The Open Healthy Breath

180 min  Open, but not limited to: naturopathic doctors, integrative medicine practitioners, nurse practitioners, nutrition and holistic coaches.

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Join us for an introduction to the psychophysiology of breathing and how to serve clients presenting with recurrent or roving physical symptoms and who experience little benefit from prescribed nutrition, supplementation regiments, and system supports.

 

Breathing behaviour analysis will help you quickly identify clients experiencing the symptoms and deficits of behavioural hypocapnia and its effects on metabolism. We will review functional breathing recovery approaches you can begin to use in your practice immediately, and discuss the efficacy of common breathwork practices.  

 

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Share the Air

This 2-part 4 hour  webinar (or live event) offers teachers, parents and other mentors a template for teaching conscious breathing to school children, teens, and adults. It provides educators with the basic science, simple screening tools, and a playful implementation process to promote reflexive and adaptive breathing habits as the foundation upon which formal education occurs. Educators will be able to self-assess and model breathing habits that work for us, and those that don’t. 

 

Proven conscious breathing habit explorations done each day will:

 

• Provide stress management interventions for teachers, parents and students

• Clear and focus the mind

• Improve self-regulation and self-containment

• Improve sustained attention times

• Raise self-esteem

• Help foster emotional and social intelligence

• Reduce bullying

• Reduce stress, worry and anxiety

• Raise reading and performance scores

 

Breathing Science for Birth Professionals

Join this two-part 4 hour myth-busting webinar on the psychophysiology of breathing and its role in infertility, pregnancy, labour, birth and postpartum..  If you work with clients in the perinatal realm, this class is for you, including, but not limited to, midwives, doulas, childbirth and lactation educators, and pre/postnatal fitness instructors.

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We will:

 

• Understand behavioural implications and the physiologic domino-effect to respiratory changes during menstruation, pregnancy, and postpartum.

• Identify symptoms and deficits commonly seen in the perinatal year that are a direct result of hypocapnia.

• Learn to screen for dysfunctional breathing habits that cause hypocapnia.

• Support good respiration during the perinatal year.  

• Deconstruct common breathing techniques that set women up for longer, more painful labours and potentially more complicated births. 

• Examine the contraindications of breathwork techniques for clients.

• Explore how to add breathing education to your current services

• Transform your own health and stamina on long shifts.

Please contact us here to request more information for these 2024-2026 course schedules.

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Introduction to Somatic Breath Therapy™

3 day live virtual event debuts August 2024

 

“Given the high frequency of incorrect breathing patterns in the adult population, attention to the symptoms of hyperventilation [overbreathing] should be a routine part of every psychological evaluation, regardless of the specific presenting complaints. Faulty breathing patterns affect patients differently. They may be the central problem, directly bringing on the pathological symptoms; they may magnify, exacerbate, or maintain symptoms brought on by other causes; or they may be involved in peripheral problems that must be ameliorated before psychotherapeutic access is gained to the core treatment targets. Their manifestations may be direct and obvious, as when overbreathing leads to a panic attack, or they may initiate or maintain subtle symptoms that perpetuate an entire personality disorder. Diagnosis of hyperventilatory [overbreathing] conditions is crucial.” 

 

Herbert Fensterheim,  Behavioral and Psychological Approaches to Breathing Disorders; 1994

 

Dr Fensterheim’s directive to recognize and resolve the profound effects of dysfunctional breathing in mental illness has evolved into evidence-based, practical, and accessible solutions.  Now, mental health professionals can screen for and respond to the “breathing reliance”  clients have unconsciously employed to manage emotion, memory, sensation, and disordered attachment.

 

Breath learns. Once you understand why and how it adapts, everything changes..…

 

The SBT solution:

 

• Practical and innovative ways to identify and overcome dysfunctional habits that profoundly disturb brain chemistry, physiology, health, and performance in their clients.

• Integrate breathing behaviour analysis with trauma-sensitive somatic therapeutics and supportive biofeedback tools to expand client awareness.

• The psychophysiology of stress, trauma, and the respiratory reflexes. 

• Demonstration of educational capnometry.

• Personal exploration of the effects of state change induced by shifting CO2 levels.

• Review case studies. 

• Implications for varied needs and diagnosed mental illnesses.

• A live demonstration of the screening and coaching with capnometry biofeedback.

• Discuss implementation and limitations of low tech screening and interventions.

• Review essential brief therapy interventions and discuss when it is appropriate to opt for full application of Somatic Breath Therapy for a period of 6-12 months.

 

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Applied Breathing Behavior Analysis & Performance Optimization in Sport Psychology

50 hours (hybrid or online)

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This experiential course introduces breathing behaviour analysis using accessible biofeedback tools, and offers a new practice paradigm for athletes, coaches, trainers, educators, physiotherapists, and high performance preparation programs.

 

Participants will learn how to identify dysfunctional breathing, before, during and between training, games, or events to prioritise and rectify its effects on the physical challenges and mental health of athletes. Leveraging the psychophysiology of breathing is the platform for all other skills in sport. 

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CapnoLearning™ on-demand

 

Personalise the principles of Breathing Behavior Analysis by:

 

• learning basic respiratory psychophysiology

• using CapnoTrainer technology

• applying methods for identifying breathing habits

• learning techniques for disengaging troublesome breathing habits

• learning techniques for acquiring new breathing habits

• using self-interventions for managing symptoms triggered by habits

• aligning breathing mechanics with respiratory chemistry

• restoring healthy CO2 concentrations for improving performance

 

The Breathing Science Journal www.theBSJ.org, is pleased to offer this eye-opening 10-hour, self-paced on-line course based on the book, CapnoLearning: An Introductory Guide, authored by Peter M Litchfield and Sandra Reamer. The course includes descriptions of 14 practicums, which are templates for designing solutions to specific breathing challenges. 

 

Buy the course HERE and you also support the Breathing Science Journal

($275.00) 

Publisher, Breathing Science, Inc. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation

Somatic Breath Therapy™

This is a postgraduate professional certification designed for professional therapists and counsellors. Somatic Breath Therapy merges applied breathing sciences with trauma-sensitive somatics and functional analysis. You will learn to support the relationship dynamics of breathing, respiratory chemistry, and psychology for achieving self-regulation and mastering the cultivating of psychophysiological awareness of conscious and unconscious learning as a driver for change. Breathing is the behaviour that takes centre-stage in a process that demystifies identifying and accessing non-ordinary states, establishes safe, sensible and reliable parameters for use with a wide spectrum of client presentations, goals and diagnosis. 

 

500 hours over 18 months Hybrid : online and 4 in-person 4 day retreats

Request more information on 2025/26 cohort here. It will be offered jointly through the Professional School of Behavioral Health Sciences.

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Certified Breathing Behaviour Analyst for Birth Professionals

This is a live webinar post-graduate professional certification and practicum for experienced pregnancy, birth, and maternal mental-health practitioners. This course helps professionals in the field to expand their existing practices or to begin new ones by integrating behaviour analysis, applied psychophysiology, and new technology in practical and innovative ways. This aids in identifying and overcoming dysfunctional habits that profoundly disturb perinatal  physiology, health, and labour and birth outcomes. 

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Register HERE through the Professional School of Behavioral Health Sciences for the  Fall or Winter 2024 cohort.

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Breathing Behaviour Analysis and Functional Recovery Certificate for Breathworkers

150 contact hours (hybrid or online)

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This module develops the assessment and tracking skills of certified breathwork facilitators with an experiential approach to the psychophysiology of breathing and dysfunctional breath patterns. Learn how to support clients as they re-establish normal reflexive breathing with a stable chemical axis and functional breathing mechanics.  The tools in this course can be used as part of their integrative maintenance between your private breathwork sessions, or other practitioner sessions, such as physiotherapy, somatic psychotherapies, massage therapy, and many other body-mind modalities.

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This prepares you to:

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• Explain, mirror, and explore the presenting breathing behaviors with the client..

• Explain, mirror, and explore reflexive and functional breathing behavior and mechanics to the client..

• Construct a specific home learning plan to support integration of the private session with measurable goals identified by the client.

• Lead a 90 min group class for basic functional breath awareness.

• offer a low-tech approach and does not include the use of capnometry biofeedback.