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Drop the anxiety. Keep the ambition.

I help business leaders beat chronic stress and burnout through breathwork.

Train your nervous system without another year in therapy. In person in Lisbon. Online worldwide.

Thirty minutes. Find out what this work can do for you.

João guiding a breathwork session in Lisbon
The problem

You're winning at work. Your system isn't.

You've tried the sensible things. Therapy, meditation apps, productivity systems. Some of it helped for a while. None of it switched the stress off - because the stress isn't in your calendar or your thoughts. It's in your nervous system.

A stressed nervous system doesn't respond to reason. It has to be retrained through the body. That's the work we do here.

The benefits

Calmness is not an emotional preference.It is a biological advantage.

When the body shifts from stress to calm, stress hormones lower and the survival centres in the brain quiet down.

You move from a narrow focus - where all you can see is the problem - to a wider awareness where solutions become visible. They were always there. You just couldn't see them.

Done consistently, the work doesn't just change your state for an afternoon - it changes the baseline you operate from. What that tends to bring:

And underneath the symptoms: present with the people who matter, ambitious without the bracing, yourself again.

All you have to do is learn to let go. One breath at a time.
The practice space
The method

How it works.

Generative Breathwork

A somatic method that works with breath, precise movement, vocalisation, and focused attention to release chronic tension held in the body. It's systematic - sessions move through the body's bands of habitual tension (face, throat, shoulders, chest, diaphragm, belly, pelvis) in a deliberate sequence, adapted in the moment to what your body is actually doing. Structured, not rigid. Not dramatic. Aimed at durable change, not peak experiences. None of it is new - its roots are in early-20th-century somatic and bioenergetic psychology, and it has kept evolving since.

What a session feels like

Ninety minutes in a calm, private room. A short conversation about what you're noticing, then guided breath, targeted movement, vocalisation, and moments of deep stillness. No hyperventilation, no forcing - gentle, the rhythm of the body respected. The session tends to be quite pleasant and most people leave visibly more relaxed: slower speech, dropped shoulders, a body that stopped fighting itself. You leave with a ten-to-fifteen-minute daily practice that holds the thread between sessions.

What changes

  • A calmer nervous-system baseline
  • A body and mind that stop fighting each other
  • Faster emotional cooldown - minutes, not hours
  • Anxiety that drops out of the background
  • Decisions made from clarity, not contracted urgency
  • Creativity and vitality that return as a baseline

What makes this different

  • Systematic,
    not vague
    A clear sequence, a clear goal per session, clear markers of progress.
  • Durable,
    not dramatic
    The nervous system is learning new mechanisms for self-regulation and letting go. This is skill acquisition, not catharsis. What you build stays.
  • Body-led,
    not mind-led
    The body holds the pattern as physical tension. Thinking your way out usually entrenches it.
  • Precision
    over intensity
    Small, accumulated shifts matter more than a big explosive one.

Underneath all of it: care and precision. Nothing here is random, and nothing is rushed.

The transformation

Contraction, regulation, or expansion?

Three zones. Most people live at -1. Most interventions aim to bring you to 0. We work toward +1.

-1
Contraction
Stuck in stress loops. Chronic tension. Running on held breath and held muscles. Most high performers live here and call it normal.
0
Regulation
A nervous system that knows how to finish a stress response and come back to baseline. Grounded, clear, present. Most therapies aim here.
+1
Expansion
Living from ease, not pressure. Calmness, creativity, vitality, embodied aliveness. The baseline becomes generative rather than merely calm.

Most therapies stop at 0. This work keeps going - until you're living at +1.

The dojo
The way in

Three steps. The first two cost you nothing.

That's the whole path. Ninety minutes a week with me. Fifteen minutes a day on your own. The rest is compounding.

What clients say
Ricardo Borenstein
"The method is the differentiator. (...) A defined sequence through the body, a specific objective per session, and a daily practice calibrated to where you actually are - not a generic protocol. The result is that progress is legible: you can tell what shifted and why. (...) it's the reason the changes hold."
Ricardo BorensteinPrincipal AI Presales Engineer @ ActionAI
Nisha Adke
"He understood what I needed and shaped the session around what I actually wanted to accomplish. It didn't feel generic. (...) I left feeling lighter. Slept better that night. My thinking was clearer. (...) If you're carrying chronic stress and haven't found anything that actually moves it, this is worth trying."
Nisha AdkeFounder, Gamma
Jonathan Coxon
"I came in a sceptic. I left having had one of the most unexpectedly powerful experiences of my adult life. The change in my baseline over the following weeks was real and measurable."
Jonathan CoxonManaging Director, OAKBERRY UK
Tiago Santos
"For the first time in decades I felt normal, and chronic jaw pain just disappeared. What surprised me most was the immediate effect after the first session. It saved my life."
Tiago SantosSenior Marketer
Who this is for
This works for you if
  • You're a business leader carrying a heavy mental and emotional load.
  • You're dealing with anxiety, burnout, overthinking, chronic tension, or the sense of being one step removed from your own life.
  • You've tried things that almost worked, but want something that actually does.
  • You're willing to commit to change.
This is not for you if
  • You're in acute mental-health crisis, active psychosis, or unmanaged severe trauma - this is not a substitute for clinical care.
  • You want a quick fix or a single transformative session.
  • You want a passive process. The work depends on you showing up. It's my job to provide the container - your job is to change.
  • You have specific physiological contraindications (recent surgery, certain heart conditions, late pregnancy) - tell me on the call.
About João
Portrait of João Tomé

I'm João. I know this pattern from the inside.

A childhood illness, and the treatment meant to fix it, left its mark on my body and mind. Years later it turned into a real crisis - relentless anxiety, a racing mind, physical pain, a nervous system that wouldn't switch off no matter what I told it. I tried the obvious routes first: doctors, then therapy. Neither one reached what was actually driving it.

The answer turned out to be in the body. I found Generative Breathwork, went to its source, and trained directly under Andrew Bishop, who helped shape its modern form. Its roots are in early-20th-century somatic and bioenergetic psychology, and it has kept evolving since. Alongside it, ten years of breath and presence practice in the Zen, Yoga, and Taoist traditions.

Five years on, I'm a different person - calm where I used to brace, clear where I used to scatter, and the practice keeps going strong. That's the honest version, and it's enough.

It's why I do this work. I sit with people whose systems won't stand down and hold the room steady while their body learns what mine had to: how to let go. This story is about me, but it could just as easily be about you - what happens in your system, week after week. My job is to make that possible.

João Tomé · Founder, Breathcraft · Lisbon, Portugal
Ways to work together

Two ways in. One method underneath both.

1:1 Work
The flagship
Weekly ninety-minute private sessions, calibrated entirely to your system, at your pace, with my full attention. Daily practice, voice-note support between sessions. In person in Lisbon or online worldwide. Ten private clients at a time, never more.
Group Work
The work, in good company
An ongoing weekly group of no more than six, in person in Lisbon. Less tailored than 1:1 - but a group builds momentum an individual can't. As one person lets go, the room gets permission to follow.

Not sure which fits? That's what the call is for.

FAQ
Therapy works primarily with thought, memory, and interpretation. This works primarily with the body. Both can be valuable.
Most breathwork drives you into fast, hard breathing to force a cathartic opening - which can open violently, then fade. This doesn't. No hyperventilation, no forcing. Gentle, precise, and it stays.
A 2023 meta-analysis in Scientific Reports - twelve randomised controlled trials, 785 participants - found breathwork significantly reduced stress compared with controls. And this method keeps its claims testable in your own life: sleep, reactivity, recovery time.
In person is how I prefer to work, at my Lisbon space. 1:1 is also available online. The group is in person only.
Many people feel a shift in the first session. Durable changes tend to land within four to six weeks of weekly work plus daily practice.
No. This is not a substitute for clinical mental-health care. If you're in acute crisis, please reach out to a clinician first.
Get started

Feel it before you decide anything.

A thirty-minute discovery call. No script, no upsell. If the work is a fit, a free first session - a full ninety minutes, in person or online - before any commitment. You'll know from your own body whether this is for you.