The Breath Geek

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

02/08/2026

Here’s the hard truth:
Some people are addicted to the news.
To the outrage.
To being emotionally wrecked every day.
🧠 Study: After the Boston Marathon bombing,
people who watched hours of media coverage
had more PTSD symptoms than the people who were actually there.
(Silver et al., PNAS, 2013)
📊 Study: “Extremely liberal” individuals had 150% higher rates of mental illness than moderates.
(Carl, Mental Illness and Ideology, 2023)
And I bet people on the far right are suffering in other ways.
So no, not all mental illness is random.
Sometimes it’s chosen—
through what people watch, believe, and refuse to let go of.
It’s time to take back your attention.
👇 Comment “TURN IT OFF” if you’re done letting the news live in your head rent-free.

02/06/2026

Contrarianism has become the new dopamine.

🎧 Podcasts proved it: people crave the “you’ve been lied to” moment more than the actual truth.
📊 Research shows negative and contrarian headlines drive significantly higher clicks and engagement than neutral or positive ones (Sharma et al., PNAS, 2023).
And news consumption isn’t about accuracy — it’s about emotional stimulation, especially anger and surprise (Stanford News, 2024).

Here’s the catch:
Once you stop trusting the mainstream, you don’t automatically get smarter.
You often become more gullible to fringe narratives — because the contrarian high feels better than the boring truth.

👇 Have you seen this shift too? Are people addicted to contrarianism more than truth?



02/05/2026

Gratitude isn’t woo. It’s neuroscience.
🧠 Hebb’s Law says: neurons that fire together, wire together.
So when you complain constantly, your brain learns to expect and search for negativity.
When you practice gratitude—even in small moments—you reprogram your brain to look for the good.
One study published in NeuroImage showed long-term gratitude practice reshaped neural pathways associated with emotion regulation and reward.
Other research found it reduced cortisol and increased gray matter volume in key regions of the brain.
Your mental habits are wiring you—whether you like it or not.
What are you rehearsing?
🧠 Source: Fox, G. R. et al. (2015). “Neural correlates of gratitude.” NeuroImage, 105, 298-305.

02/03/2026

In 1995, Elizabeth Loftus ran a now-famous experiment:
Loftus, E. F., & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The Formation of False Memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25(12), 720–725.
Participants were told four childhood stories — three real, one fake.
The fake?
That they’d been lost in a shopping mall at age five, cried, and were rescued by a stranger.
💥 25% remembered it — vividly.
This wasn’t acting. Their nervous systems responded as if it were real.
The lesson: memory is shockingly easy to distort.
Now apply that to therapy — where tools like:
✨ Guided imagery
🌀 Hypnosis
👶 Inner child regressions
🔮 Past life recall
… encourage people to trust whatever “comes up.”
If we’re not careful, we’re healing from traumas that might not be ours, or might never have happened at all.
The body doesn’t need a story to heal — it needs a release.
👇 Comment CLEAR if you’re ready for trauma healing that’s grounded in reality.

02/02/2026

Every morning I open my inbox, and there it is again — an email from HARO (Help A Reporter Out).

Journalists looking for “experts” to explain why:
▪️ Overthinking = anxiety
▪️ Shyness = social phobia
▪️ Perfectionism = trauma
▪️ Ordinary sadness = depression

Every day, the anxiety industry expands.
Its job isn’t to help you feel better.
It’s to convince you you’re unwell enough to need help — and pay for it.
Meanwhile, no one in mainstream media asks about the iatrogenic harms of therapy — the ways constant self-focus, labeling, and over-analysis can actually create distress.

There’s a reason for that.
A system built on endless “awareness” can’t afford people who are okay.
👇 Drop a 🧠 if you’ve seen this shift from awareness to anxiety.
Let’s start a different kind of conversation.

02/01/2026

🧊 Most people still think cold plunges are just for muscle recovery or elite athletes.
But a new 2024 study just flipped that idea on its head.
Researchers tested a realistic cold water immersion routine:
10°C water, 10 minutes, 3x/week, for 4 weeks.
Not only was there no drop in brain performance...
🔹 Executive function improved (think faster decisions, sharper focus)
🔹 Sleep disturbances dropped significantly by week 3
🔹 No impact on anxiety—but better sleep = better mood long-term
The takeaway?
Cold isn’t just for recovery—it’s a regulator.
For your brain. For your sleep. For your everyday stress.
And yeah, it's not just for athletes anymore.


📓 STUDY DETAILS:
“Influence of acute and chronic therapeutic cooling on cognitive performance and well-being”
Published in Physiology & Behavior, 2024
DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2024.114728
✅ 13 participants
✅ 10.4°C water for 10 mins, 3x/week
✅ Measured sleep (PSQI), well-being, and cognition (Stroop + Trail Making Tests)
✅ Sleep and executive function improved—without cognitive decline



01/31/2026

Men are more depressed, fatigued, and emotionally flatlined than ever.
One reason? Testosterone levels are collapsing.
A major review linked low T with depression and poor mood.
One study found chopping wood raised testosterone more than hunting.
Another showed that just competing in soccer can spike T—especially after a win.
But the long-term trend is clear:
Modern men are showing massive generational drops in testosterone.
And while TRT helps some… too much?
You go from balanced to Charlie Sheen in his “bi-winning” era.
Not grounded. Not stable. Just chemically inflated.
Balance is the goal.
And movement, competition, and purpose are how you get there.
📚 SOURCES:
Zarrouf et al. (2009). Testosterone and Depression: A Systematic Review. PMC3810999

Trumble et al. (2012). Chopping wood boosts T more than hunting. PMID: 32657051

Urology Times (2020). Testosterone levels dropping in young US men

Additional sport-based T increase research: Archer (2006); Mazur & Booth (1998)

01/30/2026

This isn’t just about screen time.
It’s about brain time.

🧠 A 2016 study by Sherman et al. (Psychological Science) used fMRI to show that when adolescents see a post with lots of likes, the reward circuitry of their brain activates — like it would for addictive substances.
This helps explain why social media isn’t just a distraction —
It’s behavioural conditioning.
If your kid’s self-worth is being shaped by algorithms, you need to know how the system works.

01/29/2026

Your breathing and your anxiety might be coming from the same place in your brain.
🧠 A 2025 study from Nature Communications showed that in mice, a specific group of GABAergic neurons in the central amygdala controlled both anxious behaviors and breathing patterns.
When these neurons were activated: 🔹 Mice breathed faster
🔹 Showed anxiety-like behaviors (like fidgeting, grooming)
🔹 Reacted like they were under threat—even when they weren’t
But when those neurons were turned off?
Calm breathing. Calm behavior.
No panic. No overreaction.
Yes, it was a mouse study—but here’s why it matters for humans:
🧬 Our brains are wired in similar ways.
And this backs up what many already feel intuitively:
When you change your breath, you’re not just calming your body—you’re changing the neural signals behind how you feel.
I work with people to train this.
I’m a certified Oxygen Advantage instructor, and I help clients use breathing techniques to support emotional regulation, focus, and resilience.
📚 Study Reference:
Title: GABAergic neurons in central amygdala contribute to orchestrating anxiety-like behaviors and breathing patterns
Authors: Wang et al.
Journal: Nature Communications (2025)
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58791-6
✅ Mouse study showing activation of specific amygdala neurons leads to anxiety + rapid breathing
✅ Inhibition of same neurons leads to calm behavior + slower breath
✅ Suggests a shared neural mechanism between breath and emotion









01/28/2026

Online therapy trends are doing more than just spreading ideas —they’re reprogramming relationships.

📻 ABC Radio (2024) explored a rising issue:
“Digitally mediated estrangement.”
More young adults are going no-contact with parents
after consuming pop-psych content online.
This isn’t always about real abuse.
Sometimes, it’s about algorithm-fed identity.

And in some cases?
Even therapy can tip the scale —
because therapists’ own values often shape what’s encouraged in the room.
Not intentionally. But it happens.

Yes — some estrangements are necessary.
But others are driven by trends, therapists, and TikTok.
And that’s a conversation we need to have.

01/27/2026

Emerging research suggests that the ketogenic diet may play a significant role in treating severe mental illnesses. Studies have shown substantial improvements in patients with bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. While more research is needed, these findings open the door to alternative treatment avenues beyond traditional pharmaceuticals.
📚 Citations:
Danan, H., et al. (2022). The Ketogenic Diet for Refractory Mental Illness. Frontiers in Psychiatry. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.951376/full
Check out Georgia Ede MD for more info on this topic.

Calabrese, L., et al. (2024). Complete remission of depression and anxiety using a ketogenic diet: case series. Frontiers in Nutrition. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1396685/full

01/26/2026

More therapy.
More medication.
More awareness.
📈 Yet more mental illness than ever.
The system isn’t curing people — it’s capturing them.

📚 Sources:
• Thomas Insel, Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health (2022) — “We spent billions… but people didn’t get better.”
• Horwitz & Wakefield, The Loss of Sadness (2007) — “Psychiatry redefined normal sorrow as disorder.”
• Lucy Foulkes, Losing Our Minds (2021) — over-pathologizing distress increases self-focus and anxiety.
• CDC NHIS (2022): adults in therapy up from 18.5 % (2019) → 23.2 % (2021).
• SAMHSA (2023): 23.1 % of U.S. adults now meet criteria for a mental disorder — the highest ever recorded.

Maybe therapy culture didn’t just remove the stigma.
Maybe it built an industry that needs the stigma of being “unwell” to survive.

Address

Walnut Creek, CA

Website

https://www.runga.co/intensive

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