Alleviate Stress & Boost Energy with Breathwork with Niraj Naik

with Niraj Naik

Sep 12, 2025 · 00:44:20

Today's guest is Niraj Naik, also known as the Renegade Pharmacist. He's a professional musician, former pharmacist, and the founder of Soma Breath, a global wellness and breathwork movement with over 3,500 certified instructors. After being healed himself from a debilitating autoimmune condition through breathwork and holistic practices, Niraj has dedicated his life to helping others get high on their own supply. His work has been endorsed by wellness icons like Vishen Lakhiani, Marisa Peer, and Dave Asprey, and studied by neuroscientists at Cambridge University. He's also a music producer whose breath-infused tracks are transforming how people experience meditation, stress relief, and deep healing around the world. Welcome to The Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit, where we turn cutting-edge science into practical strategies for entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Dr. John Torrance, Entrepreneur Inc. 5000 honoree and professor of entrepreneurial practice at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. Each episode, we dive into mental, physical, and spiritual health with expert guests offering actionable insights to help you thrive and perform at your highest level. Let's get started. Niraj, welcome to the podcast. Really great to talk to you today.

Great to be here, my friend.

So I have to say that breathwork is something that I didn't even know about until about 10 years ago. And the first time I heard of it, I just kind of brushed it off as, you know, something that hippies did or something that wasn't really effective. Um, or, or, you know, just what— it wasn't real, right? Uh, we all breathe every day and I, I didn't get it. Um, this past winter I, I did a breathwork session for the very first time. And I thought, oh wow, I kind of get it. And I started talking to the teacher a little bit and other people, and that's how I got down this rabbit hole and found you because I was really interested in learning more about breathwork. So super excited to talk to you today about this and, you know, how people can benefit from it. So welcome.

Fantastic. Sure, happy to share what I know.

Yeah, excellent. I wanna first start with your journey that starts with a major health crisis. So can you just take us back to that moment and what sparked your healing journey And, and that sort of thing?

Yeah, it was in 2010 I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called ulcerative colitis, and that's what left me housebound for almost a year, shitting blood like 40 times a day. It was hell. Um, but that's where I realized all the conventional treatments, um, don't really fix the root cause of the problem. And so I was facing having my colon removed, um, Or be a guinea pig for a drug that hasn't been even tested before. So I was actually a pharmacist at the time, so I know the ins and outs of that. So I didn't really want to go down that path, but I didn't really have much choice. But then luckily, by fate, a friend of our family is a yoga teacher called Swami Ammakananda. She came to the rescue, knew that I was suffering, and she offered another solution, which actually started with a change in perception of the illness. looking at it more like a gift, as a way for me to also escape my monotonous career as a pharmacist, which I hated, to give me new meaning and purpose. Because if I could turn it around, I could be a great example to others, and I'd find another method that I'm more aligned to. Because I, I was so depressed working as a pharmacist because I just saw how dysfunctional it is. So, um, by Amazing fate. She taught me some of the simple breathing techniques from pranayama. She gave me a whole understanding of medicine from Ayurvedic perspective and taught me like you know the meditation techniques from yoga. And within a few months, I completely reversed this and totally changed my life. And a big part of the healing was. getting back into my love and passion for music and creating music. And I realized I can actually make these techniques more profound by adding music to it. And that's what became the birth of like Soma Breath, early versions of that. I didn't call it that at that point. Um, and that's what turned into this incredible movement that we've created through Soma Breath. Yeah.

So, was it— I guess with a background as a pharmacist, how did you make that leap from that kind of hard science drugs over to what you're doing now? It seems like quite a leap.

Yeah, it's a huge change obviously in mindset because in the pharmacy world, you're very indoctrinated into evidence-based Um, medication's the only thing that works. In fact, the, the consultant who I saw, I asked her like, you know, what about stress? What about diet? What about, um, lifestyle and all this? And she said, nope, shut up, take the pills, nothing's proven. So there's a thing like, unless it's proven in a clinical trial, um, you know, I've looked into how do you go about getting a clinical trial for, for for what we do. And I'm actually working with Cambridge University. Cambridge have validated our modality, um, as an alternative to psychedelics, right, for altered states of consciousness and all the benefits psychedelics have for things like depression. But to do a proper clinical trial, third-party verified, um, where it's actually, you know, something that the NHS in the UK would want to put in, you know, to their protocol, you need £1 million to £2 million of funding, which is like very difficult for scientists to get unless a company that's going to get profit out of it is willing to invest. That's why pharma runs the world because they're the only ones who can afford to pay for the trials. And that's why so many trials are dodgy. Because they're the ones funding it. So it's hard to trust any study now. You always have to follow the money. So, um, so here's a problem with that. There wasn't much evidence at the time, so I had to kind of let go of my disbelief and, and just go for it. Because also my culture, being an immigrant, a son of an immigrant family in England, we've been totally indoctrinated our own culture. My parents, like also, my mom's a medical doctor. She also educated out of our own culture. They don't practice yoga, they don't do any of these things. They were freaked out when I said I wasn't going to keep taking the pills even though they were making me sick.

Hmm.

So, I had to literally leave my environment. I had to go, I went and lived with a friend who happened to also be a medical doctor, but he he lost his, like, love for the— for that profession as well. But that was the best thing that happened. I moved away, got out of that negative toxic environment where a lot of my fam— family, friends, relatives are all medical doctors and all think that I was crazy trying to do something away from that system. Yeah, so that, that, that's why, um, a lot of people get stuck because they aren't willing to do something different. Because there's no science yet that validates it. When I'll let you into a secret, most of the clinical trials are fake. They're they're they're funded by companies that have vested interests in profit, and this is not just me saying it. This is the head of The Lancet, which is the number one like most like credible research publication that has all the research papers published through them, and he says that you can't trust them anymore; they're too corrupt. Same thing as one of the heads of the BMJ, especially during COVID They woke up to the shenanigans during COVID So even they say the same. So it's like, like, do you trust pharma anymore? Like, 4th leading cause of deaths in the world is adverse drug reactions. Broken system. It needs to change.

Yeah, I think more and more people are realizing that, but they've got, they've got a really good hold on society and they've got great marketing. And like you said, it's all about evidence-based, Right? But it's, it's one type of evidence that's very, uh, strict, and there's no room for, uh, other, uh, evidence, I guess, in that environment. But there, there is evidence for, for breathwork and things like that. So, so you mentioned the, the Cambridge study, and that's really interesting to me because that, that gives it a little, um, I guess some validation, like you said, right? And it takes it from something that could be maybe woo-woo into something that does have some scientific validation. So I'd love to hear about that study?

Well, the fact that the leading instructors— uh, so the leading scientists behind that, Evan Healy, is actually starting the instructor training himself. He wants to be instructors. Proof that, you know, he did the study and he came to me independently. I didn't know him before.

And like, what's his discipline as a researcher? Is he a biologist, a chemist?

He's a PhD doctor. Um, Neuroscience.

Okay, gotcha. So, you've got a neuroscientist who looked at your approach and your method and studied it, validated it, and went so far as to get certified. Yeah.

He was like, this is amazing. So, he's really a believer. So, the study was on my flagship program, the 21-Day Awakening Journey, which is really a whole lifestyle transformation. It's not just one breathing technique, it's really a modality that builds each week, um, with a variety of different lifestyle interventions based on the Ayurvedic system. But it, it, it follows this intermittent hypoxic protocol. So intermittent hypoxia is the magic of breathwork. Um, there are other amazing techniques in, in, in breathwork. If you look at the pranayama route of breathwork, which I believe is the original route, There are many. It's like a pharmacy of breathing techniques, but one of the main components of it is called kumbhaka, breath holds, breath retention. And when you hold your breath for 60 to 90 seconds, you invoke a positive state, a positive stress on the body, and it creates an adaptive change to having less oxygen in the body. So when you take oxygen away from the body for a brief period, body freaks out, thinks it's running out of oxygen. And what they realized was that What— and because they do this in machine, with machines in clinics, by using, um, gas, uh, different gas concentrations of oxygen. So you get a protocol of like 3 minutes of high oxygen followed by low oxygen for 3 minutes, and then it's like a protocol that follows where you, you deliver like 4 to 5 doses in a treatment, and they have incredible results. And the scientists behind that Properkov from Russia. He basically— there's another one in Israel called Shai Efrati. What they showed was that firstly, we know that mitochondrial health is the most important metric for longevity with quality of life, right? So you can live longer, but it doesn't mean you're going to have health. So to maintain good health and quality of life, you need efficient and healthy Mitochondria in your cells. These are the energy centers of your cells. Now, what they've shown is that when you get a constant supply of oxygen going to your mitochondria, right, the mitochondria get fat and lazy. So for most people, they're just constantly feeding food and oxygen to their mitochondria without any breaks, and they get fat and lazy and then die, and they don't replicate and regenerate. Now, that's just like human beings. If you sit in front of the TV and you just feed yourself pizzas all day long, same thing happens, right? You eventually— you'll die, right? Quickly and not very— well, slowly actually, but not a very pleasant way to die. But people are doing this all day long. But the mitochondria are like that actually. But they're actually like car engines. Car engines are more of an accurate analogy. And you have to regularly service a car engine, right, for it to maintain it. And when you hold your breath, right, for a long enough time, we create intermittent hypoxia and you reduce the oxygen supply to that mitochondria. You will make that mitochondria wake up and go, oh my God, I'm running out of oxygen. I need to do a spring clean. So old mitochondria die out. new mitochondria form and they multiply, replicate. So it's like a pit stop. It's like, like a car, a racing car on a race. They regularly do pit stops to stop it from breaking down and reaching the end of the race, right? So they can reach the end. Same thing. This breath hold technique is like a pit stop for the mitochondria. And the same thing goes with the other component of how you produce energy. Oxygen burns glucose to create ATP life force energy. When you take away the glucose for a bit, like through fasting, intermittent fasting, we already know how good for that is. But it all comes down to mitochondrial function. So our breath protocol, it works on empty stomach. We encourage a little bit of a fasting period in the day. And when you combine that, the compound effect of that is you kill off all the old mitochondria, you replicate lots of new mitochondria. The cell can go in 3 weeks from 1,000 mitochondria in every cell to 4,000, right? So imagine you've got like a, you know, a really efficient cell now producing energy efficiently versus what you had before, which was this clunky old Ford banged up motor. Now you've got a finely tuned Tesla, right?

Yeah.

So that's how— that's one aspect of how this works on the physical body. But the 21-day awakening journey, what this— what Cambridge actually studied was the more psychedelic consciousness effects. So as you go into the deeper stages of the practice, week 3, you get more advanced rhythmic breathing that's faster tempo. It's a bit more like holotropic, um, but followed again by another way of breath holding where you can— your breath will pause for like minutes, maybe. or extremely slow down for like 1 minute 30, 2 minutes, even up to 3, 3 and a half minutes. And, uh, this is a— this technique is called Khevala Kumbhaka, and the normal breath hold is called Nishesha Rechaka Kumbhaka. And so we create a sequence of these, uh, pranayama practices over 3 weeks, 21 days, with the last week as the big crescendo. And what that— that's what they found was Cambridge found based on the kind of questions you'd ask, um, if you're doing a, uh, psychedelic study on psychedelics like psilocybin. You have this altered states questionnaire.

Yeah.

The, the responses were as profound or more profound than the kind of psychedelic insights you get, um, like oneness, connection, feeling like you've been channeled by God and all that stuff, as you would from a psych— a big dose of psychedelics. So they proved that, and then they also showed that it— the brain changes in the same way, similar way to psychedelics, uh, which is very interesting. And it was corresponding to the, the breath retention phases. That's the time when people experience the most, um, transformational effects, which kind of makes sense with what I'm talking about.

Mm-hmm.

So they, they validate the more consciousness psychedelic side of it. And the outcomes. So, you know, like reducing depression, uplifting mood, anxiety reduced, you know, deeper connection to something beyond themselves, all that kind of stuff. They didn't study the health reversals, but, you know, like people going in with autoimmune disease and coming away without autoimmune disease. They didn't study that yet. That's the clinical trial. that we want to focus on, which costs a lot of money. But what I did find was this incredible similarity between this method and what you do with psychedelics, which are currently used to treat severe depression and are currently still the best intervention for depression— ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA— because when it's done properly, it invokes the mystical experience. And the mystical experience has been shown to be the, the one that is the most lasting for transformation, the most effective and most— the one that lasts the longest for complete transformation from things like depression. So that's what you want to invoke, is a mystical experience. And the Soma Breath Method, the way it's done with the guidance, the, the breathwork part, and the holding the breath, is based on ancient pranayama practices that were part of ceremony rituals that create mystical-like experiences. So it all makes a lot of sense how what we've created is an alternative to psychedelics.

I hear all the time about these ancient wisdoms and techniques, technologies and approaches that we've just buried, I guess, in favor of pharmaceuticals lately, right? So it sounds like there's— so there's a fasting element, like, you know, fasting with calories, but also like an oxygen fast, it sounds like, which is really interesting. So I guess, is there benefit to just— even if you don't necessarily know what you're doing or what the techniques are, but just breathing deep and doing breath holds? Or, or is there a protocol that is better to follow to get the most, uh, benefit out of it?

Yeah, yeah, you need to follow a specific protocol taught to you by somebody who's experienced, like a SonoBreath instructor or transformational coach from SonoBreath.

Yeah, I mean, otherwise you're just breathing deeply and holding your breath and not maybe triggering those types of effects at the cellular level.

Yeah, and we also show you how to use this machine properly to measure the dose, and we have an app coming soon.

What is that? Is that a spirometer or something?

It's a pulse oximeter. pulse oximeter. So it measures your blood saturation of oxygen, and when it goes below 90% is when you're in hypoxia.

Okay.

So that's, that's something you can use as a tool to, to see if you're getting a dose. But it's not just triggering hypoxia for a few seconds, it's prolonging that state for a minute or 2. That's where the real magic happens, because it takes about 2 minutes. Because what happens— I missed out a point the stem cells. So stem cells hate oxygen. So when you take oxygen away from the bloodstream for a bit, the very small embryonic-like stem cells that hide in your bloodstream and your bone marrow, um, come out to play because there's no— less oxygen. So they come out and they go to areas in the body where you need healing and reversal of like inflammation and things like that, and repair of old cells, you know. And that's what, what helps the mitochondria to, to multiply. So, um, so stem cells is one of the secret ingredients to this whole thing and how we use them and cultivate. And there's ways to actually direct them to the brain to stimulate neurogenesis, but also to divert it to areas of the body that need healing. You can actually direct the stem cells to— or with the feel-good concoction of positive hormones and stem cells you can send them to places in the body. So these are all the things we teach you how to do in Soma Breath. Yeah.

Yeah. So in, in the breathwork sessions that I've done, the, the breath holds were always the one that, that was the part that really freaked me out, right? Because even after a minute, you start to, even though I know I could breathe at any time, either exhale or inhale, it's a, it's very mental. Like I remember thinking to myself, I don't think I'm gonna be able to do this any longer. I can't do this any longer. And then finally they say, okay, breathe. And It feels better, but of course, you could do it for longer, right? It's just a very mental thing. Do you find that with your clients where they've got to get over this mental block about breath holds in general?

Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the reasons people can't hold their breath that long is because of fear. So, this is a way of overriding the fear response in the brain. So, a lot of people have an irrational response to fear where they freak out unnecessarily way before any danger is actually present.

Right.

So this will rewire that, and you'll be much more calm in more kind of hostile environments. And as a result, so this is a fear training as well. It helps you train and overcome fear. So we teach you all the methods of staying calm. That's why having a guide, somebody who's making sure you're doing it properly, is very important. And so just on the stem cells, it takes 2 minutes for, for the blood to completely circulate around your body, right? So stem cells need around a minute to 2 to go from one area of the body to another for healing. So that's why we recommend getting that dose longer so you can get that 2-minute stay of hypoxia. Hmm.

Wow. So I want to go back to the And I know, you know, you've, you've said you're helping people get high on their own supply, and I really like that a lot. And it seems like you can use these psychedelics to get there. But the analogy I've heard is that it's like a 2x4 to the face to get you there versus through your own natural breath and techniques such as Soma. It's maybe a little gentler and even possibly more effective. So what— how did, how did Cambridge do the validation to kind of compare it to psilocybin? Yeah, so, ibogaine or MDMA and things like that. Walk us through that methodology again just so I can, I can understand it.

Yeah, so the thing with psychedelics is, and versus breathwork, is psychedelics is a chemical, right? It's a substance. So when you consume a substance, the substance is controlling you. You're not in control of the substance, substance controlling you. When you do breathwork, you're in control of the method. You're consciously controlling the breath, so you're in control of this experience. Understand? So that's the 2 distinctions. But the way Cambridge did it was they'd already done existing studies on, um, on psychedelics, like from DMT to ayahuasca to psilocybin, MDMA. They've done loads of studies, and then they did breath my modality as part of that, and then it was an overall comparison.

Yeah. And so, was this a— has this been published anywhere or is it still kind of in the writing stages?

No, no, it's already peer-reviewed and published. So, if you just—

Oh, gotcha. All right. Yeah. Where can people find that if they're interested? That is an interesting study.

Yeah. Just type in Soma Breath Cambridge University and you'll see the—

Gotcha.

Okay.

All right. Yeah. Yeah. So, can you tell us a little bit about Soma as a technique? I mean, maybe just give us some of the higher-level You know, description of the journey people go on over the course of 30 days?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, so Soma Breath is really a pharmacy. So we teach a bunch of different techniques for different uses. So when you train as instructor, you'll learn like how to unblock someone's nose in minutes, like how to fix someone's constipation with breathing techniques, how to deal with a cold and flu, how to turn on focus states of consciousness. How to turn on creative states, how to go to sleep on command, how to wake up feeling energized, how to heal yourself from inside out, how to enter into peak altered states of consciousness, have mystical experiences. So you're really learning an entire farm— anything you can think of that you go to a pharmacy for, there is a breath technique for that in pranayama.

Yeah.

So we show you all the most scientifically validated techniques for that, uh, use. So that's, that's the first thing you're going to learn. Um, but in the 21-Day Awakening Journey, it's like a— it's like bringing a lot of it together in 21 days. But it's mostly revolving around this methodology of rhythmic breathing to a beat. So when you do rhythmic breathing, right, rhythmic breathing is a foundation of yogic breathing. So every function in your body is rhythmic in nature. You have biorhythms. The ultradian, infradian, and circadian rhythms—they're three different types of rhythms. So just a few minutes of rhythmic breathing a day can create harmony to those biorhythms that may go off balance when you get stressed out. All right, so just a few minutes of rhythmic breathing is is a beautiful feeling in itself. All right, of regaining balance and getting back into your flow. So so our methodology begins with. a phase of rhythmic breathing to a beat. And this is where the music comes in, because music has a groove to it. And when you breathe to the music, to the beat of the music, you— where the music is the breath pacer, you actually are naturally having a perfect coherent rhythmic breath. So that's where HeartMath studies come in, where they've showed so many benefits of coherence.

And I'm a HeartMath certified facilitator actually, so I, I love what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah. So with music, it makes it so more fun, right? And cool. And then that— but that sequence also, what it does when you do these, the rhythmic breathing where you're breathing in for say 4 beats, out for 8 beats, or in for 4, out for 4, it keeps you in more of a parasympathetic state whilst also being the best for especially 4/8 and 2/4 rhythms where you're doubling the exhale time. The best state for oxygenation of your body tissue cells. So what happens is you get very stored with oxygen in your body tissue cells, plus you're in a parasympathetic state, plus what you do— because you're doing it for a very long time with a slightly deeper breath, you're letting go of CO2. CO2 is what tells your brain you need to breathe in again. So if you have less CO2 for that brief period, right— this isn't something you do all day long, it's just for short sequence. When you hold your breath, you can hold your breath much longer than you normally can because you've got more oxygen reserves. You're in a parasympathetic relaxed state, so the fear isn't as, as potent, the adrenaline isn't pumping, your heart rate's slow and calm, and you also have less CO2, slightly less CO2, which means that it— your brain signals to inhale longer, later than it normally would. So you can hold your breath for much longer. So when you— that's how you can get into these 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4-minute light breath holds. It's actually a similar method to what freedivers do to prepare to go for deep breath holds underwater.

Yeah.

We still don't recommend doing our breathwork techniques in water, but freedivers will do similar, very slow breathing, 4 in, 8 out, for example, for quite a few minutes, 4 or 5 minutes. then go into breath holds, and that is where they can hold their breath for very long periods of time underwater. So we kind of mimic that, but we also use energy locks. And the energy locks is what allows you to send the energy to different areas of the body when you use them correctly. So especially the brain, which is where— what we're— what we want to turn on when we want to manifest something, when we create something in our life. attract something to us. So that's kind of the sequence. And we also give you lifestyle interventions based on your energetic blueprint according to Ayurvedic system. So you modify your lifestyle, you change your diet, you go from a factory-based diet— most people are on factory foods— to a non-factory-based diet. Um, just simple things like that, simple interventions. Different ways of exercising.

Mm-hmm.

So exercising anaerobically rather than aerobically. is one of our primary things. So, all of this is about producing hormetic positive stresses on the body for brief periods.

Right.

It forces the body to get stronger, more resilient to stress, adapt. And eventually, what happens is as you practice this for a longer period, your overall breathing rate slows down because you get very efficient using oxygen. your need to breathe is much less. And as oxygen is the thing that makes us age, because we have a constant battle going on with oxygen because of the way we produce energy in the body, it creates heat, fire, stress in our mitochondria. They're just like little tiny car engines that produces oxidative stress, which causes cellular damage. It also causes the mitochondria to burn out. So by becoming very efficient using oxygen, It means you need less oxygen to produce the same amount of energy, and therefore you extend someone's lifespan as a result.

That's incredible. So I first came to breathwork through— I surf, and one of my surfer buddies said, hey, let's, let's go do this thing because, you know, he heard it was really good to help you, you know, just to, to practice holding your breath so you don't freak out. Right. Because, I mean, for me, that was the, the biggest thing was the mental part of it was just, you know, when am I going to be able to take another gulp of air? You know? So, yeah, that That's how I, that's how I came to it, and then I really enjoyed it after that. So I've been trying to do more research and everything. So, um, well, when you change your breath, when you hold your breath, we produce—

like, when you hold it to as long as I was saying, intermittent hypoxia, you produce ADOSE. ADOSE standing for anandamide, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. So this makes you feel naturally high. Right?

Yeah.

So that's why it feels good and you want to do it again. And the CO2 calms your brain when it's nervous. That's why you have a— when you have a panic attack, you're breathing out of a paper bag because you're breathing back in the CO2. So you increase the CO2 levels. You can also just hold your breath, that works too. But the CO2, nitric oxide that's also produced, calms you down and makes you feel naturally a little bit high, especially with those feel-good hormones I was talking about. And that's why people get really addicted to this. And it's actually a beneficial addiction because—

Right.

You want to produce something that's good for you rather than addicted to something that's bad for you. Because a lot of people are chasing those neurotransmitters. We want anandamide because it's cannabis within us. We have endocannabinoid receptors, but then we go and smoke a lot of dope instead— weed, right? Then there's dopamine. Dopamine is the reward hormone. It makes us feel like motivated and gives us drive and enthusiasm for life. So what do people do? They go and get cocaine and do lines of coke, and it lifts them up for a bit, but then you crash. Oxytocin is a love hormone. Um, it creates some love connections, why people are so addicted to, to being in social environments. Human beings are social creatures. We want to be around others. Um, and you know, we get so depressed if the oxytocin's taken away from us, right? So it's an important thing we need to talk about, oxytocin. And, um, but we can produce it naturally and feel in love with life just from breath. Serotonin is the— is what's used by, you know, antidepressants. We raise serotonin to lift our mood, right? But serotonin is also what's produced in big abundant doses in with MDMA. So that's why a lot of people love MDMA and love that feeling you get. But with breathwork, we can invoke it naturally. And endorphins is, you know, our own natural opiates. People go out there and, uh, do heroin to get that, right? But again, breathwork— any kind of positive stress response will produce, uh, one or more of these, uh, of ADOSE, or of these chemicals I'm talking about. But the breath is the simplest one. It doesn't cost anything and it's easy, free, don't need any machines to do it, and you can never run out.

It's amazing to me that more people don't know this, but on the other hand, I didn't even realize this until a few years ago, and I'm interested in this type of thing and I keep up on it and I think I'm relatively informed. But yeah, it's not surprising that you know, for example, the doctors or pharmacists or other people aren't promoting this type of intervention or practice because we wouldn't need them, I guess, right?

Yeah, it's very true. Or we need them less because doctors and pharmacists are good for emergency situations. Like, let's say you break your arm or have like a major car crash or something, they can save someone's life. But when it comes to chronic health issues, And like lifestyle, like teaching a good healthy lifestyle, don't go to the government. The government do not know what's good for you. They'll have best interests for you because governments are funded by donors. They have lobbyists who lobby for corporations. So that's why every government intervention is corrupted. It's just an unfortunate fact of life. So you cannot go to your— rely on your government or your doctor for healthcare, um, because they don't want you to be cured, right?

Yeah. And there's really— there's no money in, in wellness and prevention, right? It's, it's all in treatment for, for conditions, chronic conditions that, you know, you can stay alive for years with these conditions as long as you have these, uh, chemical interventions, right? So it's a very profitable model.

Yeah. That's why we need like philanthropic people to donate to do clinical trials, because the only way governments will bring interventions in is if that is there, because that's their protocol. But only drug companies can afford it, so it's a completely corrupted system. So that's why it took so long for even mindfulness to get accepted. They had to do so much evidence, you know, and so many years of trials, and a lot of very wealthy people invested into it philanthropically. And now, it's a bit more accepted, but it took a long time.

The volume of research on mindfulness is staggering. There is so much about it, yet you can do one study on a drug with a molecule that kind of shows that it works and that's good enough, right?

Yeah. But that's why, as we know that that's so good, breath-based meditation, is the best, uh, for me, best way to, to do practice meditation. Just follow the breath. Yeah, in Soma Breath, we, we make that practice very easy and fun because the music— you're breathing to music. It's like your, your, your, your breath is dancing with the beat, and that's a natural effortless meditation. Because there's many forms of meditation. Once you understand what is meditation— a lot of people don't understand what it is.

Right.

It's very simple. We have a part of our brain called the default mode network. It's associated more with the left brain and it's the monkey mind. It's the voice in their head that worries about the future, the past, gets hung up on things. It mulls and ruminates over stuff. And it's the annoying voice in the head usually, right? For a lot of people, it's an annoying voice. For me, it's a positive, it's an inspired voice. Just that voice, every— anything, even if it's positive and inspired or negative, it creates a sympathetic reaction in the body. So it stimulates sympathetic nervous system, which creates a bit of tension. If you're not moving, you're sitting still, eventually you get stiff and rigid because of your— this constant voice going on, especially if it's a negative voice. And that, um, is one of the biggest problems or stops people from doing stuff, taking action, being productive. Being well. Because if you've got constant voice going on, you've got constant sympathetic nervous system reaction, right? You are actually causing stress in the body, right? You've got constant stress switched on, sympathetic nervous system switched on, and that over time turns to chronic stress, right? So, and then eventually that voice gets so annoying it turns into depression and people break down and crash. So when you divert the attention away from that voice in the head to something other than that voice in the head, it can simply go— be going to a rave and dancing to your favorite DJ, or listen to an incredible piece of music that, you know, it could be, um, even just, uh, reading a book can become a form of meditation in a way, right? Uh, making music is a form of meditation for a lot of people. So you get into this flow. So whenever you get into a flow state where that voice in your head quiets right down and you've diverted attention away from that, something other than that, that's meditation.

Mm-hmm.

But easy ways to do that, to have a mental reset and to turn that voice off, is to just follow your breath. When you bring your awareness away from that voice in your head to something other than that, like your breath, and let's say you just breathe in and out and follow the breath, not controlling the breath, just breathing in and out, it becomes meditation. That's called vipassana, actually, and it has incredible benefits. Even if it's just a few minutes, when you quieten that mind, that voice in your head, you actually feel blissed out naturally. You, you just experiment with it, you'll feel it. But with Soma Breath, what we do is we, we make you breathe in time with music in a sequence that creates this other effect of intermittent hypoxia. And that journey you go on through the breath, it's like a— it really feels like a journey. Um, that's what they showed, uh, in these science studies, that we just completely quiet down the default mode network. It pauses, it goes offline. This is what psychedelics do as well. It turns off that irritating voice in the head and another voice comes from the soul and the spirit. Mm-hmm. And that's what they notice with this technique. So we have various different breath meditation, musical breath meditations as well on our Soma Breath app, where if you want to have a quick reset, you can. You can just follow a simple breath meditation on the app, and in a few minutes you're going to feel like, wow, refreshed.

What, what's, what's the name of the app? Soma Breath. Soma Breath. Okay, got it.

Yeah, Soma Breath.

So you mentioned earlier things like focus and creativity, which are all really important. I mean, they're important for most people, but people in an entrepreneurial setting, like the folks I work with, that's— they're always striving for that. Are there specific techniques to reach those desired states, or is that not how it works?

Yes. So you've got to understand The, the way your brain works. So you have left and right hemisphere. Your left hemisphere is a masculine brain and it deals with alertness, focus. It's also your sympathetic nervous system. Your right hemisphere is your feminine brain. It's creative, it's emotional, it's connected to something other than, uh, this level of consciousness, right? And it's, um, more dreamy, right? So To be focused, you need your left brain more active than your right. Now, throughout the day, right, your left and right hemispheres are constantly switching, and your left brain controls the right side of your body. Your right brain controls the left side of your body, which means, funnily enough, your left and right nostril change dominance, right, throughout the day, as though your left and right hemispheres— it corresponds to that. So when your left nostril is more active, your right brain's more active. When your right nostril is more dominant, your left brain's more active. You can actually check right now which one's more dominant. My right brain is more dominant, right? Right now, my right nostril— sorry, my right nostril is more dominant, which means my left brain is more dominant, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I'm, I'm more in my focused, alert state. Well, which one was yours?

Yeah, same. I've got my left brain is more dominant right now.

Yeah, so there are techniques to turn on focus. All right, one of the quickest ways you can do it is to simply sleep on your left side, right, which will turn on your left hemisphere in a few minutes. If you just lie down on your left— let's say you're feeling all lethargic, dreamy, not crave anymore, right? I mean, it's too— I mean, too dreamy, not focused anymore, right? You check which nostril is more dominant. I guarantee your left nostril is going to be more dominant. So you just sleep on your left brain until your right nostril becomes more active. You'll notice it, you'll feel the switch, right? And then get out, get up on your right foot, right? When you get out on your right foot, you're moving forward on your— your right body is Taking control, and your left hemisphere is now more active as a result. So now your right nostril will be more active, your left hemisphere is switched on, and you get on with your day. You'll be more focused and more alert as a result. That's just one way of switching it. There's other ways of switching nostril activity. So if you want to turn on your right brain for sleep, you want to go to sleep, sleep on your right brain before you go to bed. Always sleep on your right side. And you'll go into a deep sleep as a result.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I usually fall asleep on my right side. That's interesting.

Yeah, good. Yeah, most people actually instinctively.

Well, Niraj, if people are interested in learning more about you and your work and how to get ahold of you or just find your methods, how can they find you?

So, best thing is to go to soma-breath.com. And check out all the information on our website. But download the Soma Breath app and start doing some of the, the courses on there. So we have several courses— the Breathworks Challenge, which is in the courses section at the bottom of the app. Scroll down, you'll find it. Then we have a manifesting challenge, which is really for, um, like the most esoteric spiritual side, but it's very scientifically done. So that's the Art of Manifesting with Soma Breath. And then we also have all these different tracks, breath sessions in different, um, parts. So these courses are free, so you can test it out, you can learn a lot, and then you can upgrade and get access to the entire pharmacy of techniques.

I hope people do it because it is really profound, and I'm just grateful that you were here today to share your knowledge and experience. So thank you so much.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much for listening to the Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit Podcast. If you liked what you heard or heard something interesting today, please give us a like, share a comment, or better yet, subscribe to the podcast. Thank you.