Spirit To Science

We live in a time where we desperately need creative minds and visionaries to join forces and solve the immense problems that face humanity. We need brilliant minds more than ever. We all have one, but we don’t all use it.

There is an ancient secret that we have misinterpreted, forgotten, and disregarded. It lies inside every single one of us for as long as we are alive. That secret? Your breath can set you free.

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. People lived peacefully and harmoniously.

This legendary ritual is thought to have involved the ingestion of a psychedelic plant. It is claimed to be 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.

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 legend at one point in time SOMA ran out. This forced people to go inward in order to seek new ways to get to the same ecstatic states that allows connection to the divine.

Spirit To Science

It is really simple: breath-work and holding your breath is the key to your physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual well-being. It’s the key to your creativity, your intuition, living in flow state, living authentically, and living in pure joy.

Most people know some type of breathing practice these days. Whether they use it or not is another matter, but the knowledge is still there. With knowledge comes power: the power to change your life.

There is something about breathwork that changes our mindset: we notice more clarity, less reaction, more response. We can deal more effectively with stress. We feel happier, more hopeful. We start to see the best in the world and others. We can see the potential for positive change, and what’s more, we want to be a driving force in that.

Breathing practices are central to Yogic, Tantric, and Shamanic cultures. The latin root of the word spiritual actually comes from the verb to breathe. We are told to breathe deeply by modern gurus to purify and cleanse our bodies and become “more spiritual”. In fact, the ancient rituals of modern organized religions often have a breathwork component to them as they are believed to lead you closer to your God of choice.

Today we see growing scientific evidence for the benefits of breathwork. Breathwork techniques can regulate and maintain a healthy flow of cerebrospinal fluid (Aktas et al., 2019), improve memory and cognitive function (Arshamian et al., 2018), activate the peripheral nervous system (Jerath et al., 2006), can unblock your nose, lower blood pressure (Grossman et al., 2001), and relieve symptoms depression (Lalande et al., 2012).

When we add a breath holding component to our breathwork, some really incredible things start to happen. When you are able to hold your breath for a few minutes, it can create a hypoxic environment, meaning there is less oxygen (Malshe, 2011). This could trigger the release of bone marrow stem cells to circulate around the body. Stem cells are specialised cells which can turn into tissue or organ specific cells: that’s why we have stem cell therapy.

Imagine! Researchers are studying how to remove stem cells from one part of our body and put them in another, when we could already create the ideal conditions for stem cell circulation. All it could take is learning to hold our breath and sit with discomfort.

During the process of normal cell division in the body, some damage is done to DNA. There are natural repair processes for this, but if the damage goes beyond that repair, something called p53 comes into play to do the work. Hypoxia produces p53 (Matouk et al., 2010), which is also known as the “guardian of the genome” and for preventing the growth of cancer cells (Efeyan & Serrano, 2007).

However, it is often taken for granted that the breathwork practices referred to by ancient mystics is only half of the magic. They’re a great introduction to the breath, to connecting mind and body. A breathing practice can oxygenate our bodies for a bit more concentration, it can give us more energy, and help us relax and relieve the stress from our robotised lifestyles, and it can help us slow our thoughts when we practice mindfulness.

But a breathing practice actually teaches us to breathe correctly in preparation for the higher practices of breath holding.

Using a combination of scientifically proven breathwork and Pranayama techniques, rhythmical and euphoric music, guided meditation, and visualisation techniques, SOMA Breath is a remarkable process for reaching heightened states of consciousness and ecstatic bliss.

Through a therapeutic variation of the same process, the layers of your mask peel away and reveal your true nature.

You connect deeply to who you really are. Through this awareness comes the path to your truth. Through this profound truth you learn exactly the difference between what is good for you and what is no longer serving you. You can remove negativity and attachment to the past, fully embrace the present, and be at your very best every single day and into the future.

This is the evolution of SOMA Breath.

References

Aktas, G., Kollmeier, J. M., Joseph, A. A., Merboldt, K. D., Ludwig, H. C., Gärtner, J., … & Dreha-Kulaczewski, S. (2019). Spinal CSF flow in response to forced thoracic and abdominal respiration. Fluids and Barriers of the CNS, 16(1), 10.

Arshamian, A., Iravani, B., Majid, A., & Lundström, J. N. (2018). Respiration modulates olfactory memory consolidation in humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(48), 10286-10294.

Efeyan, A., & Serrano, M. (2007). p53: guardian of the genome and policeman of the oncogenes. Cell cycle, 6(9), 1006-1010.

Grossman, E., Grossman, A., Schein, M. H., Zimlichman, R., & Gavish, B. (2001). Breathing-control lowers blood pressure. Journal of human hypertension, 15(4), 263.

Jerath, R., Edry, J. W., Barnes, V. A., & Jerath, V. (2006). Physiology of long pranayamic breathing: neural respiratory elements may provide a mechanism that explains how slow deep breathing shifts the autonomic nervous system. Medical hypotheses, 67(3), 566-571.

Lalande, L., Bambling, M., King, R., & Lowe, R. (2012). Breathwork: An additional treatment option for depression and anxiety?. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 42(2), 113-119.

Malshe, P. C. (2011). Nisshesha rechaka pranayama offers benefits through brief intermittent hypoxia. Ayu, 32(4), 451. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3361916/

Matouk, I. J., Mezan, S., Mizrahi, A., Ohana, P., Abu-lail, R., Fellig, Y., … & Hochberg, A. (2010). The oncofetal H19 RNA connection: hypoxia, p53 and cancer. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA)-Molecular Cell Research, 1803(4), 443-451.

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