The Breath Geek

The Breath Geek Breathwork, bio-hacking and life coaching Dr. Richard L. Blake

01/02/2026

For decades, the message was loud and clear: depression = chemical imbalance.
But in 2022, Moncrieff et al. published an umbrella review in Molecular Psychiatry showing there’s no convincing evidence that serotonin levels or activity are associated with depression. (Nature)
Antidepressants do outperform placebo, but Khan et al. (2015) showed the difference is modest: ~40% respond to meds vs ~30% to placebo (PMC).
Other meta-analyses confirm the reductions in symptoms are often below “clinically meaningful” thresholds (BioMed Central).
This isn’t about dismissing anyone’s experience.
It’s about recognising that the healing you achieved was your work — not marketing slogans, not a serotonin story that never held up.
And if diagnosis growth keeps rising the way it has, soon everyone will wear a mental illness label.
We deserve better than myths. We deserve mental health built on truth.

12/31/2025

Why don’t more estranged families reconcile?

The research says it’s not always the estranged person who’s rigid.
Rittenour et al. (2018) found that even when people were offered helpful, non-threatening ways to reach out to an estranged family member — most refused.
They didn’t want to adapt.
They didn’t want to soften.
They wanted the repair on their terms.
This is called non-accommodation — and it’s one of the clearest signs of an unwillingness to do the actual work of repair.
Estrangement isn’t always about a lack of love.
Sometimes it’s a lack of flexibility.
Because if people can’t say “I love you” without making it feel like a power move…
They’re not ready to reconnect.

📚 Reference:
Rittenour, C., Kromka, S., Pitts, S., Thorwart, M., Vickers, J., & Whyte, K. (2018). Communication surrounding estrangement: Stereotypes, attitudes, and (non)accommodation strategies. Behavioral Sciences, 8(10), 96. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs8100096

12/30/2025

🚨 Is therapy culture actually making us worse?
The people most influenced by it—young adults between 18-25—have the worst mental health in history.
📉 53% of them have been to therapy.
📉 And yet, depression, anxiety, and su***de rates keep rising.
If therapy culture was helping, shouldn’t we be seeing the opposite?
Instead, we’ve turned normal emotions into mental illness:
✔️ Feeling worried = Anxiety Disorder
✔️ Feeling sad = Depression
✔️ Arguing with someone = They’re toxic or a narcissist
✔️ Not wanting to do something = That’s a boundary violation
Therapy culture has been weaponized by manipulative people who use therapy-speak to avoid accountability.
🚨 And here’s the problem: If you convince people that struggling means they’re sick… they’ll never stop feeling broken.
🏥 Living in therapy culture is like living in a hospital.
Hospitals are for healing the sick. But if you’re healthy and you live in one, you start to believe you’re sick too.
At some point, we have to ask: Are we actually healing… or just keeping ourselves stuck?
Drop your thoughts below.

12/29/2025

A 2024 study compared ayahuasca retreats vs guided breathwork sessions. Both groups improved — but breathwork surprised everyone:
Wellbeing ↑ 18.9% with ayahuasca, ↑ 13.8% with breathwork

Resilience ↑ ~5% with ayahuasca, ↑ ~10% with breathwork → double the gain

Self-compassion ↑ in both groups

Personality traits shifted in both: neuroticism ↓, agreeableness ↑

(Khubsing, R. S. I., van Leerdam, M., Haijen, E. C. H. M., & Kuypers, K. P. C., 2024, Psychoactives)
And these weren’t short-term changes — they lasted for months after.
This matters because the Big Five personality traits are some of the strongest predictors of life outcomes, stronger than IQ. Being lower in neuroticism and higher in agreeableness means you’re not only more successful — you’re also easier to live with, work with, and love.
The study didn’t specify which exact breathwork was used, only that it was “consciousness altering.” Most likely it was conscious connected breathwork — but if anyone knows differently, please let me know.
And here’s the kicker: this isn’t something you can DIY with box breathing or Wim Hof. This is deep, facilitated work that needs a trained professional to guide it safely.












12/28/2025

🥦 Your mood might not be a mystery—it might be metabolic.
🧠 For many people, mental health starts with physical health.
🎯 You can’t bypass biology with journaling. Get the basics right.
👇 What's one thing you’ve done for your physical health that changed your mental health?

12/27/2025

This might be the wildest study of the year…
Researchers tested a 4-week daily breathwork protocol — including a mix of techniques focused on regulated, intentional breathing — and found major improvements in participants' facial skin microbiome and gut health.
Key outcomes:
✔️ Boost in Lactobacillus (beneficial bacteria)
✔️ Improved skin microbiome diversity
✔️ Lower perceived stress
✔️ Better overall well-being
The best part?
The techniques were similar to what we teach in the Runga 90-Day Intensive at RUNGA.
So yes — breathing differently can make your skin better.
📚 STUDY:
Schmidt, E. et al. (2024). The effect of a 4-week breathwork intervention on skin microbiome and gut bacteria: A randomised controlled trial. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health.

12/26/2025

94% of therapists lean liberal.
That’s not balance — that’s monopoly.
📊 Studies show:
▪️ At a 2011 SPSP conference of ~1,000 social psychologists, only 3 identified as conservative (

12/25/2025

When you’re depressed, your brain isn’t broken — it’s biased.
It literally filters for the negative. This is called negative attention bias, and it’s one reason depression feels like an emotional spiral you can’t think your way out of.

🧠 But here’s the good news:
A study by Lin, Heeren, and Wang (2019) found that just 15 minutes of mindful breathing per day for 7 days helped people with depressive symptoms reduce that bias.

They became less emotionally reactive
More focused
And less stuck on negative thoughts

Breathwork isn’t just calming — it’s retraining your brain.

👇 Try it for a week and comment below:
What’s one negative thought you’re ready to release?

12/24/2025

“There are two kinds of people — those who don’t realise they need therapy, and those who don’t know when to stop.”
– adapted from Nassim Taleb by

We’re watching two extremes play out —
On one side, people suffering in silence and destroying everything around them while calling it “strength.”
On the other, people who’ve built an entire identity around healing… and never actually heal.

Therapy isn’t a personality
And avoidance isn’t resilience
Both ends of the spectrum are broken
You don’t go to therapy to stay in therapy
You go so you can live again














12/23/2025

I know this might hurt my credibility...
(Assuming I had any to begin with 😅)
But I had an experience I couldn’t explain—and then I found a study that made me question everything.
🧠 In a 2024 paper published in Psychopharmacology, researchers found real statistical patterns in reports of telepathy, precognition, and synchronicity—aka psi phenomena.
Here’s the wild part:
🔹 These patterns were too strong to be random
🔹 The brain may act as a filter—not a generator—of consciousness
🔹 And in altered states like breathwork, those filters may loosen
Years ago, I was in a deep breathwork session when I started hearing other people’s thoughts.
I know how that sounds. But it didn’t feel metaphorical—it felt real.
This study doesn’t prove psi is real…
But it does suggest we may need to take it way more seriously.
Drop a “brain” emoji in the comments if this makes you question your version of reality.

12/22/2025

Estrangement isn’t mostly about abuse.
It’s about values.

📊 Research by Gilligan et al. (2015) found people were more willing to stay connected with family who had committed actual crimes than with those who simply held different values.
📊 Reczek (2023) reports 26% of adults are estranged from their fathers, 6% from their mothers.
📊 Estrangement is most common among younger generations — the same groups who lead in therapy use (Millennials & Gen Z, especially white women).
Therapy culture gives people the words to reframe value clashes as trauma:
▪️ “Toxic.”
▪️ “Unsafe.”
▪️ “Narcissist.”
Sometimes estrangement is necessary.
But often it’s moral superiority disguised as healing.

That’s why both sides feel attacked by this conversation:
▪️ Those estranged for good reason fear their pain is being trivialised.
▪️ Those estranged for weak reasons feel validated.
Estrangement lives in that messy grey zone —
between real harm and moral discord.

👇 Drop VALUES if you think estrangement is less about abuse — and more about identity clashes.

12/21/2025

What if we built the entire mental health system around the wrong guy?
Freud’s model made us look back. Adler’s would’ve helped us move forward.
We chose endless analysis over action.
Wounds over wisdom.
And now? We have a mental health crisis.
Let’s rethink the foundation.

👇 Drop a 💭 if you’ve ever felt stuck in self-analysis instead of healing.
Or comment “Adler” if you’re ready for forward-thinking mental health.
Yes - this is a repost. And yes I am the original creator of this idea. And yes those other people who have done similar versions of it did copy me. Check the date of the post pinned to my profile and the date of the copy you saw if you don't believe me.


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https://www.runga.co/intensive

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