In this episode, we hang out with Hannes Bend (@hannesbend) and learn how to alter our body chemistry using powerful breathing techniques. He shares with us how yoga, meditation, and breathwork have helped him heal from decades of depression linked to his birth trauma. Hannes teaches breathing, mindfulness, and yoga and has trained personally with “The Iceman” Wim Hof and Tibetan meditation healer Drukmo Gyal. He has also contributed to neuroscientific research on meditation and breathing with Michael Posner (University of Oregon) and Ray Lee (Princeton University). His latest creative project, breathing.ai, is patented software that adapts the colours and fonts on a screen to match the user’s calmest physiological state.
We begin the episode with 15-minute guided deep breathing exercise led by Hannes.
Enjoy and breathe deeply!
Highlights:
- 15 minute Guided Deep Breathing Exercise
- Breathwork for Anxiety and Depression
- Wim Hof Method
- Neuroscience of Meditation
- Virtual Reality and Biofeedback for Wellness
- Empowering Kids to Self-regulate with Breathing
- Personalizing Screens Using AI and Biodata
Resources:
- Breathing.ai
- Breath NY Meetup
- Wim Hof Method
- Michael Posner
- Risa Kaparo
- Ed Vogel Lab
- Mission Be – Mindfulness Education
Listen:
Poem Inspired by This Week’s Episode
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hannes
Guided Deep Breathing (15 min)
Adrian
Is it okay if we do a bit of sharing? Maybe? I’m curious to also hear what Thal experience there and I’d love to share some of my experiences.
Hannes
Yeah, I’d love to.
Thal
First I just realized how shallow is my breathing. It’s like wow. And um, I was very tense in the beginning and then just towards the end there was just my body just had to like surrender. Or else I wasn’t fully experiencing the benefits. My thoughts were taking me here and there and I was like, oh, thinking about the interview. Thinking about so many things I have to do. And then towards the end just the depths of the breathing is just forces you to like *sigh.
Hannes
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
Adrian
Yeah, I think for me too …similar, with the inhales, the first couple were really challenging. Like it felt like very blocked. Like “Oh, I can’t bring any more air in, I felt tension, but towards the last couple it was like a little easier. But then when you said “euphoria” was actually the moment I was sort of also detecting a little bit of like joy coming, um, for me it was in the face, so like a lot of sensations in the face and warmth and yeah, so it was pretty, pretty cool. [laugh] Yeah. It was really nice to have you coach us along because it is challenging. Some of those deep inhales felt like… I was thinking it would be hard to do on my own. So I was really grateful that you’re walking us through it.
Hannes
Yeah, yeah. It’s just like literally, you know, the science on deep breathing. It connects us to the memory part more so a lot of tasks are coming up or memories from way long ago or you know as like tension in the body as embodied memory. So it’s really interesting what like deep breathing does and then sometimes those can take us away because our mind is so powerful. So it’s helpful to have like a guidance, like either as a voice or visual or whatever. We’re working on these days too. So yeah, thank you for trying it. [laugh] And it gets really interesting if there were more rounds, so often times … it’s Wim Hof inspired, g-tummo and um, we just added a smile there in a way so then like a lot of discomfort that comes up gets a little bit resolved with adding a smile on there and you literally create happy hormones then doing more of it. And then also the exhale. I just learned that from Dr Risa Kaparo , which is so beautiful where when when people have a lot of breathing awareness they, especially with Wim’s technique or g-tummo they focus a lot on the inhale. So this other one is so beautiful because you just, you hug yourself also and then you really contract, you let go. You activate your parasympathetic more and then there is this opening where you just like, it all comes in.
Adrian
It’s a really nice way to start a conversation actually. [laugh] Yeah I mean, I’m glad we were starting with that. You know, we didn’t even actually get a chance to welcome you officially to the show. So thank you for coming on the podcast.
Hannes
Thank you.
Thal
Thank you.
Adrian
Um, can we maybe start actually with the exercise itself, the practice. I’m curious how you discovered it, like, you know, at what point did these become a big part of your own life and then you deciding to teaching it to other people?
Hannes
Yes. Um, good question. Um, I was well obviously had a phase of like really intense suffering like decades of depression and anxiety, which I wouldn’t really want to acknowledge. So I was already very successful and then it’s like the longest story a little bit now….. So my ex-girlfriend left a blue yoga mat. We’re like, had long distance New York-Berlin, she left a blue yoga mat in Berlin. I was not feeling well so I just like thought “oh, why not trying yoga?” And that was maybe I think seven years ago or so. Or over seven years ago. And then I started yoga, like really intensely yoga everyday, maybe multiple classes, Vinyasa Yoga, Jivamukti, Asthanga, for many years. And then that felt much better already. And then I did a lot of. I really liked that there was focus on inhale and exhale. I had really good teachers. I think an essence of Yoga is always focused on breathing. We can talk about that more later. And then I did Vipassana for years with multiple retreats, started in Myanmar. And so did that really intensely like everyday those two hours and sometimes more. I was then also working in neuroscience. It was much better. I, you know, I was working on really high academic level. But I still felt a lot of anxiety and stuff like in my everyday life. And then I learned about Wim’s technique and I was kind of blown away by the study and then also by the self reports and what he was doing. So then I explored that and I noticed like, wow, this is just like a fast track in a way to get rid of anxiety or depression and just feel happy and then, uh, yeah, and then I learned some other techniques from other breathing practitioners and like deeply grateful for Wim and all of those practitioners who, um, have been like guiding those practices for all those years and invested their lives in and because it’s so groundbreaking and so I learned really the cold exposure and the breathing technique is really very, very powerful and so up to the point that I feel like I can’t do Vipassana anymore because I mean the Anapana because in Anapana you focus on observing your breathing and I, I think it’s not possible anymore because it’s like a constant guidance of the breathing when I’m awake too.
Thal
Before the seven years was meditation or yoga part of your life at all?
Hannes
No.
Thal
Oh, interesting. Wow.
Hannes
I was a successful artists in a way. Got a visa for the US and exhibiting here, but I was not, I was not happy really. I was like, you know, like the next thing or that wasn’t good enough and seeking this thing and I was like not in a good place and I didn’t really…. My friends said sometimes like why don’t you try yoga? And I was like, hmm, I don’t know really? The suffering wasn’t great enough in a way to try it or something, I know it’s weird. So yeah.
Adrian
So yeah, it sounded really like, um, the Wim Hoff Method for you, there was a turning point. It sounded like it was sort of noticeably different from some of the other practices you were starting to dive into. For those who may not be familiar, could you maybe offer just a little bit of description of what is the technique and what were you personally experiencing with it?
Hannes
So Wim Hof’s technique is heavily derived from ancient Tibetan g-tummo, but Wim kind of refined many techniques and it’s focused also on cold exposure, but the basic is really breathing. So it’s a very long inhale. And the way I understand it, because sometimes I feel like people are doing the push out exhale, but I really like the letting go exhale so it’s really like a deep, nourishing inhale. We kind of create space inside as much as possible and you can only do that by actually relaxing the outside muscles and any tension and letting go and there are like 30 or 40, breathes like this. And then there’s a breath retention in there which is also kind of very derived from Tibet medicine in a way. I’m not sure if it’s intentionally by Wim. So it’s easy for people to hold their breathing for a minute or two. I did like workshop with kids. They were able to hold their breathing for four minutes more. Um, so you know, like people feel a lot of things as you guys were describing, you know, like people feel tingling, numbness. So it’s very effective like in the moment because you change your own blood chemistry very effectively. And if we would do two or three rounds of that, that would be really, really interesting. Probably especially for people who are new to this. That has been scientifically studied, I can talk maybe later on like how Wim has been approaching scientists and I. And scientifically studied with great results or 100 percent of the study subjects were able to fight injection of E Coli bacteria and they had a higher amounts of adrenaline than somebody on their first bungee jump and all those people were only trained in four days in the method. So it wasn’t that they were going through months or years of training. They just got like a peek of Wim in a way. So 100 percent in the peer reviewed science paper. That’s a really good, powerful study of the (Wim Hof) technique there. So, um, and then those cold exposure too. The people who are doing the breathing in the clinical study didn’t do the cold exposure in that moment when they were injected, but also people were able to go into cold environments. It’s very powerful technique to learn how to deal with the cold, especially in New York six months of like cold. It already started late yesterday, there was a snowstorm in November. So it’s very effective for that and stress management and um, yeah, also really good to deal with everyday stress or with the cold and align yourself in a way with the forces of nature to not feel like the cold is out there. So basically kind of get warm from within, inner fire. And to sum it all up. There’s so much to talk about Wim Hof’s Technique and how he got there and if you want I can elaborate on that.
Adrian
That was actually, that was great. Thank you. Um, and, and so for you, at that time you mentioned that you were experiencing depression and so when you began these practices, what was changing? If you don’t mind sharing a little bit of just the experiential level. When you began the cold exposure and the breathing, what was happening to you?
Hannes
Um, so I feel the most groundbreaking one is like feeling integrated, feeling interconnected in just being, you know, in the world. I feel like those years of depression, I had birth trauma, so probably derived from that, you know, I felt like there’s like a disconnect, you know, so there’s like ‘the other’ and then there’s ‘me’ here. In a way now in retrospect it feels like there was a disconnect from my brain and my mind and my sense of self to my breathing and my nervous system and my body. So that’s what I would describe it now. A colleague and I was guiding a meditation technique and he’s also done Vipassana. He said just observe your breathing. And I was sitting there and I couldn’t observe my breathing and I was like, “I tried!” And I would feel like I would have to cut something out, you know, like a connection from my brain to my Vagus nerve or whatever you want to scientifically describe it. I would really need to cut something off and , that would really feel like suffering, just losing that kind of integration, that interconnectedness within my body, and then within the world also. And I feel like that’s also part of the depression. You don’t feel integrated or feel interconnected. You don’t feel like we’re one in the world or one with the world.
Thal
Do you mind sharing with us more details about your birth trauma? And how it’s connected to your depression?
Hannes
Yeah. So I wasn’t coming out. I had an umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. And so my brain didn’t get enough oxygen, they said afterwards. And they had an expert on cerebral palsy there where I was born, a German expert that was in Germany, northern part of Germany. And he said I had mild cerebral palsy and I might end up in a wheelchair because parts of my brain responsible for movements and stuff weren’t getting enough oxygen. So my parents were advised to try a very intense physiotherapy called Vojta Method and I’m not sure if it’s allowed today. So if I look at a video, you know, I get like shakes and tears because they bend the baby and all kinds of things. So it’s basically the first years of my life, you know, my parents who love me the most and they loved me most of my life were, you know, torturing me in a way, you know, not intentionally. But just to help me to not end up in a wheelchair and like, you know, gratefully and thankfully I’m eternally grateful to them, you know, because they have the time. Sometimes parents don’t have the time or the resources to have their kids, when they’re diagnosed with cerebral palsy or mild cerebral palsy to go through that first year of their life to help them to have those body movements. So a lot of that was connected to that feeling and I felt like an immediate threat. So most of my depression when people were approaching me… which was kind of weird that it’s gone now. Sometimes I might sense a little bit because the New York subway and people push you or something like in intense environments But otherwise I just noticed afterwards like, oh my God, my whole life I sense somebody coming close to me as like some threat or something because the first year of my life I had this experience. It’s like people who cared for me the most were causing me pain. Um, that’s why I also believe so much into embodied practices. And you know, the subconscious, a lot of the memories you can’t really access through words and through psychotherapy. So you really need to go deep into embodied practices.
Thal
Especially because your trauma was pre-language.
Hannes
Yup. Yes.
Thal
And so, um, so most of your pain and suffering was around that time? There was nothing else like in teenage, during teen-hood or young adulthood?
Hannes
Well, I mean it, I was able to learn walking, you know, and I happened to be really good at school, so maybe that part of my brain, where the logic was, was getting enough oxygen here at birth or after. So I was good at school but I grew very late so I got bullied at school a lot and I had really bad acne so when everybody was dating I was like at home just trying to hide in the shades or something and so I was like 21 and had the worst acne and it was like, 20 or something. It was no fun and so I don’t know, I think it was all kind of related because I think they gave me hormones at birth or something. And my parents still can’t… like my father really has a hard time when he hears a baby cry so it was all kind of related to that, like, you know, like hormonal imbalance or whatever it was they gave me at birth and after birth. And so it probably lingered on until my twenties and then, you know, end of my twenties. So it’s a long process and I didn’t really cope with it and didn’t know how to cope with it in a way until I discovered all those different methods. And then the breathing technique. Um, yeah. So yeah.
Adrian
So you mentioned you grew up in Germany, what brought you over to North America? So you’re in New York City right now. What was the journey there with your youth and where you are right now?
Hannes
It was like kind of like universal guidance in a way. I don’t know how to say. I was working in Berlin for 10 years and then I already discovered yoga there. Did it intensely. It wasn’t so much back then. And then I was coming more to New York and Miami for art exhibitions. And then I was granted a visa year. I had residencies I got invited to so it was like a calling to be here in a way. And I felt also I was like an environmental activist since I was like six or seven years old for Greenpeace and stuff, so I was always very engaged. But I think things are pretty good. I also have Norwegian family in Norway and Germany. So I felt, I don’t know, when I came to New York streets are so polluted and Miami also we on an ecological catastrophe there in the ocean. So, um, so I thought there’s a lot I could maybe contribute here in terms of environmental activism and then mindfulness maybe. So that’s what kind of brought me here and then they gave me a green card too. So I’m still here.
Adrian
Maybe I’m skipping steps. So when did technology play a role in your interest? Because I know you’re currently very interested in the space around virtual reality and using biofeedback as well. How did that come into your interest?
Hannes
Yeah, so that came basically based out of… It was a combination of neuroscientific research and the breathing technique and uh, sort of conferences i attended and working with EEG, personally. So while I was doing neuroscientific research, studies with the lab of, Ed Vogel, which I’m going to elaborate later on, it’s really interesting how we got there. Um, because also there was skepticism of one researcher while we’re doing the research. I worked with Mike Posner and spoke at conferences about the findings. I went to a VR (Virtual reality) conference and then I thought “whoa” that people really enjoy investing in evil shooters and all kinds of gaming stuff. And it was very, you know, male dominated, you know. Like, uh, my body’s male too. But you know, it was like a lot of like…
Thal
Masculine energy.
Hannes
Yeah. At the Louis Hotel at 2014 or 15 or so, it was like an Oculus VR conference. I was really interested in games in a way but I thought “oh, this is going to be the development of technology, focus on evil shooters and dopamine driven or adrenaline driven things”. And that’s what people want to engage in in the future because those people are driving that technology. So how can we actually use this immersive technology to support more embodied and integrated experiences when people feel more interconnected and I saw a really good ways to integrate biofeedback in there because then you only have that very isolated immersive environment, but you can see your own heart rate or you can see your own breathing patterns and your own senses and so kind of… not skipping, but kind of using what is also used in yoga. You put yourself in very intense postures and situations and then while you in there you need to connect with your breathing and calm your breathing down in order to get more into those postures and calm down. So similar with VR, you can connect with your, with your inner senses in a way like as visuals. So I thought that might be very promising when you see your heart rate bouncing and then maybe also feeling it at the same time. Like where do I feel my heartbeat here? I see it here. Where is the accuracy? And then making it fun also, so making, using the same kind of game mechanics and the same fun experiences they use in VR for evil shooters. Well not necessarily evil shooters, but other like playful experiences and then tying it in with biofeedback. So it’s kind of used in a fun way and it’s not meant to be like you don’t have to go on a meditation retreat, you don’t have to invest hours a day on like a mat or something, which I think is still like sort of niche and people especially in New York or urban environments don’t necessarily have the time to. So what if we can gamify that even thought it’s sometimes a misused term. But how can make it fun? And so that brought me into that. And then multiple projects came on top of that after. I worked at the University of Oregon on that for a few years. So, um, so now we’re at a space where actually I don’t want to use VR anymore. I just want to integrate it in everyday technology because I don’t want to really put a screen in front of people’s face anymore. So…
Adrian
I find it interesting because I think often we associate technology or modern technology and devices as being dysfunctional towards our embodiment. And you talked about being present in the body and here you are sort of looking at ways to actually use, or design new technologies that might actually enhance our embodiment. You know, at first glance it sounded kind of almost paradoxical. But it sounds like it’s possible, right? With some of the stuff you’ve been experimenting with.
Hannes
Yes. And I feel like technology is not something ‘out there’. It’s an extension, an enhancement or acceleration of human intelligence and insights into reality. So whatever is in technology is just what we focus on mostly. And so obviously if that technology is driven by gaming because gaming is very successful in computers. So then people are going to have those similar feelings. They’re very attached to it and feel like they, you know, like doing more of it and then swiping and texting and whatever it is. So how can we use the insights from mindfulness and biofeedback,and neuroscience then combine it with the… So right now most of the things with VR are running sort of the visual cortex and you know, dopamine there in the brain and so, and maybe it integrates haptics or something, but it’s not really like looking at, you know, the senses we have which are creating so much joy. Like breathing awareness and interoception. Interoception means we are aware of our internal organs and we’re one of the few species that can become aware of your breathing and aware of our inner organs. So if we forget about the senses, we probably forget a lot about the insights that we can actually have on reality as humans. And I’ve never met anybody who does like a lot of breathing techniques or has awareness of their inner senses and was as like, oh, I don’t want to have that anymore because I think it expands our happiness and how we can be of service in this world. So, um, so yeah, just like, I think it’s just a culmination of that kind of like very mind driven and visual approach of VR and everyday technology these days and integrating the mind and the body more. And the breathing for me, I like that. So, uh, and it makes people hopefully feel more integrated and experience more joy and then you know, looking at more like, oh, you know, I feel already happy so I don’t need to do all this other seeking things, attachment things like I did before and ask how can I be more of services in society and the planet.
Adrian
Speaking of service actually, yeah… The first time I met you back in March was through a mutual friend, but then shortly you invited me to join one of your meetups in Manhattan where you teach people how to breathe deeply and using some of these techniques. Can you share with us the variety of ways that you teach because I know you teach in different settings and different spaces?
Hannes
Yes. Yeah, I work as an educator for the nonprofit organization Mission Be as well. So we go to schools like middle schools and high schools. So I do that sometimes once a week, sometimes less when I’m traveling for work. Last school year I had like a few classes, four classes or something. So I had hundreds of students and I really enjoy that. Like bringing it to the next generation and at summer camps. I do it with private clients, they reach out to me who just want to work one on one. It’s getting more in depth because if I have groups it’s tricky to guide somebody’s individual breathing patterns for instance, one really good tip is for people on the letting go part which sometimes can be really tricky for people and if it’s like 10, 15 people or something, it’s hard to say it individually. Sometimes it’s like really hard for people to just push out the air. Just like this letting go part. I mentioned it now because if people are trying it at home it’s a really good one just to [sigh] let go and to allow your muscles to fall into gravity. I think that’s a really good trick to get into a more relaxed state to learn how to allow the inhale muscles, which nourish us to fall into gravity and not to kind of hold control in a way. Um, but anyway, back to the other thing. I have private clients. I’ve guided at the Rubin Museum, at The Assemblage. I was guiding it here a few times. WeWork headquarter, I’ve been guiding breathing techniques there to their staff. So, um, yeah, I can adapt it to offices where it’s more like a 20, 30 minute breathing technique. I Have a meetup group which has over 200 members now at Elizabeth Street Garden once a week. Um, so, you know, if one thing I can do… If somebody hears this, Elizabeth Street Garden needs some support because they might get destroyed by real estate developers and stuff. So if you can please go to their website, Elizabeth Street Garden and also on instagram and support them.
Thal
Sure. We’ll add those links in the episode description. So this is our fourth episode and it’s the first time we have a mindfulness teacher on. So,, can you tell us more about mindfulness? I know there are different types and people have heard the word everywhere. There is loving kindness, there is just awareness of the breath and observing. So maybe just talk to us about that a little.
Hannes
Yeah. Nice. So mindfulness, like a scientific explanation from John Kabat Zinn is being present in the moment non-judgmentally. So it’s also just focusing on whatever can help us to be here in the moment and not to label things, not to necessarily analyze things, just to be here. So a very efficient ways or effective ways are breathing awareness. Because that’s always going on. So focusing on breathing and maybe just observing it or if people have more practice like forming it, then it’s also creates more joy probably and more energy. And so when we’re guiding it, it’s also affirmations we do sometimes. So doing like positive affirmations when people say, Oh, you know I can’t breathe into my belly, like an affirmation we’ll say sometimes would also say like, no, I can, I can let go of tension and I can breathe. I can learn how to breathe deeper into my belly. So that’s why it’s, it’s also kind of like a mindfulness exercise. We do like learning how to be present in the moment. Creating positive affirmations, positive outlook. So Karen Winter who runs Mission Be, she has a very profound curriculum where we go through with kids or teachers and I really like the Tibetan practices which I guide, so they’re like really focused heavily on different body movements and breathing. And so they’re like so many practices and I think it’s really helpful for people to try out as many as possible and just see what resonates with them, where they can feel more grounded in the present moment and experience. Um, it’s not always the joyful memories that come up from the past and then just to also could be acceptance and mindfulness being like, oh, this happens in the moment now. And I know also from my friends and colleagues who had like intense depression. Sometimes it’s just like, oh, anxiety sometimes. Okay. To say that, to acknowledge that. And that’s also good. As I’m practicing, “in this moment I feel stressed and I feel tense and it’s okay. And I think it’s not to try to push it away because I feel that could intensify things by avoiding that feeling and just being with that feeling. And um, I was in the quantum physics lab for a few years at the University of Oregon and Benjamin Alemon, the professor. We had a chat once I remember it, he said, you know, pain is such a miraculous thing you know, because like what is pain? When we focus on pain it kind of goes away. You focus on that area of pain, it goes away, but if you’re trying to avoid it, it gets worse, you know? So it’s just pain itself. And so mindfulness is kind of like being okay with it even though it sounds counterintuitive, but that acceptance and awareness of it, it usually decreases the suffering and helps to be more happy.
Thal
So you said also that you teach kids. I have two little kids and I wonder how do they respond to those mindfulness practices? How can I teach my kids those things?
Hannes
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I honestly, I have to say the breathing works the best and there are other things. So they as a group, they liked different games. There was a numbers game, where you have to see, like randomly accelerating numbers and they have to step back because I just say like one, two, three and they just want to shout it out. It doesn’t work. But just to take a step back. That’s a really powerful one for kids. But also the breathing. So honestly like I’ve done that with like two year olds, three year olds and up to the age of 82. Just take a deep inhale the letting go because they their own blood chemistry, you know, like there’s nothing as powerful for kids to change their own blood chemistry and their own feelings as a collective. It’s one thing to have games. But then as an individual just changing their own blood chemistry. And I remember that was the summer I was with a three year old at the beach and it was just like, you know, he was holding his breathing for 30 seconds the first time and then he was so active the whole time at the beach. He was running around wild. And then at some point he came back and said “I want to do it again!”. You know, he wants to hold this breathing for a minute or something. So, and then that was the only time when he was quiet for the whole day when he held his breathing. We did the breathing and then he was holding his breath for a minute and he did that and it’s just, his mom was very stunned that he was doing that. Oftentimes when I did it at summer camp, you know, “close your eyes and just notice your thoughts” and the kids are already like in one second in they’re opening their eyes. But if they feel that it makes a difference in their body chemistry, it’s very powerful as well. I know that Wim spoke about this and his team is not so much on kids or so. And maybe it’s like the adding of like, you know, like more gentle deep in here with a smile and the letting go exhale, which makes a difference because I don’t know because it changes the blood chemistry so maybe some people are a little bit wary to not do it with kids, but I think, you know, like just nourishing ourselves with energy is beautiful. So I would highly recommend that technique. And so, uh, yeah.
Adrian
I remember… either it was you that mentioned this or maybe I was reading this on your site, that you volunteer at a high security prison as well, and you bring breathing or mindfulness techniques. Are you still doing that?
Hannes
Yeah, I still have that volunteer pass. I haven’t done it for a few months. Uh, it’s been a bit tricky to go in there by myself sometimes. So it always depends on the facility. I’ve been doing that on and off since 2014 to go into high security jails on Rikers Island in the Bronx. So I wish I could do it more. Lately, I’ve focused a little bit more on the tech part, on the conferences, traveling around and then the mindfulness in schools. The jail complex in the US is very tricky I’ve been there so many times in Rikers and it’s very disorganized inside of there. It’s hard to get, you know, sometimes there’s alarms. So I traveled there a few hours (forwards and back) and then I can’t get in because another alarm is set and they close the facility but it’s a world in itself which is disconnected from this. So people who don’t know about that, there are literally like 80, 90 percent of people who identify with African American and Hispanic who are in there mostly. And it’s really like, it’s really hard to get out of that loop. So whoever can volunteer, I highly recommend to get in touch with the local jail or prison. There’s always volunteer opportunities. Sometimes it’s hard to get in, but we can do that more and more. I think it could be just like a storytelling event doesn’t have to be mindfulness of breathing. That’s a very good contribution because it’s so, so disconnected and people are not aware of that. Millions of people are incarcerated in the US.
Thal
Are there any insights that you’ve gained from your experience working with jail?
Hannes
Hmm. I think the easier it is to get in there, the easier the practice the better. I remember we did yoga, we went in there for a while, for a yoga company/ organization. We had to get the mats, we had to get space for the mats to get out and the people usually liked it. They were receptive to it. They even asked about the yoga practice. And with mindfulness and breathing it’s a bit easier because you can do it on chairs and it also doesn’t have so much of an image whereas with yoga sometimes, like inmates are around there and making comments because, you know, it’s a weird posture. Something that can happen. I mean, it could happen anywhere. Um, so yeah, I think the easier the practices to go in there, it works and it has a reception so. And it’s like people don’t necessarily have the access in there. If they’re able to get out of that reincarceration and stuff then probably their main focuse is first on survival and stuff and making it in a legal way. And it’s so accessible for so many of us in this community, but I think spreading this out to people who have never heard about breathing or mindfulness is very important. So that’s what I learned. That was really powerful and I think it needs more public programs like this and maybe funding for it and so which makes it more easier for people to go in there and, and kind of help to change it from within.
Adrian
You mentioned a few times already about, um, just the area of research and I know you have a little bit of background in research and academia. Um, what are some of the big things that were sort of surprising when you became personally interested in breathing and mindfulness and then also tying in the science, you talked about blood chemistry, um, could you share a little bit about, you know, um, for those that might not be familiar, what is happening to the body physiologically when people are engaged in these types of practices?
Hannes
Yeah, so a funny thing, maybe a little funny story in the beginning, how we got into the studies on meditation was I wanted to do a study on visual stimuli or we’re already started it with EEG. Because there was not a lot of studies out on how people perceive visual stimuli, what happens in the body, what our stress response is, so we can talk about that maybe later with the current approach. But, so we did the studies on EEG and the lab of Ed Vogel was about to leave the institute on neuroscience at the University of Oregon, so they didn’t start a lot of new studies and we had like an EEG booth, um, for us kind of on the weekend too. So one of the researchers I was working with, she invited me on on a Sunday or so to come there and she set up like a setting on meditation. Because she knew I was doing meditation and she was very skeptical on it. So she said, “Oh, you know, just hook Hannes up with EEG electrodes and see, you know, how in a somewhat experienced meditator if they can change their brain frequencies. So she did a very good, you know, randomized uh… She asked me randomly to meditate: breathing awareness…
Adrian
Sorry, Hannes, we just lost a little bit of connection there. Maybe the last like 30 seconds.
Hannes
Oh yeah. So the researcher invited me to come to the EEG lab and to practice 4 different meditation techniques randomly because she was kind of skeptical if I can kind of change brain frequencies and then the results show that they were very different…I think it’s on my website… like very distinct, you know, shifts of brain frequencies. So it showed up, you know, as like changes in brain frequencies with different techniques (or three and one baseline one where I wasn’t doing anything) . So that was very interesting already. And then based on that I started to work with Michael Posner who was a renowned researcher at the university of Oregon, over 80 years old, to look at an MRI. So with MRI, fMRI especially you can look at blood flow and specific tasks. So you ask the participant to do specific tasks and then you compare the task and look at the blood flow in the brain or compare it to baseline. So we did that and it was interesting too because one, for instance was Vipassana. We do the control oftentimes on us. So with the EEG also I had way more other people afterwards because that was so successful to do it. But with the MRI it’s very costly. So I went in there for the first time because then I can say like “was I meditating well or not”. So I brought like awareness on my different body parts but also in my brain. And then actually my brain had the most blood flow, the most activity showing up in an FMRI analysis, more than when I was focusing on different body parts, which is interesting because there’s not really a scientific explanation to bring awareness to your brain itself. And then I went to the Science of Consciousness in Helsinki and I sat next to a researcher from Princeton Ray Lee at a dinner just randomly in Helsinki. And we both noticed that we’re doing a similar study setting asking people to bring awareness to their brain. And he was doing that in a way. So just as a study focus and he was running the MRI lab at Princeton. He was the first to have two people in an MRI. So we just sat there in Helsinki. We’re like, oh, we’re doing the same kind of study just like on the east coast and the west coast. And then I went to Princeton too, traveled there from Oregon and then later moved back to New York. So I was in the MRI scanner too and then, you know, he was showing that an experienced tai chi practitioner, and other meditators, including me, were able to bring entire blood flows through their brain and he published it at Stanford at the same conference where we presented in 2016 at the Computing Wellbeing Health -AI meets Health and Happiness Science, where we presented our published paper. So that was really interesting already. And then the breathing, that was only on the Vipassana technique and the body scan, but then we we went more into the breathing or me especially, and then I learned about Wim Hof’s technique, which the paper blew me away. It was written up in Nature, which is the most the best, most renowned science journal where they reviewed it and then and it was published in PNAS peer review journal where they showed that through the breathing techniques people were able to change their blood chemistry. So they were able to release, through 20 or 30 minutes of breathing, more adrenaline than somebody in their first bungee jump. And my hypothesis is it has to do with the kidney because on our kidney, we have the adrenal glands, and so when we probably push down on the diaphragm or do deep belly breathing, we activate that more so we feel more alive. Maybe it’s would be fatiguing for some people when they do this deep breathing because they’re not so used to so much adrenaline. But I think that’s. That’s my hypothesis that it activates that. And if we’re breathing only shallow here, which most people do, they breathe, you know, 15 to 20 times, so they, so we have to bring so much faster in order to get the same amount of oxygen in. And so it’s a constant activation of what’s called the sympathetic nervous system in science, the fight or flight response of the nervous system when we breathe through here and the inhale is connected to that. So we do like a really slow inhale. We activate that too, with the sympathetic nervous system the heart rate goes up. But we also release more adrenaline. So belly breathing and also adding a smile that also creates more happy hormones. So yeah, those studies on Wim Hof’s Technique has been very profound. In injecting people with E Coli bacteria, they’re able to resist it. I think even the blood showed in the blood samples afterwards, especially in Wim’s blood, showed he could still resist certain things after haven it taken out of the body. Yeah. You can read the PNAS paper. So it’s really effective in a momentary basis. People don’t have to do like years of meditation training. Through breathing techniques they can really get a lot of benefit. And when I’m guiding breathing techniques, sometimes people come by, they’ve done Zen retreat for a week or a 10-day Vipassana, they say I feel like at the end of this one hour or an hour and a half, I feel like I did at the end or the peak of the retreat because it gets them to stages really fast and that’s why I believe so much into like breathing awareness too because of all those reports and all those studies. So, I invite everybody to try it out and to give it a chance for an hour or so like any of those breathing techniques.
Thal
People are not only gonna, resist E Coli bacteria, they can also resist their own negative thoughts [laughing].
Hannes
Yes! I feel like it’s getting the awareness from here to here. So, one of the key ingredients is the cold exposure because I feel there are a lot of triggers for everybody outside in the world, but one of the most stressful experiences we can have is the cold. And I mean I work with people who are athletes or see really powerful like athletes doing the ice baths in workshops that I’ve guided or Wim has guided thousands or millions of more people. Sometimes people who are really buff, they have a really hard time going into an ice bath when they tense up. So you really have to relax into it and kind of align yourself with the cold. A really simple way is for people to take cold showers. Taking cold showers at home and it’s just so simple that, you know, there’s not a lot of lobbyism out for that. But taking a cold shower and actually relaxing even though it feels counterintuitive because we’re so trained to like, oh, stress response comes we’re breathing shallow, tensing up. So unless the body starts to shake by itself, we are actually physically fine. So going into the cold shower is also a good test to train like, you know, negative thoughts that may come up like “I can’t do this”, but actually kind of going in with a focus like “I can be in this cold shower” and “I can keep my focus on deep breathing”. And I think if people go into this intense stressful environment, like a cold shower and they’re able to keep the focus on deep breathing and to relax there, to relax the body, then the cold shower is no problem. But also they’re able to transfer that into their daily life. So like all those triggers which were there before, you know, in work environments and their personal life are not as intense anymore or if a stress comes up the body knows like, oh I can solve the stress, we’ll bring awareness to my breathing because I did this in this very intense cold showers. So next time is stressful environment or a situation comes up, you know, with more cold showers and more breathing training, people will be like, “oh, I’ll take a deep breathing now instead of losing my composure and reacting”. And I think that’s really for me, besides the feelings of being integrated in every moment, it’s also the awareness of breathing when stressful situations arise. Because I think that’s when we lose that and we can be calm and easy. If something comes up as stress, (which is always self induced in a way) things are just the way they are. Our stressful response to it, unless, you know, something is harmful and threatening. But um, but then you know, that kind of awareness like, oh, you know, this, you know, the subway’s crowded like the subway here in New York and all the subways, like there’s a lot of people, but I can bring awareness to my breathing and then, you know, do deep breathing anywhere. And I don’t need to have a meditation mat or cushion somewhere. I can just be like, oh my breathing I can do it here, I have enough space to expand my belly. I like to think that the Buddha didn’t have a big belly from a lot of eating, but from, you know, big breathing, belly breathing. It’s tricky because our society, I was just talking with my friend about it last night, is so trained on, you know, six pack and it’s like, I feel like it’s kind of people are aligning themselves like shit, you know, because if you have really tight six pack in the belly there you really breathe through here. And it doesn’t create more joy I feel, you know.
Thal
That’s why you have a picture of your belly on your website? [laughing]
Hannes
Yeah. I like that
Adrian
Maybe this is just a little bit of my own lack of understanding of the chemistry. So deep breathing, it sounds like is beneficial for people in a high stress, anxiety state. But you also mentioned that by practicing this way, the adrenaline levels go up quite a bit. So it seems like a paradox because adrenaline, I feel like is associated with stress. So what would be the benefits of increasing the adrenaline?
Hannes
Well, I mean to be more alert, to be more aware in the moment. Be more present and then also to have more energy. So, um, I think it’s not that linear of an explanation that adrenaline is like fear. So that’s why Wim Hof has a nice quote “feeling is understanding”. So while doing those practices, like feeling like, oh, what is actually fear I need to do, or what are stress response of my body I need to have. You know, when like adrenaline gets released or something, you know, we can. Um, so being like, okay, you know, like it’s like I feel euphoria or feel ecstatic. But also, adrenaline gets released when euphoria is there. So it’s not so linear with this. So it’s very powerful for instance those images where people lifting up cars just by themselves, they can’t do it when they’re in a group or something, but like sometimes you see them pumping themselves up or you see like people who weight lift a lot and they pump themselves up and they release a lot of adrenaline in order to be able to really feel more stronger and, and powerful and they literally are more powerful because of that adrenaline. But it could also be used just for grounding in a way, just to be more aware of grounding or powerful grounding. Um, it’s just like how to, how can we bring awareness to our own feelings in the moment and not tie those strong feelings to fear but to more love and kindness and care. So that’s why I really liked the practice adding loving kindness meditation at the same time because me and I think everybody else can always benefit from that every day because so much in society is not focused on that. And um, so yeah, I think like adrenaline or dopamine, it gets released could also be used for mindfulness. It’s just how to tie it all into a holistic experience.
Adrian
Can you share with us the project you’re currently involved in? I saw actually on your instagram, like a prototype of it and maybe describe to the listeners what you’re working on.
Hannes
So we are working on creating personalized experiences and audio too. So when you’re looking at the screen right now, the brightness or even this colour modification could be personalized, customized to our own breathing patterns or heart rate. So the prototype we just exhibited last weekend actually displays different colours and font styles to people and then analyze what is the slowest heart rate or what the heart rates on average to each colour and font style. And then shows this is your heart’s favourite colour. So we’re really trying to look at what is our nervous systems or our heart’s favourite colour and font style. I was really blown away, there’s a video online we put up that for some people, if they look at, for instance, grey, their heart rate drops and you saw maybe the mutual friend of ours who introduced us, he’s in there. Grey was like 44 beats per minute or something. It was like way less than for instance pink or something. So pink was 20 beats more per minute or something. So. So if somebody like him did that months ago and shifted his phone to grayscale without knowing about it, having data on it. He would literally lower his heart rate every time he looked at the phone. But for some people it was pink, you know. So you can’t really have one colour solution that fits everybody. That’s why I really believe all these phone experiences need to be personalized and my belief is really that we can lower the global stress levels 10, 15 percent or more and we have the solution now that works. So I’m really, really excited for that because if we can use a simple webcam here to detect a heart rate and breathing patterns and that’s what we did. It was analyzing their heart rates through the webcam and our focus is really on transparency. So always making sure that when they opt for using the program uses the Webcam that they make sure that it either stays in their own computing device or it will be shared to the network, but only to improve the general program and the programming and won’t be sold for profit. So I also made sure I got the patent a while ago and so I’ve been talking to Google and other companies and we really want to make sure that it’s used for wellbeing and deep breathing and because it can be used to target somebody’s autonomic nervous system and personalized advertisements. And so it could be a Cambridge Analytica times 100 or something or way more because it could drive up somebody’s heart rate and down based on the program. Knowing what colour or contrast or font style will impact somebody a lot, but that’s what we’re really working on. I think it could be integrated in any chat app and everyday life because we also showed like, some people had a really big difference between green and blue. So imagine those people had like an iphone, so every time they text somebody with an android. If the Android drives their heart rate up, you know, their heart rate goes all the way up. So they have this super intense stress response. When they text somebody from an android and if they find blue more calming than, or the nervous system finds blue more calming, then every time they text somebody who has an iphone too then they feel calmer. So we really want to make every phone personalized and adaptive so it recognize what colours, what font style, contrast, et cetera will help them to calm down. And we really got like almost 80, 90 percent accuracy or even more I would say. I shy away from saying 100 percent. People were really responding to that. If you saw the video, we had like only 14 interviews on there with people, but we didn’t display it to so many people. But you know, people are saying, yeah, this is the colour, I choose gray and I have my whole home painted in gray, you know. And then somebody else had their bedroom in blue, so, and then blue was literally the colour which the program depict as their most calming. And then somebody had pink. She was always choosing pink for meditation when she was going into an intimate and very quiet space to be with herself she was choosing pink and the program also detected that as pink. So something so simple as just using the webcam and machine learning could help improve our daily lives so much. And we now know that it works. Because honesty, I was working on this for a few years and also in VR a little bit and AR but you know, the patent was kind of based on the hypothesis that it would work and to adapt a tech experiences and experiences to the users bio data, but now it shows that it can. So I’m really, really excited for this and just had a call earlier today and keep talking with people. So if you know anybody who wants to have a personalized website or app, we can always happy to chat and any way to help help support that. Because in billions of hours spent by the whole humanity everyday on texting and emailing and that could all be personalized based on our heart rate and breathing patterns. So it’s just, it’s just like that. It’s just like, just like whatever, like help somebody to breathe deeper. And then the next goal is actually using deep learning and breathing detection. So the deep learning will kind of using AI in a way to say like…it’s not there yet. the belly breathing, but we can train each person in a way, with the screen experience be personalized to the person to breath deeper and deeper and deeper and I feel it’s just the most natural thing we have like all this lung structures, you know all this lung wings here and all this capacity to nourish ourselves with every inhale and we’re not doing it. So I think it’s the most natural thing to say okay, how can we make technology focus on that, that we can really use all this tree-like branches of our long wings to nourish ourselves. And studies in the last year have shown that our lungs also producing a certain blood component and deep learning could be very effective and I think that’s the most beautiful use of machine learning to learn about ourselves and how to like guide us to a more peaceful and calm state. So that’s what we’re really working on. The first iteration is with heart rates. So using the webcam or the mobile camera and to personalize colours. And I feel it’s like whenever we’re on the screen, it’s not personalized at all. So we are always interacting with a code by a team of designers and developers, somewhere at Apple or Google or something. So it doesn’t consider our heart rate at all and our breathing pattern and our nervous system. It always run through a visual and our haptics or something. So what we can do is like get like the user’s bio-data and use the heart and nervous system integrated and the transparency and the protection of bio data could be as simple as just keeping it in the device. So obviously we need to be sure that we can trust the companies which are using that method and there’s transparency that they won’t sell those bio data. And um, so that’s always a focus on deep breathing and wellbeing and I totally feel it could shift like the whole outlook of the use of technology for the better. Um, so that’s what we’re working on.
Adrian
That’s so exciting. Just the findings that you’re sharing with us and they sound like they’re preliminary and there’s a lot of room for it to continue to evolve. Also, our first guest we had on with Jay Vidyarthi, and he talks about, human-centered design and this is sort of essentially what you’re hitting here is finding better ways to design our environments to make us more human, more connected, you know, as opposed to the opposite of disconnecting us.
Hannes
Yes. I love Jay’s work. Um, he was at TransTech conference too. Um, yeah, I think that’s totally true. Like making it more human centered and integrating each user’s um, feelings or no I shy away from feelings actually because that’s like an interpretive layer. By just looking at the physiology we’re actually looking at like how calm is somebody, how deep somebody is breathing. How was their heart rate? And cardiovascular diseases are the number one killer globally. From my belief, you know, as you said, preliminary data, sometimes a lot is tied to personal experiences and VR projects where we showed similar biofeedback breathing or heart rate biofeedback to hundreds of people and based on a belief that, you know, deepening or relaxing our physiological state can improve wellbeing and tying that into everyday design can really support us on a global scale. And just think how a deeper inhale improves our whole blood flow through the whole body. So I believe that the opioid crisis is tied up to that, people are breathing too shallow, that’s why a lot of attachments to like pharmaceuticals and opioids are needed and it probably just gets worse and worse if people keep breathing very shallow and their blood flow is not improving. And then cardiovascular diseases, you know, like clogged arteries and veins, that it’s not flowing necessarily as good as it could be when we deepen our breathing. We breath thousands of times every day. And so that’s like really like a momentary thing where we can improve with every moment. Hours and hours are spent by each one of us on a screen so that can be tied in. Just looking at simple things like physiology, we try to shy away from any interpretive layers. We had it as a gamified experience in VR and AR with a guided one. But just making it, like looking at what is the slower, what is a color that supports the slower heart rate of the user or deeper breathing and then just adapting the chat app or the design of the phone like that. And just as simple as that. And it’s complex enough with the machine learning behind it. But I’m really grateful that people as skilled as Jay and others in the field are working on this and I think it needs a collective approach and we’ll all share knowledge and share how we can benefit from each other.
Thal
I have to say that your work is impressive, the breadth of your work. Um, it’s like.. you’re involved in embodied practices and you’re also involved in empirical research which is what we need. I’ve also read that you are an artist and how does that tie in with the other work that you’re involved in?
Hannes
Uh, yeah, I guess most people in the past knew me as an artist because that’s how I got, my O1 and my green card and stuff and all this museum exhibitions. I think as an artist, I was like looking at art as like a niche where I could develop projects which are not profit driven and which don’t have like a certain agenda behind it. And then I found that the current art market a little bit too… there’s a lot of numbers driven. But sometimes I get beautiful public art grants and art residencies where I can really merge the creative exploration of what it means to be alive and what it means to be human. What is human culture? What can culture be? To tie that in with the current technology and development of technology and mindfulness. I’m really grateful that art is out there and supported in many different ways, except the art market. I just got invited by Ellen Macy in Santa Barbara, an art residency there to develop. And it’s really nice to see that when we presented at TransTech last weekend, one of the first recognition comes from the art world because I think art can always pioneer and help us improve our wellbeing. There’s not like a certain type of hardware do you need to develop or like a certain type of agenda you need to follow necessarily. It’s just like exploring what it is to be human. And then also tying into art, like what it actually means to improve human wellbeing in the world. And I think as artists, and I think as every, as everybody it’s a very beautiful shift to say how can we all make our planet a more beautiful and more kind world. And using art for that it really has been nice for me. It wasn’t always like this, so when I still was depressed or something I used in a way as like, yeah, it was, it was a bit different. I did paintings and sculptures and stuff. I wasn’t so happy and it was nice. But now I can use the art for this.
Adrian
Hannes, I’m just mindful of the time right now. But I wanted to leave room for any final thoughts that you might have. Or didn’t have a chance to go into before we wrap things up.
Hannes
I mean I can only invite everybody just to try out really deep belly breathing every day and like simple tips if people feel stressed, is to leave the palms open. That’s a really powerful one. Just sitting at the desk or somewhere and leaving the palms open it helps to breathe deeper and then exploring deep, deep belly breathing and seeing how that feels and then the letting go exhale or a really long exhale and then just like this opening as we did in the beginning. And if somebody is interested in this, I’m happy to chat and to learn from each other because I think there’s so many different modalities, so many different tools out there. So many different people working on this and becoming more interconnected and supporting each other with our knowledge is a beautiful way. And especially regarding breathing, there’s so many different techniques out there. I’m always super curious to learn and to hear. And thank you guys for having me.
Adrian
That’s great. We’ll share the links so people can find you in the show notes. Yeah, we love your work and you know, like Thal said, I think the intersection is really interesting and you’re bridging a lot of gaps here. A lot of important gaps, I think, in different disciplines. Thank you for coming on today. That was great. Even the way we started with the breathing exercise.
Thal
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Hannes
So much for having me.