Feel free to be loose with your definitions. “Not usually considered a drug” is fine to qualify as “non-drug”, for instance. I’m not really thinking so much of “foods”, though, but maybe “food ingredients” and substances found in food ingredients are fine, especially if they’re quasi-drug-like or if you’d get a lot of the same benefits/enjoyment from it consuming it straight rather than in food.
Also ITT, tell other users why their substances actually are drugs actually.
Mine:
- Chamomile - good for my mood and gives me vivid dreams.
- Capsaicin - I and Wilbur Scoville are well acquainted.
- Cacao - I don’t really do cacao any more because I’ve quit caffeine, but I include it here because I still miss sucking on unsweetend baker’s chocolate daily.


If “holotropic breathwork can be dangerous” is bias, then everyone else seems “biased” as well.
I did a DDG search for “holotropic breathwork” and looked at the first 5 (actually 6 because one wouldn’t load) links for references to hand and face cramping and to any dangerous effects:
If your take is that it’s always safe for everyone “if done correctly”, then your take is the outlier, not mine.
I never said anything about whether other kinds of breathwork are or aren’t (sometimes, comparatively) dangerous.
If I said “boxing carries a risk of concussion”, would you say I was “singling it out” from among other sports that also carry a risk of concussion? (MMA, American football, etc.) I’m not singling anything out. I said nothing about whether ther other forms of breathwork carry risks or not. I’m only “singling out” doing holotropic breathwork from (all else being equal) not doing holotropic breathwork.
Read more carefully. I never said I believed holotropic breathwork to be dangerous in some cases from my own experience. I said quite the opposite. My own experience didn’t harm me. Taken in isolation, my own experience supports your assertion that it’s safe (though taken in isolation, it’s only an anecdote, so hardly conclusive proof that it’s safe for everyone). I believed holotropic breathwork to be potentially dangerous in some cases before my own experiment and before reading How to Change Your Mind. Neither of those were what convinced me. The preponderance of writings I’d found on the topic did and continue to.
Michael Pollan (whose name you keep misspelling) did specifically call the practice he’d been led in “holotropic breathwork” in the passage I quoted.
The keto diet causing ketoacidosis is not typical. The keto diet (purposefully) causes “ketosis”, but that’s distinct from ketoacidosis. Ketosis doesn’t alter blood pH. Wikipedia: “While ketosis refers to any elevation of blood ketones, ketoacidosis is a specific pathologic condition that results in changes in blood pH and requires medical attention.”.
If he had risk factors for the keto diet putting him in ketoacidosis, maybe. The keto diet can be dangerous in some cases. “Doing it right” is only safe if “doing it right” includes taking into account any risk factors one might have and being open to abstaining if the risk is too high. (And even then, the risk would never be zero.) Which is exactly what I’ve been saying about holotropic breathwork. Michael Pollan had exactly some of the risk factors which could make holotropic breathwork dangerous for him. Whether he has additional risk factors that would contraindicate the keto diet for him, I don’t know, nor do I know if his heart condition would specifically contraindicate the keto diet absent other conditions.
Again, you’re reading what I said and making up your own interpretation exactly contrary to what I said. I never said I had a negative experience beyond being “scared” and “weirded out” enough to end the experiment. (Mind you, I knew to expect the hand/face cramping as it had been mentioned in a lot of material that I had read on the topic.) I didn’t have any of the sort of “theraputic” effects that are the reason why people who seek holotropic breathwork seek it. But again, nothing negative came of the experience.
Again, my best guess is “I might have gotten into more of that territory had I kept going longer”.
Sure. I’ll concede the point. I’m not sure what that has to do with the rest of the conversation, though.
That’s exactly what I’ve been saying across three comments now.
Just in: things that aren’t holotropic breathwork can be dangerous in some cases, ergo holotropic breathwork isn’t.
I have been. You just don’t seem to comprehend written English.
You know, we can disagree without you resorting to just being insulting.
Up to that point, I was going to say “hey, we might just need to agree to disagree on this, and it seems to be a matter of perspective.” But looks like you chose to be a dick instead.
I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m telling you much (perhaps most) of our “disagreement” is you disagreeing with things I never said.