Martin McPhilimey MSc MRes - Applied Scientist

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Martin McPhilimey MSc MRes - Applied Scientist

🧠 Helping coaches build clinical-grade breath, sleep & nervous system skills. Day after day.

Chronic stress is a global health crisis affecting individual and collective performance. With coaching, you can turn stress into success for high performance with the enthusiasm, motivation and energy to take action towards your goals. Imagine the level of performance you could reach by waking up each morning feeling calm, alert and ready to tackle your day. Reclaim confidence in your capacity for action by learning the methods helping stressed-out busy professionals, anxious leaders and burnt out go-getters stand out from the crowd by regaining control of their focus, energy and productivity.

25/03/2026

Most breathwork certifications teach techniques.

But they don’t teach you how to coach.

And that creates the gap in confidence.

I recently surveyed 100 breath coaches —�and the biggest challenge wasn’t knowledge…

It was lack of structure to create long-term results with clients.

Because tools without structure… don’t scale.
�And they don’t create consistent outcomes.

That’s exactly why I created the
�Breath Resilience Instructor Training.

This is applied psychophysiology.

You’ll learn how to:
* Assess the individual in front of you
* Understand their nervous system state
* How to measure, track and assess HRV to a high standard.
* And apply the 3R System to meet them where they are

From there, we take clients through six clear phases�— moving them from dysregulation → grounded → physiologically capable.

This isn’t just more techniques.

This is how to think, assess, and coach at a high level.

The training runs over 10–12 weeks,�with 6 months of ongoing support.

We’re running two cohorts globally —�and they are already filling.

This is your gateway into breath science�without committing to a full 9-month certification…

But still gaining the systems, skills, and confidence�to coach properly.

This is highly practical and applied. You will integrating the work as you move through the training.

And for the founding cohort —�we’ll be collecting data to contribute to a published white paper.

The early bird offer ends in 7 days.
�And the investment will not be this low again.

If you want to become a more confident, structured, and effective coach—

Comment “INSTRUCTOR” below�and I’ll send you the details.

BRIT

24/03/2026

Your client isn’t plateauing. They’re at capacity.

One of my mentees said this to me the other day:

“My client feels like they’ve hit a plateau… and I don’t know what to do.”

You could hear it straight away — it knocked his confidence.

So we went through the case properly.

And it was obvious…

The client didn’t need more.

They were already at their limit.

If anything, adding more would’ve pushed them backwards.

What they actually needed was restoration.

This is where a lot of coaches get it wrong.

We’ve all been fed this idea that more = better.

More breathwork 
More intensity 
More sessions

But that’s not how adaptation works.

You don’t get results from doing more.

You get results from doing enough, and then allowing the system to adapt.

The issue is, most breath coaches don’t struggle because they lack tools.

They struggle because they don’t know what to do with them.

When to push 
When to pull back 
How to structure things over time

And to be fair, that’s not really taught.

Most certifications show you how to do breathwork…

Not how to think as a coach.

That’s exactly the gap we’re filling with the Breath Resilience Instructor Training.

So you can actually make decisions with confidence, instead of second guessing every client.

If this is something you know you’re missing,
comment INSTRUCTOR and I’ll send you the details

22/03/2026

High blood pressure is a silent killer affecting many people in Western society.

I imagine every family is impacted by this chronic condition, whether directly or through knowing others who are affected.

It’s so common that medication is often accepted almost immediately upon diagnosis by the majority.

However, this same majority is unlikely to be educated about this simple, free practice of slow breathing.

Just 10 minutes a day could be enough.

Combine that with lifestyle coaching aimed at reducing stress, and you could see a turnaround, even for those with stage two hypertension.

I’m still not sure why GPs are not fully aware of this or actively promoting it. To those of you who do,

Thank you.

Share this with your medical colleagues or health practitioners.

19/03/2026

Today marks the start of my 12th group training for the Breath Science Certification.

And I’m sitting here with a deep sense of gratitude for everyone who has joined me on this journey — past, present, and future.

The exists in a space of its own within a small, but rapidly expanding field.

What we offer is different.

This isn’t just about techniques.
It’s not just about methods.

It’s about learning how to think.

To assess.
To monitor.
To apply.

To move beyond following trends…
And instead develop scientific thinking and clinical reasoning in how you work with your clients.

Yes — you’ll learn techniques.
Yes — you’ll understand methods.

But more importantly, you’ll understand when, why, and how to apply them.

That’s where real impact is made.

The role of a Breath Science Practitioner — and now the Breath Resilience Instructor — has the potential to create meaningful change in a world that is increasingly disconnected, dysregulated, and unwell.

Seven years ago, I had a sense of where things were heading.

That was the driver behind starting to share this work.

But to now be here — training professionals, passing on 16 years of academic, clinical, and consulting experience — to those who want to raise their standards, build true authority, and develop confidence through depth rather than oversimplification…

Honestly, it brings me a lot of fulfilment.

I’m incredibly optimistic about what we can create in this space.

Especially with those willing to challenge their thinking, lean into nuance, and step into a role of greater service.

Thank you for being part of this.

I’m excited for what’s ahead.

butler

apnea

Nadia Callaghan (can’t find your insta)

18/03/2026

What if ADHD isn’t just about attention…
but about timing and predictability?

Today in Journal Club, we looked at evidence suggesting that a large percentage of individuals with ADHD have a delayed circadian rhythm.

Meaning:

Their biology is running later than the world expects them to.

Sleep is pushed back

Morning activation is blunted

Arousal is mistimed

And when you shift the biology…
symptoms start to improve.

This doesn’t replace traditional approaches.

But it highlights something that’s often missed:

👉 Physiology matters.

It’s something Johann Hari touches on in Stolen Focus —
that our attention is deeply shaped by our environment and biology.

And it’s something we go deep into inside the
School of Breath Science —

helping you understand how breathing, sleep, and nervous system regulation actually interact.

Let me know your thoughts below.

16/03/2026

What actually is nervous system regulation?

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts recently claiming that “nervous system regulation” is vague — or that it isn’t even a real concept.

Much of this criticism comes from a very limited understanding of the nervous system even in areas where people are nervous system coaches.

Most explanations stop at the sympathetic vs parasympathetic nervous system, using phrases like:

• vagal tone
• vagus nerve activation
• calming the nervous system

But these ideas often oversimplify what regulation actually is.

True nervous system regulation is not simply about calming down.

It’s about the brain and body adjusting in real time — developing the capacity to process internal signals, interpret the environment, and adapt behaviour accordingly.

What many nervous system coaches call “regulation” is often closer to arousal management.

But deeper regulation occurs through learning.

In behavioural science this is closer to exposure.

The cortex and lower brain regions interact to update predictions about threat and safety.

Over time this process reduces sympathetic reactivity to a stimulus.

Not because we temporarily changed our state…

But because the brain has learned that the stimulus is safe.

This is an ongoing learning concept we explore inside both our BRIT and BSC trainings — moving beyond traditional arousal management and into true nervous system regulation.

13/03/2026

NEW TRAINING ANNOUNCEMENT

With 20 people already signed up for the founding cohort, I’m excited to officially announce the Breath Resilience Instructor Training (BRIT)

This is a 10-week deep dive into applied breath science, focused on the practical application of physiology to help individuals move from dysregulation to resilience.

Inside the training you will learn the framework I’ve developed and refined over the past six years, working with people experiencing:

• Chronic stress
• Burnout
• Anxiety
• Recovery challenges
• High-performance pressure

Rather than just teaching techniques, this training focuses on how to assess, interpret, and apply breathing practices within the broader physiology of stress and recovery.

You will learn:

• Stress physiology and nervous system dynamics
• Understanding state vs trait patterns of stress
• How to measure and interpret HRV
• Restoring functional breathing mechanics
• Using restorative practices to shift physiology
• Applying cold exposure, breath holds, and movement for regulation and resilience

This will be a highly integrative program.

Participants will also collect their own physiological data, interpret the results, and potentially contribute to a white paper exploring the system itself.

The first cohort begins in May, with schedules available to accommodate all global time zones.

Because this is the founding cohort, it is also the lowest investment this course will ever be, with a price increase coming at the end of the month.

I’ve put a lot of heart into building this program and I’m incredibly excited to share it.

Comment “INSTRUCTOR” below and I’ll send you the details via DM.

11/03/2026

Breath control has increasingly become a performance focused term.

But for many people, especially those who already feel restricted, overwhelmed, or like they are constantly trying to control life, the word control doesn’t always land well.

As practitioners, our language should adapt to the individual in front of us.

When we are working from a trauma aware position, the words we choose matter. They shape how practices are received and whether someone feels safe enough to engage with them.

Because of this, I’ve gradually moved away from using the language of breath control in certain contexts.

Instead, I tend to use terms that evoke a different relationship with breathing — words like expansion, freedom, regulation, or allowing the breath to settle.

Often the goal isn’t control at all.

It’s helping someone rediscover a sense of space and safety in their own physiology.

I’m curious — what language do you tend to use when introducing breathing practices to clients?

10/03/2026

It’s often claimed that breath-hold training or training masks can simulate altitude training, with people pointing to studies showing increases in EPO during hypoxia.

But in science, methodology matters.

A commonly cited study on social media and books examined EPO responses during repeated breath holds. What is rarely mentioned is that the participants hyperventilated before the breath holds to drive oxygen levels low enough to create a hypoxic stimulus.

Similarly, in other studies, people discuss breath-hold training and hypoxic training in low-altitude environments as the same. They are not.

This matters.

Because the methodology is what produces the outcome.

If you remove the hyperventilation and perform normal breath holds, most people will not reach the same level of hypoxia, and therefore will not produce the same physiological response.

In other words, quoting the result without discussing the method turns evidence into speculation.

You cannot take a result, change the conditions, and expect the same physiology.

That’s not how human physiology works.

The practical problem is this:

If a coach believes these claims without understanding the methodology, they may apply practices with their clients that don’t actually produce the intended adaptation.

And in performance environments, that matters.

Because time spent on ineffective strategies is time not spent on interventions that actually improve performance or health.

This is why applied physiology matters.
And why precision in language matters.

My posts might never go viral because I don’t make bold claims.

But I’m here for something else.

Evidence.
Physiology.
Clear thinking.

If that resonates with you, consider joining the School of Breath Science or the Breath Science Certification.
Comment BSC below, and I’ll send you the details

Address

Yokine, WA

Website

http://schoolofbreathscience.com/, http://www.martinmcphilimey.com/

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