias, unless treatment 
(including IHT) is under direct medical supervision. 
 
IHT is not a cure for illness. Doctors and medical professionals add great value to our 
world and we are blessed to live in such a medically advanced age. Instead, IHT is one 
aspect of living an holistically healthy lifestyle. 

What Happens During Intermittent Hypoxia?

All the effects of hypoxia are generated through the now well-documented
“Hypoxia-Inducible-Factor-1”. These effects are primarily to help you survive lower O​₂
environments. It seems that inducing hypoxia through breath-holding creates a positive stress
response by turning on your body’s survival mode in the way extreme temperatures from
saunas and ice baths do too.
 
 ● Increase in red blood cells through the production of EPO. 
● Produces growth factors that lead to development of new blood vessels. This 
happens even in heart disease so can help prevent heart failure. 
● Induces Nitric Oxide Synthase that has a variety of positive effects on cell 
tissues. Nitric Oxide helps protect cells from oxidative stress and also stimulates 
vasodilation. It may even help erectile dysfunction as it is involved in the 
vasodilation needed to erect the penis. 
● It induces Tumor protein p53 also known as the ‘guardian of the genome’ that 
protects the DNA of a cell and prevents cells from turning into cancer cells. 
● Stem cells can only survive in hypoxia. Stem cells are abundant in fetal 
circulation where O​₂​is low. They disappear from circulation soon after birth. 
They survive in various locations called “niches” in the body such as bone 
marrow in adulthood. The amount of stem cells in the body reduces with age. It 
is possible that stem cells may migrate from bone marrow to various tissues 
where they stimulate repair and growth of new cells by just a few minutes of 
hypoxia a day (intermittent hypoxia). This could benefit many degenerative 
disorders including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s 
● It has shown to stimulate neurogenesis in the brain by the proliferation of neural 
stem cells that can also help memory, cognitive function and even act as an 
antidepressant. 
 

Hypoxia & Stem Cells

It has been shown in rats that the number of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC) in the peripheral
blood increases by as much as 15 times in hypoxia. It is also well recognised that stem cells
retained their self renewing properties when cultured in hypoxic environments of 2% oxygen
compared to 20% in normal air. Bone marrow stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells have low
numbers of of mitochondria, and are more adapted to anaerobic survival rather than oxygen rich
environments.

Oxidative stress
Studies have shown that oxidative stress is a major factor in causing degenerative diseases like
Parkinson’s and osteoarthritis.

This could be as result of stem cells staying locked in ‘Niches’ by excess oxygen in the blood
 
Is Carbon Dioxide Toxic? 
In normal amounts carbon dioxide is not at all toxic. It diffuses from your cells into your
bloodstream and from there out via your lungs and is always present throughout your body. You
would have to inhale large quantities of CO​₂​for a prolonged period of time to causes any harm
to the body. This duration would be much much longer than what you would expect during
intermittent hypoxia. 

Diseases That May Be Treated By Intermittent Hypoxia 

“Low dose” Intermittent Hypoxia training may be a simple, safe, and effective treatment with
considerable therapeutic potential for multiple clinical disorders, and is receiving increasing
support from experimental and clinical studies.

Type 2 Diabetes
This debilitating illness has reached epidemic levels around the world. The current methods of
treating it are with drugs that include stimulating insulin release from the β cells by
sulfonylureas, stimulating peripheral utilization of glucose by biguanides, and reducing insulin
resistance using thiazolidinedione derivatives. These medications require constant use and their
effect diminishes over the time meaning higher doses and more need to be taken. This can lead
to all kinds of nasty side effects.

Often, extremely restrictive carb free diets need to be employed if a patient wants any chance to
reverse or manage the symptoms without relying on medication. However human embryonic
stem cells can be directed to turn into cells that produce insulin. Mice have been seen to
regenerate β-cell mass after losing 70%–80% of it.

Coronary artery disease

When blood vessels providing blood flow to the heart die or become blocked, blood flow is
reduced, which can result in a heart attack. To fix this, someone undergoes a bypass surgery.
Blood flow is redirected to the heart by creating an artificial blood vessel. Stents are sometimes
used to widen the affected blood vessels too. However in recent years scientists have been
looking for ways to see if the body can create “natural bypasses” by the formation of coronary
collaterals.

When the narrowing of coronary arteries is gradual by atherosclerosis, it has been shown that
coronary collaterals form naturally to improve blood flow. It is thought that tissue hypoxia leads
to the formation of VEGF that stimulates the growth of these new “natural bypasses”.
Patients with sleep apnea and hypoxic spells have also been shown to create coronary
collaterals naturally. Dr. Buteyko hypothesised that sleep apnea, asthma, and other disorders
that reduce the amount of oxygen in the blood was actually the body attempting to create a
hypoxic environment. The Buteyko method actually works by creating intermittent hypoxia,
which makes perfect sense as to why it has such incredible results at curing asthma and sleep
apnea.

Osteoarthritis
As we age normal wear and tear on the joints causes cell damage. If your rate of cell repair is
lower than the rate of damage, you get osteoarthritis. Scientists are trying to harness stem cells,
multiply them in culture and then put them at the site that needs recovery. Hypoxic conditions
have been shown to increase hypoxia-inducible transcription factor HIF-2α that leads to growth
of stem cells in osteoarthritis patients.

Autoimmune Conditions
Autoimmune diseases such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s, asthma, and arthritis result in an
increase of inflammation at the areas affected by the disease. Cytokines play a major role in the
development of inflammation. In experiments with rats induced with a form of rheumatoid
arthritis that were treated with intermittent hypoxia, it was shown to have a powerful
anti-inflammatory effect, by a cascade of effects that lead to the inhibition of cytokines.

The Buteyko method also has many years of anecdotal evidence of people recovering from a
variety of chronic autoimmune conditions. The Wim Hof Method also boasts similar success
stories from its users.

As a past sufferer of an autoimmune condition I believe the cause and treatment is probably
more complicated than simply holding your breath. Factors such as poor digestion, poor lifestyle
choices, leaky gut, emotional and physical stress are to be taken into account for the
progression of many chronic diseases - not just autoimmune. However intermittent hypoxic
training may offer some relief of symptoms and be part of a wider protocol that takes into
account the other lifestyle factors.

Memory and Cognitive Function

In this highly competitive and busy world, people are always trying to get the edge on their
ability to think sharper, faster and improve their memory. The field of nootropics has grown
widely in the last few years with attempts to create complex smart drugs and vitamin
formulations with the aim to boost cognitive function. However, an overlooked natural nootropic
may lie in simply holding your breath.
Neural stems cells have been shown in studies to proliferate in the brain under hypoxia leading
to neurogenesis and the growth of new brain cells. Memory has also been shown to be
improved in studies with rats. Other studies have shown its ability to heal brain lesions that
would be caused during degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, dementia, and Parkinson’s.

Intermittent hypoxia causes vasodilation and also increases blood flow to the brain. Could
combining certain yoga postures such as inversions and headstands with intermittent hypoxic
training be a powerful method to improve cognitive function?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Spirit

Releasing The ‘Soma’ Within 

Could Soma be the same molecule as DMT? What is responsible for creating the spiritual and
visionary states described by the ancient Rishis? Did they figure out how to release it through
breath control, and could this mechanism explain why we have also experienced and witnessed
many people having a psychedelic trip after a SOMA Awakening?

Dr. Steven Barker has been extensively involved in studies researching the endogenously
produced hormone dimethyltryptamine (DMT) since 1976. He writes “I think DMT may primarily
be synthesized in the lung during specific physiological states; controlled breathing, such as
occurs in many meditative practices, extreme physical exertion, hyperventilation, near-death
changes in respiration rates, hypoxia, etc. DMT synthesized in the lung would go directly to the
brain, by-passing the metabolic destruction that would occur from liver metabolism.”

No one knows the full explanations behind the spiritual visionary experiences possible through
breathwork, so this is a brief explanation for why SOMA possibly works:

With deeper practice and extended length of the Awakening sessions from 45-minutes to
1-hour, you can create an effect that may be explained by the release of Soma or DMT in the
body. During these extended sessions the rhythmic breathwork phase is significantly longer - up
to 30 minutes. This supercharges the nervous system and may stimulate the production of DMT
in the lungs. After several cycles of breath retention you can bring your ​SpO₂​levels down to
50% and less. You can lengthen your breath retention times to 3 minutes or more! At this point
perhaps your reptilian brain is tricked into believing that you are about to die, and it prepares to
do so by releasing the same molecules that are triggered when you die.

Rick Strassman theorizes that DMT is responsible for creating the ‘white light at the end of the
tunnel’ experiences commonly reported by survivors of a ‘near death’ experience. The
awakening of sexual energy may enhance the psychedelic experience by stimulating the
production of dopamine, serotonin, and other tryptamines.

The rhythmic breathwork followed by brief pauses in breath is similar to the breathing patterns
associated with rapid eyeball movement sleep (REM) which is when your brain is most active
during the different phases of sleep and your dreams are most intense. What I have noticed
during Awakening sessions is that people go into a similar state to REM sleep while still
conscious for 30 seconds to a minute. With eyelids shut, their eyes would seem to rapidly move
around in different directions. Then after a few moments they would safely return back to
consciousness and report remembering intense visions, total loss of time and space, or
absolutely no memory of what happened, and sometimes all three!

Using brain mapping we studied the brainwaves of participants who had experienced a full
SOMA Awakening. Interestingly, gamma waves were significantly boosted during the peak
intensity of the rhythmic breathwork phase. Gamma is associated with peak brainwave activity
usually only seen in experienced meditators such as the Dalai Lama. Moments of inspiration
and profound clarity are associated at the gamma brainwave level. An alpha-theta cross was
observed during the breath hold phase that is associated with the brain resolving a lot of
information. This may explain why participants feel more of a sense of peace and clarity after a
SOMA Awakening. It is also similar to the resolutions and the feeling of spiritual cleansing after
consuming a DMT-containing entheogens like ayahuasca.

However, at present all DMT research is either theoretical or done using rat models. The sheer
fact that DMT does not last a very long time in the body, and the lack of funding for this kind of
research means that research in humans in lacking.
 

The Magical Power Of Incantations

You may be familiar with the children’s stories of witches and wizards casting magic spells to
heal the sick or even put curses on people. The witches of folklore did actually exist in real life,
and the used “incantations” to influence changes in people. Incantations are affirmations
combined with high energy emotional states. When you give a hypnotic command to your
subconscious mind in the form of an affirmation or suggestion it is more likely to create a
change that if you are in a low energy state. 

Why You Get Stuck With Manifesting

The usual way to practice the law of attraction involves creating a mental visualisation or even a
vision board of what it is you want to manifest. However most people fail at making this work.

The problem with just imagining the things that we want is that we get great positive feelings,
but underlining them are often some murky feelings like doubt and second-guessing - it is these
feelings that are really holding you back. You need to clear these first. If all you do is focus on
creating a big image of what you want, then all you do is create more thrust which in turn
creates more drag - this contaminates the vibrational message going out to the universe.

So how do you get rid of this? How did you know u had a bad feeling in first place? 

The Law Of Orgasmic Attraction 

The law of attraction is about taking the randomness out of life. It is about attracting the life you
want, becoming the person who you want to be, not the person you were programmed to be.
This programming occured at a time when you had no defenses, you had no idea what was
going on and you had no tools to help you. It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility to deal
with it.

Every single thing human beings do is because of a feeling. So to be aware of exactly how you
feel is the secret to manifesting your dream life. The peak of all human feelings is right at the
moment of orgasm. By understanding the law of orgasmic attraction, you will finally be able to
make the law of attraction work for you.

The law of attraction states that you will attract into your life what is in harmony with your
dominant thoughts. However the reason why things like manifesting fails for people is because
no one told you what your dominant thoughts actually are.

What Are Your Dominant Thoughts & Feelings? 

Your dominant thoughts are little fragments of conscious thought that play on an endless loop.
They are stored as emotions in your body that manifest as feelings. They run as programs all
the time. The thoughts you are actually aware of are transient and they come and go all the
time. However what is stored in your body on endless loops are constantly running and you add
layers and layers on top of them because no one told you how to let them go. Even if you knew
how to remove them, the layers would still keep building, so it is very important to regularly do
some “house cleaning” and maintenance.
You are not broken, the feelings you have are an indication of your neurology, which is
designed to protect you, make sure you survive and pass on your genes at all costs, did it
exactly how it was programmed. The feelings are just warning signs. However, if these are left
unchecked they may manifest as common ailments like chronic pain, indigestion, heartburn,
headaches, tightness in chest and muscle cramps. You may also feel “contracted” in certains
situations rather than “expanded”. 

Elevate Your Orgasmic State

The highest emotional state for change is the state of orgasm. The most revered occult ritual is
called sex magic. It is the art of transmuting and harnessing the power of orgasmic state to
invoke powerful change and transformations.

Studies show that the fastest way to enhance neuroplasticity is 20 mins of intense orgasms.
This high vibrational state releases oxytocin (the bonding hormone). This is the primary
hormone for amplifying and enhancing neuroplasticity. The right dose of oxytocin in your system
allows much faster rewriting of old imprints and overlaying of new imprints in its place.
Neuroplasticity is the speed and facility with which the brain creates neurons and pathways. All
esoteric traditions from Buddhist meditation to Sufi whirling are methods to invoke brain change
and to free yourself from the imprints that occured in the first 7 years of your life. 

Breathwork and Sex Magic 

By simply modelling the way you breathe just before and during an intense orgasm, you can
invoke the same emotional state as if it was a real orgasm. You may actually have a very
intense orgasm. Through SOMA we elevate your state through rhythmic breathwork, sexual
energy locks, and music all combined to create the most powerful transformational change.

Is There Such A Thing As Free Will?

According to yoga, we are not born with true free will, it is something we have to earn. The
process of yoga is designed to cultivate the sense of free will, so if we never reach it, it will give
us a sense of peace and acceptance with the fact we are just conditioned robots living in a
robotized world constructed by other robots.

Think about all the things that had to happen for you to be reading this right now. You may have
been recommended this by a friend, or you may have responded to an advert. Before that event
occured in space and time, your friend had to have learned about this somehow and the website
that the advert was placed on that you responded to had to be created by someone. The
computer that the website was programmed on had to be invented by someone at some point in
history.
The very fact that you were born at all is a miracle, because a lucky sperm found a lucky egg at
a cross section between time and space. Really, you are the net result of a lot of love making
going back millions of years, with the chances of you even existing being 1 in quadrillion!

Just imagine how different your life would be if you were a little bit taller, or shorter, or a
completely different race or skin colour? What if you were born a different sex? Imagine if you
were brought up speaking a different language than your mother tongue, how different would
your life have been?

You could say that life is the product our collective and cumulative responses to external
influences, and the external response to your physical traits, which we have absolutely no
control over. Your response to a situation begins with a feeling. Everything human beings do is
because of a feeling. But where do those feelings come from?

The more you meditate on this question, you can contemplate how a feeling arises because of a
physiological change that occurs in the body which is then interpreted by the brain as an
emotion. So, what is it that makes this physiological change? An electrical impulse in the
neurology of the body is what initiates the muscles into action. But where does that electrical
impulse come from?

By using the analogy of a computer, you can assume that just like a computer we have both a
software component (your mind) and a hardware component (physical body). Your mind, just
like computer software, can be programmed. It is those programs that drive instinctive and
habitual behaviour. These programs (also called “imprints”) are recorded memories based on
how to respond to situations in order to stay safe, and they are wired and stored into your
physical hard drives. Most of these imprints occur in the earliest part of our lives at 0 -7 years,
and according to yoga and other schools of mysticism and magic, they are almost impossible to
shift.

Our brain stem, located deep in the center of the most primitive part of the brain, called the
reptilian brain, has evolved to filter out all of the information from reality that bombards us
everyday and to prevent us from becoming overwhelmed by it. It is these filters that defines our
perception of reality. But what creates these filters in the first place?

The imprints that occur between 0-7 years old are what shapes these filters. The conditioning
from events after this age merely add layers on top. Unless we learn to change our filters, we
will merely be existing in a sleeping trance like robots acting out hardwired imprints or
“meta-programs”. SOMA Breath is designed to help you wake up out of this sleeping trance by
discovering your true will.
 
Imprints & Meta-programs 
Your unconscious mind is hardwired to believe that familiarity equals safety. So your
unconscious mind does whatever it is programmed to do, even though a better behaviour may
exist. An example of this is smoking cigarettes for comfort. There are much more healthy ways
to get a feeling of comfort but if it is not familiar or not yet formed into a habit, cigarettes will
remain as your go-to mechanism for stress relief.

These hardwired imprints or programs first appeared in your life at a time when the awareness
of good vs. bad, evil vs not evil, spiritual vs. not spiritual did not exist. It was either familiar or it
wasn’t. As soon as you were born the most familiar thing to you was your mother’s nipple that
you sucked, that gave you an immediate sense of relief and comfort. This action satisfied your
first feeling of hunger, one of the earliest primal drives that comes from your reptilian brain, the
part of your brain that only cares about your survival. A cigarette prompts the same response
due to imprinting.

However, the earliest instinct for survival of all is your breath. The first thing you do when you
are born is to take a big inhale, your first big gasp for survival. It may not be a surprise why
people, especially in stressful situations, instinctively exert more force on the inhale, and have
remaining tension in their chest when they exhale because they find it hard to let go of the air,
as though it is the last breath they will ever take. It is quite common to notice people holding
their breath after an inhale when they are feeling tense, and then freaking out when told to hold
their breath with no air in the lungs.

By modulating our responses to these early imprints, by correcting our breath, releasing and
letting go, we can begin the process of true liberation from these early life imprints. 

Engaging the Body to Reprogram The Mind 

The hardest imprints and traumas to clear are from your inner womb experience, to birth, up to
the first 7 years of your life. Higher yoga practices were designed to clear this past traumas and
negative conditioning so that you can become free and liberated. SOMA Breath also
incorporates higher yoga rituals designed to clear negative imprints and help you break free
from the past, so you can be more present, in the flow, liberated, with the power to create your
own reality. The rhythmical breathing phase hyper-oxygenates the body, bringing in more
oxygen and blowing out more carbon dioxide than normal. This alters the pH of the blood
stream and creates a stronger electromagnetic field and current to flow through the body. The
effect of this is an elevation of your vibrational and emotional energy.

Through a higher vibration and emotional quality, negative emotions can be released and
cleansed from the body, and the ability to attract and manifest your intentions is increased. This
type of diaphragmatic breathing also moves the largest lymph gland in the body creating a
powerful cleansing effect. Before the breath retention phase, you extend your exhale with deep
vocal toning. This allows you to tap into the power of the vagus nerve, switch off stress and
connect with your subconscious mind during the breath retention phase.

Life is a series of inhales and exhales. Your quality of thought is also linked to breath. Erratic
breathing leads to erratic thinking. Smooth consistent breathing leads to coherent thought – this
has been shown by studies from Heart Math Institute. When you pause your breath during the
breath retention phase, you press pause on life. This allows you to go into the deepest
meditative state possible where you can connect with your subconscious mind. Using the power
of affirmations, visualisation techniques, and self hypnosis you can program your subconscious
operating system to influence your autonomic nervous system. The activation of sexual energy
throughout the process and the gradual progression of the experience through repetition of the
routine over a 1 hour duration creates a strong gamma wave stimulation and heightened
ecstatic states of consciousness.

Powerful emotional releases can occur, negative imprints from the past can be cleared, and
what we call “divine downloads” that are moments of deep insight and moments of inspirations
makes this experience truly unforgettable. With a trained SOMA Breath Coach you can upgrade
your subconscious operating system and liberate yourself from negative imprints, belief system,
and past traumas that may hold you back from success, health, wealth, and happiness.

The SOMA
Soma As A Form Of Psychotherapy 
The greatest mistake of most forms of therapy is the reductionist model of separating body from
mind. You have talk therapy, psychoanalysis, regression therapy, all different models just
focusing on one area - the software. To really make therapy work fast you must engage both the
software and the hardware. You must engage the body!

Soma actually means “one body”, “one mind”, “one collective consciousness” in Greek. Soma is
the understanding that the universe is holographic and that you are a manifestation of the
vibrations that emit from this holographic universe. You are the net result of everything that was,
is and will ever be. You are both the hardware and the software. Your are Soma! 
 

3 Pillars Of Soma Breath 

One Mind
Super Mind. your very best thinking has got you to where you are today. This thinking is
conditioned by the information you consume every day, the people who you communicate with
the most frequently, your last five messages on Facebook, your workmates, lover, or partners.
They shape and condition your current reality and future path, so you must be really careful of
who you let into your close circle, if you truly want to be successful in anything you do.

This is why some people are drawn to mastermind groups: to collectively learn and share from
people smarter than themselves. However it’s the people closest to you who have the most
influence and this forms your Supermind. As a SOMA Breath Community, we feed your mind
with the most up to date information, we bring you up when you are feeling down. We give you
tools to reprogram and upgrade your thoughts. We support all of your wildest ideas and
ambitions with love and constructive feedback. Our community becomes your upgraded
“supermind”.

One Body
Super Human. The old paradigms are that you are a victim of your genes, that chronic diseases
can only be treated through medicine, and that your brain cannot change. This paradigm
separates mind from body; one of the greatest mistakes of our time. However, not all is lost
because new science is disproving all of this. The fact is that your mind and body are one. By
studying real life superhumans, people who have reversed disease, and who have trained
themselves from nothing to high level athletes, we have created a series of protocols for
becoming truly “super human”. When you start practicing SOMA breathwork, you will learn how
to reach optimum states of health and fitness, and explore your full human potential while
exercising your creative imagination at the same time.

One Force
Super Charge: Emotion is energy in motion and passion is the number one predictor of success
and flow. Passion is contagious, so when you are around passionate people, you also become
passionate. Sexual energy is a type of passion, and it is the highest life force energy. We all
possess it, but we are not trained on how to properly use it. Dogmatic religions and societal
hypnosis has degraded it and suppressed it for so long, that sexual energy has become a taboo
in many cultures. What is amazing, is that sexual energy can be cultivated and transmuted into
creative energy when you breathe in certain rhythms. The first thing you will learn to do as part
of our SOMA community is to cultivate this energy and rekindle your passions. Then, you will
notice that your path to success becomes supercharged with an unstoppable life force. 

The Practice

Useful Tools For Breathwork

 
These are some recommended tools for breathwork. None of them are essential to your 
practice, but they may be of interest to you. 
 

Pulse Oximeter
A pulse oximeter measures the oxygen saturation of your blood (SpO​₂​) along with your 
heart rate. This device is typically used by people who have difficulties breathing so that 
they can monitor their oxygen levels on a regular basis throughout the day. Extreme 
levels of chronic hypoxia can cause serious issues in the body. We can also use a pulse 
oximeter to measure our intentionally induced hypoxic states, created using the 
Longevity technique. A pulse oximeter can also be used to measure your heart rate over 
time so that you can monitor how your resting heart rate changes as you become fitter 
and healthier. 
 

HRV chest strap and HRV app

 
A Heart Rate Variability (HRV) chest strap and app will help you monitor your heart rate 
variability. Your heart rate variability indicates how adaptive and resilient your body is to 
stress. A high reading is between 70-100 and is a sign of a good heart health, whereas a 
low reading is 40 or under and is a sign that you are struggling with stress. You should 
see your HRV improve gradually over time as you follow SOMA Breath techniques. 
 

Mala beads
Mala beads can be used simply to count the number of repetitions for certain breathing 
exercises. 
 
When you join the protocol you will gain access to breathe in beats exercises and 
PharmaBreath - how to activate your inner pharmacy for improved quality of life. 

The Protocol 

The 21-Day SOMA Awakening Protocol 

Who is it for?
The 21-Day Awakening Protocol is perfect for everyone regardless of age, race, colour 
or religion. If you can breathe, you can awaken! 
 
How Does it Work?
The 21-Day Awakening Protocol is a high intensity training for your soul and spirit. It is a 
sequence of therapeutic breathwork techniques combined with brainwave music and 
guided meditation that awakens you to your full human potential. 

Step 1: Creative Visualisation

Your journey through life can be described as a series of “dots” that mark important 
milestones in your life such as a book you read, a chance encounter, a conversation you 
had, or a course you decided to study. 
 
We help you achieve your first “dot” or milestone towards your dream life targets by 
using the Average Perfect Day (APD) guided meditation technique. APD is a method 
that uses the power of your creative imagination to create a vision, feeling, and sense of 
clarity about your dream life targets. Then, we chunk these goals down into realistic and 
achievable milestones. 
 
The entire Awakening Protocol is a powerful intention-setting breathwork practice that 
will help create unstoppable momentum, motivation, and drive in your life to reaching 
your first milestones (and beyond!) of your average perfect day. 
 

Step 2: The 21-Day SOMA Awakening Protocol

This transformative breathwork technique supercharges you into a state of passion, 
flow, and determination by raising your emotional energy to that of high self esteem and 
confidence. Peak performance coaches recognise that passion is the number one 
factor for success. This technique is also a powerful self hypnotic tool for seeding your 
intentions deep into your subconscious mind, programming your brain stem to tune into 
the frequency of reality that is essential for you to reach your dream life targets. Be 
prepared for a life full of positive surprises and synchronicities when you begin your 
journey of awakening to your full human potential.

Week One - The Initiation Phase

The Awakening Protocol begins with a daily 20-minute guided breathwork meditation to 
get you accustomed to rhythmic breathing and set you up for success. 
 
Week Two - The Awakening Phase
In the second week, the daily guided breathwork meditation is 40-minutes long and is 
designed to challenge you. After all, if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.  
This meditation awakens your Inner Pharmacy, strengthening, healing, and nourishing 
your body with vital oxygen while giving you the therapeutic benefits of intermittent 
hypoxia. 

Week Three - The Soma Phase

Finally Week 3 consists of a daily guided breathwork meditations that is 1-hour long! 
This meditation releases the Soma molecule within your body, resulting in bliss, 
connection, and the peak human experience. You will experience profound states of 
meditative bliss, have insights into your life’s true purpose, and connect with your higher 
self. Many participants report increased energy levels, an infinitely more positive 
mindset in life, and more “synchronicities” and manifestations. Some participants also 
report psychedelic experiences and deeply spiritual connections to the divine. 
 

There’s More
This is not all that is included in the 21-Day SOMA Awakening Protocol. You will take 
part with a tribe, all starting your journey on the same day. You will be supporting each 
other and exploring together, and you will be a part of the tribe who have completed the 
Protocol in the past. Their help and insights will also be available to you, whenever you 
want it. You are supported at each step along your journey by a qualified and 
experienced SOMA Instructor. Each week there is a live call with your SOMA Instructor 
who will give you extra insights to your practice and who can answer all of your 
questions (not just during the call, but at any time you want to ask them something). 
 
We are so passionate about this daily breathwork practice, that we want to share as 
much as we can with you, so you will also be given unlimited access to PharmaBreath 
exercises, Breathe In Beats exercises, a Daily Dose guided meditation that you can use 
on a daily basis once the 21-Day Protocol has ended, and simply loads more 
supplementary information, worksheets, and resources. 

What are the Benefits?

The 21-Day SOMA Awakening Protocol is a multisensory meditation experience that can 
awaken dormant parts of your brain, improve blood circulation and cardiovascular 
health, promote physical and emotional healing, transmute sexual life force energy, and 
help to manifest your intentions and take your meditation practice to the next level. 
Participants report increased energy levels, an infinitely more positive mindset in life, 
and more “synchronicities” and manifestations. Some participants also report 
psychedelic experiences and deeply spiritual insights. 
 
The 21-Day SOMA Awakening Protocol also naturally simulates Intermittent Hypoxic 
Training (IHT). ​IHT training is a medically approved treatment that can enhance sports 
and athletic performance as well as treat a variety of degenerative diseases, as well as 
low energy, fatigue and depression. It has positive and instantaneous effects on energy 
and mood. 
 

Outro
… … …  
ASA