Brain Shaman Michael Waite

In this episode, our guest is Robert Cefoli, the Director of Health and Fitness at FDNY and Co-Founder of Fyr Tribe, a non-profit dedicated to helping firefighters recover from trauma. We discuss the work environment, the stress and trauma that firefighters are exposed to, the bio-psycho-social health challenges they face, the state of their mind and body, and how body-based therapies like TRE (Tension &Trauma Releasing Exercises), foam rolling, and breathwork can help. Enter the mind an...

In this episode, we dig into a study that compares breathwork protocols with mindfulness meditation - 'Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal' (published in Cell Reports Medicine in January 2023). Learn about 3 breathing exercises (box breathing, cyclic sighing, and cyclic hyperventilation) and a mindfulness meditation exercise. See how their pyschophysiological effects differ from one another and why the cyclic sigh was shown to be most powerful ...

In this episode, we talk with Niraj Naik, the founder of SOMA Breath. We discuss breathing practices and techniques for altering your cognition, mood, and health. Learn how to quiet down your thinking mind, find focus and calm, and enter mystical, psychedelic, and blissful flow states via the breath. Breath patterns, speed, duration, and intensity are all part of this. We can change our breath to change how we think, feel, perceive, and connect. Music, visuals, symbols, light and dark,...

In this episode, our guest is Daniele Scuteri, a fitness enthusiast, language learner, black belt, and former amateur soccer player. We talk about how to level up your mental and physical performance, happiness, and growth by embracing hard things. Challenges and difficulties can be opportunities for transformation along your journey through sports, work, love, learning, and life. We discuss various tools for improving your ability to embrace and push through challenges, including:...

In this episode, our guest is Al Wadleigh, a Feldenkrais practitioner and the co-host of the Feldenkrais for Life podcast. We talk about how to rewire our nervous system through Feldenkrais, increasing our learning, memory, health, and potential. Returning us to that childlike state of exploration, curiosity, aliveness, and possibility, Feldenkrais is like a playful portal into adult neuroplasticity and change. Waking us up from our habits and removing our rigid societal masks and algorithms,...

Dr. Ilene Naomi Rusk is a neuropsychologist and functional medicine brain health consultant who helps heal people with trauma and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's. Her education, training, and experience are vast, dancing like a constellation of stars through the nervous system night. We captured glimpses of it today, focusing primarily on the important role that connection and engagement (with others, nature, yourself, your sensory experience, and the beyond) play on your nerv...