Digi-Pharma Pranayama: Why Tech Elites Want to Medicalize and Control Your Breath

Breathwork works. That's why pharma and biotech firms are trying to commodify it. And I'm sure you guessed the reason: profit.

But medicinal breathwork is not a new technology — indigenous healers have taught mindful breathing for millennia, as have meditation teachers of many traditions throughout the world.

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh.

Mindful breathing liberates the mind.

And therefore, apparently, breath is a threat to the ongoing project of colonization.

For example, Ayurvedic medicine, the 5000-year-old South Asian indigenous healing system, is the root of yoga and pranayama ("breath yoking" or mindful breathing). I've never met a "Namaslay"-saying, Lululemon-wearing, Instagram beach-posing yogi who knew that British imperialists brutally criminalized the practice of Ayurveda during colonial rule of India.

My ancestors could be imprisoned on their ancestral land, simply for breathing mindfully in a brown body.

But now, the FDA is clearing breath-focused digital prescription treatments.

So far they've been mainly wellness-focused software, devices, and mobile apps designed to teach and support therapeutic breathwork practices. These digital therapeutics are to be prescribed by a healthcare provider, like a prescription medication, for the treatment of mental health conditions, like PTSD and panic disorder.

I will never have a problem with helping a suffering person heal by teaching them breathwork.

But I think as these treatments expand, we will see more digital breathwork prescription treatments to treat a broader range of conditions and symptoms.

Mingle in the lobby of a breathwork class, and you'll hear stories of vanishing symptoms, physiological changes, and consciousness shifts. I've met people who say they are replacing prescription medication with breathwork for all kinds of refractory conditions, such as respiratory disorders, like asthma and COPD, but also for anxiety, pain, and neurological conditions.

I believe everyone deserves to learn and benefit from mindful breathing, from kindergarten to the hospital ward.

And mindful breathing SHOULD be basic medical knowledge. It's as fundamental as nutrition and sleep. But most healthcare professionals have no clue about breathwork basics. Nor do most clinicians have lived experience with a personal breathwork practice.

What concerns me is the combination of breathwork with behavior control.

Medicalized behavior control is exactly what tech billionaires are after, including Sam Altman of Open AI, according to his recent article in TIME, co-authored with Arianna Huffington of Thrive Global, a tech company aiming to increase productivity with behavior control.

The title of their article was as chilling as their unchecked hubris: "AI-Driven Behavior Change Could Transform Health Care." You can't make this stuff up.

AI-Driven behavior change in the form of an AI-health "coach" algorithms, according to these tech elites, is the solution to poor health of the masses. Never mind the health effects of environmental and social conditions, like widespread mental and physical distress caused by economic, social, and environmental systems. The masses should be told, through AI-devices connected to our bodies, when to sleep, when to exercise, what to eat, and even how to socially connect.

Tech elites believe we need their AI micromanaging and correcting every natural behavior that is a function of being alive, and breath will be next.

If AI-controlled breath work can take the mindfulness out of breathing for you, it will be sold as a shortcut to optimal health. "Biohacking" our way to superior consciousness TM. Saving the masses from our own mindless breathing, by selling the scalable solution of an algorithm to control every inhale and exhale. And they'll tell us it is breakthrough in biomedical advancement, by plundering the centuries of knowledge from medicine they would call primitive.

What's next? Who knows. Maybe selling the end of climate change with AI control of algae respiration, while they colonize space.

Personally, I will keep my breath unplugged.

My advice: learn from teachers (ancient or modern) who actually need to breathe air and have a longstanding breathwork practice. You know, from people, who know what it feels like to breathe, to love, and to face death.

With lungs and a heartbeat.