About The Breath Doctors
We are Dr Tim Hughes and Dr James Brunning, practising NHS doctors, breathwork instructors and the founders of The Breath Doctors.
We have both spent years working in the most demanding areas of medicine, needing split second clarity of thought under acute pressure whilst managing the pressures of family life and our own experiences of stress and burnout.
Along the way, we found things that genuinely helped:- breathwork; meditation; the regulated application of heat and cold; better conversations; periods of stillness; better understanding and management of our own physiology.
The conversations kept coming back to the same question:
Could we design something that genuinely supported other people working under this kind of pressure?
Eventually, we stopped talking about it and said….
We need to JFDI (for the uninitiated, “Just ******* Do It”).
And that is how The Breath Doctors began.
Our first Foundations of Balance days were small, practical and deliberately different from a traditional medical conference.
We combined evidence-informed teaching with breathwork. We initiated honest, open conversations about facing pressure. We provided sauna, cold and protected time to slow down. We encouraged effective responses as individuals.
The response was clear. People valued the learning but, just as importantly, they left with practical tools they would actually use in everyday life.
Our aim
To provide a supportive learning environment to pause, regulate and reconnect for people carrying significant responsibility.
We do not pretend we can remove difficult workloads, fix broken systems or take away the pressures people face.
We help people to understand better their physiology, to build practical ways to regulate stress and to create meaningful ways to thrive.
What we do:
We bring together breathwork, lifestyle medicine, meditation, sauna and contrast therapy through:
immersive small-group educational days
workshops: anything from an hour to a half day
multi-day experiences
individual breathwork and regulation work
It started with doctors because medicine is the world we know.
We mastered the science of stress in high stakes medicine where clarity is a matter of life and death.
The need is much wider than medicine.
High performers everywhere face similar pressures but may lack the tools to survive it long term.
Sometimes you need permission to pause and move forward.
There is permission to pause, reset your nervous system and move forward towards peak performance.