Anna-Karina Schmitt

A Free 20-Minute Guided Meditation for Nervous System Regulation Most people don't need another breathing technique. What many of us are really looking for is a way back to something we already have: our natural breath. Life asks a lot of our nervous system. Long working days, constant notifications, training, emotional stress, responsibilities—we spend much of our time responding to demands. Without noticing, our breathing changes. It becomes shallower, our shoulders stay slightly tense, our...

Sometimes new chapters don’t begin with a grand plan. They begin with individual people asking the same question again and again. Over the past few months, I started receiving more and more requests for freediving courses in Zurich. One came from a husband who wanted to give his wife a course as a gift. Someone at my gym said, “Make sure you let me know when you offer a course.” And over the years, friends and acquaintances had repeatedly shown an interest in the activity I’m so passionate...

Recently, after a practice of slow, spacious breathing and moments of deep stillness, I guided a client through a one-hour traditional yoga sequence. What he shared afterwards was deeply insightful and made me pause with a really good feeling from the inside. Not only because it captured exactly why I had chosen this progression, but also because it confirmed something I deeply trust in my work: the ability to sense, read, and respond to the state of a person's nervous system. He said: "I...