Does Breathwork Release DMT in the Body?
Breathwork has been practiced for thousands of years and has its roots in India in pranayama practices. Modern breathwork started in the mid-1960s. Some credit its invention to Stanislav Gof, M.D., who has over sixty years of experience in non-ordinary states of consciousness, but he modeled these practices from pranayama techniques. Breathwork is an umbrella term for any voluntary regulated breathing practice that can calm your mind, connect you with your body, while treating mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. Life is intense right now for all of us, especially the disenfranchised. Once learned, breathwork can be a powerful and inexpensive (all you need is a pair of lungs!) tool to aid you in your healing journey.
According to Webmd, breathwork can help alleviate stress by relaxing the body. When we're stressed our breathing tends to shorten and quicken; breathwork helps control your autonomic nervous system, bringing you out of the fight, flight, or freeze responses and increases access to the social engagement system.
Breathwork gives you the opportunity to improve your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. It allows us to clear our mind and focus on the the present moment and take control of our thoughts much like meditation.
The most common questions about DMT and breathwork are:
What is DMT?
Does breathwork release DMT in the body?
Can DMT affect your breathwork practice?
What is DMT?
First, let's get familiar with the term DMT. DMT stands for Dimethyltryptamine, which is a psychedelic tryptamine, in the same class as substances like lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin. Studies show DMT as a psychoactive ingredient that is present in Ayahuasca, a South American psychoactive medicinal brew.
DMT is known to be a very powerful psychedelic, and if ingested it can lead to very mystical and psychedelic experiences. According to elife DMT is, “taken by humans to alter the quality of their consciousness.” Most people would drink DMT breathing as a brew, and it will sit in the gastrointestinal system until it is set to reach the human brain.
In Medical News Today DMT, also known as, “the spirit molecule” is, “illegal to manufacture, buy, possess, or distribute.” It is commonly associated with psychonautic exploration, and while illegal in the United States, many individuals ingest it either through ayahuasca or through concentrated form in order to have mystical experiences with South American Shamans. Its popularity has led to more appropriation of its power with no oversight or training. It is associated with dreams and there are claims that large amounts of it are released in the brain when dying. There are a lot of claims about DMT in the body, none of them scientifically proven. Please read this again. None of the claims about DMT activation in the body are scientifically proven, and even the small amount found in the human body is not enough to create psychoactive results. There are a lot of claims about DMT in the body, none of them scientifically proven.
Does breathwork release DMT in the body?
Breathwork is known to help bring the mind and body to a state of connected consciousness. Through breathwork techniques you are focused on your deep breathing in a way that allows the mind to quiet its incessant chatter and connect more to the wisdom of the body.
It is currently not scientifically proven that meditation alone is releasing DMT breathwork benefits in the brain. However, there are theories that suggest the pineal gland, which is responsible for the production of endogenous DMT in the brain, can be activated through certain conscious breathing exercise techniques during meditation.
Research has shown that the pineal gland contains the necessary enzymes and receptors to produce and respond to DMT. Some studies have also found DMT present in the rat brain, suggesting that it may play a role in naturally occurring altered states of consciousness.
While it is not yet fully understood how breathwork and meditation affect the brain and consciousness, some people believe that a certain breathwork technique can lead to the release of endogenous DMT in the brain, which may produce endogenous hallucinogenic effects. However, these claims are not yet scientifically proven and require further research.
It is important to note that attempting to produce DMT through meditation or holotropic breathwork can be dangerous and should not be attempted without proper supervision and guidance.
These are all unproven claims that we are extremely skeptical about.
The wonderful part about breathwork is that it does not take an external drug to allow your body to go to miraculous places. Instead of using a substance (or even given credit to one "claimed to be released”), the power of the breath allows us to access internal knowledge, process through difficult experiences, integrate trauma, and much more. This can feel like it is a consciousness altering experience while allowing the individual breathing to remain completely “sober.”
We have no problems with those folks using psychedelic substances or entheogens to achieve altered states of consciousness, or in many cases as a adjunctive practice in their recovery. We do have a problem with the appropriation of traditional practices.
Can DMT affect your breathwork practice?
Many things can affect your therapeutic breathing practice practice, including the ingestion of psychedelics and entheogens, but many folks use breathwork as part of the post DMT integration process. We suggest if you use these chemicals, you use them with a qualified practitioner, not a white couple in a sweat lodge in Malibu. Visit a traditional and trained South American Shaman. Breathwork can be a helpful post-psychedelic experience allowing for deeper integration of the experience. We also recommend that you work with a breathwork practitioner who is qualified to work with trauma.
Why are we posting about DMT?
There are many practitioners out there claiming that DMT get produced or released during breathwork sessions. There is absolutely no evidence supporting these claims, but they persist nevertheless. We want our clients to think critically about the material they read, and we encourage you to do so. We are posting this as a counterpoint to all the unproven bullshit out there.
In Conclusion
DMT, also known as Dimethyltryptamine, is a powerful chemical that is released naturally in certain instances as well as used as an external drug to illicit psychedelic states.
Many claim that breathwork may release DMT into the body but in a very different way than if DMT is smoked or taken orally. Breathwork is a practice used to manage your anxiety, depression, bodily sensations, and to safely help calm and relax your mind, body, and soul. Breathwork has the capacity to truly help you, without giving it’s power over to a substance like DMT . Chronic stress levels continue to rise daily in our lives due to the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. It’s destroying us. Our personal healing is only one small part of that, and only afforded to folks who have resources to access it.
There are no definite answers to breathwork and DMT and how they are interactive with each other. All we know is how powerful breathwork can be when it is practiced consistently and in full depth. Breathwork gives us the opportunity to become our very own self healer, allowing us to reach the path of spiritual awakening and heal on the road to self-discovery. What we also know is that breathwork is entirely safe.