For years, Carlsbad resident David had been committed to a plant-based lifestyle. He ate clean, exercised regularly, and avoided alcohol. But despite his efforts, his cholesterol numbers remained stubbornly high.
“It was frustrating,” David recalls. “I felt like I was doing everything right, but my labs weren’t reflecting it.”
His LDL cholesterol hovered around 140, and his doctor warned that medication might be next. That’s when David decided to try something he had always overlooked—his breath.
“I stumbled into a local breathwork class, mostly out of curiosity,” he says. “I had no idea how much it would change my body.”
David began a daily practice — 10 minutes each morning of slow, conscious breathing, combined with weekly breath-led yoga in Encinitas. Almost immediately, he noticed a shift. His stress levels dropped. He started sleeping better. Even his workouts felt smoother.
“I had no idea how tightly I was holding tension in my body,” he says. “Learning to breathe deeply reset my whole system.”
Three months into his new routine, his labs came back. His LDL had dropped by nearly 60 points. His triglycerides were lower, too.
“I was shocked. The only thing I changed was my breath,” David says. “Food got me halfway there. Breathwork brought it all into balance.”
Today, David continues his plant-based routine—but now, breathwork is non-negotiable. He starts and ends his day with it.
“It’s free, it’s accessible, and it works,” he says. “Your breath is the most underrated medicine we have.”
David’s story is a powerful reminder that healing doesn’t always require more—sometimes, it simply requires going deeper into what we already have.
Pratiksha Gandhi, MD, is a world-renowned preventive heart care expert and advocate for natural, noninvasive solutions to address heart disease.
