Research & context
This page is updated continuously as research comes in. Nothing here is final.
“Relaxation came to me very naturally, It was very gentle.”
Benefit: Understand the reasons behind the practice and what the research actually supports.
Your body weight creates the pressure; your sensations help you fine-tune it. Sensory management is the practical idea of reducing distractions so you can give that experience more attention.
These studies help explain individual pieces—attention, standing balance, pressure, choice, and related sensory effects. They have not tested the complete Slow Yoga practice or Liquid Stretch. Each finding below includes its source and the limits of what was measured.
Whole-body cooling produces thermoregulatory sympathetic responses. That supports warmth as a comfort rationale; it does not show that removing a household draft changes a Slow Yoga outcome.
A controlled crossover study found that changing dopamine signaling changed the pleasure and motivation participants reported while listening to music. It does not establish that music is relaxing for everyone or necessary for the practice.
In 30 healthy adults, an unrelated sound reduced heartbeat-task accuracy, confidence, and perceived signal intensity. A separate imaging study found that attention to breathing and attention to visual information engaged distinct networks.
In a 16-person laboratory study, closing the eyes improved detection of a simple fingertip touch—even in darkness. That is a narrow tactile result, not proof of the complete practice.
Research on postural control shows that quiet standing continuously integrates visual, balance, and body-position signals. Laying down removes the job of staying upright; that second step is a practical inference, not a tested Slow Yoga outcome.
Small healthy-adult studies found that controlled deep pressure could feel mildly pleasant and calming, and pressure on a sensitive spot felt more relieving and less unpleasant than pressure nearby. Neither study tested rolling on a floor.
In small laboratory studies, choosing where touch landed increased pleasantness, and knowing that you controlled tactile intensity improved sensitivity. These were not self-massage studies.
In a randomized crossover study of 31 healthy adults, stretching to the first point of pain produced no extra immediate change in pain sensitivity over stretching to ordinary discomfort.
Start here
Roll a little and your weight lands differently. Turn a hip and the angle changes. The sensation may grow, soften, move, or disappear. Each change gives you information for the next movement.
The person making the adjustment is also the person feeling its result. That is the practical feedback loop at the heart of Slow Yoga. You can follow it into a smaller movement, a longer pause, or a rest.
The next movement begins with new information.
Ordinary biological feedback is a process in which information about a system’s state helps regulate what it does next. Maintaining balance, for example, involves continually using sensory information to adjust posture.
Conventional biofeedback uses instruments to measure signals such as muscle activity, heart rate, or breathing and present them back to a person. The person can then learn to influence a response.
Our Enhanced Biofeedback model uses felt sensation to guide movement. No instrument is required by this practice. You make an adjustment and feel its result.
Definitions and terminology sources are listed with the research below.
Different kinds of information
These overlapping senses bring different kinds of information to the practice. Floor pressure, joint position and breathing offer different things to notice as you move.
Attention
Attention affects how sensory information is processed. Brain-imaging research comparing attention to breathing with attention to visual information found different patterns of activity and connectivity.
Moving also changes the incoming information. A shift of weight alters contact, pressure, and position. The loop is an exchange between attending and doing.
Sensory management
Light, screens, conversation, drafts, and unfinished tasks can compete for attention. Darkness, quiet or chosen music, comfortable temperature, and fewer interruptions create conditions for noticing the body. Getting horizontal changes the support and removes the task of standing.
Enhanced Biofeedback is our working model for the sensation–movement loop in Slow Yoga: ingestible cannabis may change which bodily cues stand out; sensory management makes room for attention; movement creates new information to follow.
Cannabinoids interact with the body’s endocannabinoid system. THC acts at cannabinoid receptors, including CB1 receptors involved in neural signaling. That provides biological context for altered experience.
In a small randomized, double-blind study of 25 infrequent users, oral THC increased self-reported awareness of body and mind alongside increased mind-wandering. Murray et al., 2022: THC, mind-wandering and mind–body awareness.
That was a self-report measure. It did not test whether people sensed their bodies more accurately.
Other studies point the other way for balance: THC increased body sway, and older cannabis users showed less balance adaptability.
For Slow Yoga, the honest wording is that ingestible cannabis helps you relax and tune in. Sharper body awareness is a hypothesis, not a finding.
The observation that started something
“My body wants to move.”
The Stretch Impulse is our name for a reported experience from the original cannabis-oil formulation: some people feel a pronounced, sometimes spontaneous urge to stretch or move. The urge itself is the observation, beyond simply finding a stretch pleasant.
It may feel like wanting to lengthen a leg, rotate a hip, roll, change position, or press into the floor. These are examples of what people describe, not a sequence to perform.
Our phrase describes the felt urge to move. The physiological stretch reflex names a different process: an involuntary muscle response.
The Stretch Impulse is the urge. Stretch and Pulse is our phrase for what can happen when you follow it: movement changes what you feel, and that new feeling informs the next movement.
“Pulse” describes the back-and-forth exchange between sensation and movement. It need not be rhythmic and does not mean your cardiovascular pulse. It is another way to describe the continuing Slow Yoga loop, not another product or a separate routine.
Smoking, vaping and ingestibles
Smoking and vaping are both inhalation, but they are not the same process. Smoking burns cannabis; vaping heats material to produce an inhaled aerosol. Here, ingestibles means cannabis eaten or swallowed, including an oil or gummy. Holding a product under the tongue is a different route and is not the basis of this comparison.
InhaledEffects commonly begin more quickly and have a shorter course than swallowed cannabis.
IngestibleEntry can be delayed and effects can last longer. Product, food and individual response affect the experience.
InhaledTaking another inhalation is another action. If you choose to repeat it, you may pause movement or handle equipment.
IngestibleTaking it can happen during preparation, without adding smoking or vaping to the session.
InhaledThe amount delivered varies with the product, equipment and how a person inhales.
IngestibleA manufactured serving can specify a cannabinoid amount. That number does not make absorption, onset or effects predictable.
InhaledSmoking involves combustion and smoke. Vaping is a separate process with its own risks.
IngestibleEating or swallowing does not create smoke or vapour in the room.
A longer experience is not necessarily a steady one. Delayed effects can also make it easier to take more than intended before the full effect is apparent.
Route and timing context: Health Canada’s cannabis consumer information; its explanation of different ways to take cannabis; cannabinoid absorption and delivery; and CDC’s explanation of edible cannabis effects.
A place among other practices
“Shape-first” and “sensation-first” describe starting points, not two neatly separated traditions. A prescribed pose can bring close attention to breath and sensation. An internally guided movement can arrive at a familiar yoga shape.
Yoga, somatic movement, mindful movement, and body-based contemplative practices already include attention to internal experience. Authentic Movement explores movement arising from internal impulses within its own mover–witness relationship.
Our focus is this particular system: ingestible cannabis, sensory management, sensation-led movement, and repeated feedback.
Behind the practice
Component research
Movement generates sensory feedback. Attention influences sensory processing. Particular studies show effects of eye closure, sound, choice, and pressure on particular tasks or reports. Oral THC can change reported mind–body awareness.
Our working model
Altered sensory salience, fewer competing inputs, and sensation-led movement might reinforce one another. This is the Enhanced Biofeedback model.
Personal experience
Carl’s development work and personal accounts describe an urge to stretch, more noticeable bodily sensations, and movement guided by those sensations.
These studies informed the questions and practical choices below.
Sensory management
Create darkness with a blindfold or a dark room. Close your eyes and quiet interruptions. The aim is to give your body more of your attention.
In one study of 30 adults, distracting sound reduced accuracy on a heartbeat-counting task. In another, 16 adults detected lighter fingertip stimuli with their eyes closed—even in darkness.
Haruki & Ogawa, 2024. Disrupted interoceptive awareness by auditory distractor.Brodoehl et al., 2015. Eye closure enhances dark night perceptions.
Warmth & sound
Warmth, comfortable clothes, and privacy remove things you would otherwise keep adjusting. Choose quiet or music you enjoy. Sensory management is also about choosing the input you welcome.
A controlled study of 27 adults found that changing dopamine signaling changed pleasure and motivation during music listening. It helps explain music’s rewarding quality; the choice of quiet or music remains yours.
Ferreri et al., 2019. Dopamine modulates the reward experiences elicited by music.
Gravity & body weight
Get horizontal and let the floor support your weight. Rolling changes where that weight lands. The firm surface supplies the counterpressure for your self-massage.
Research on standing shows how sight, balance, and body-position signals work together to keep us upright. Lying down removes that standing task and lets the floor support your weight.
Peterka, 2002. Sensorimotor integration in human postural control.
Breath & inward attention
Try an easy nasal inhale, at the pace you would use to savor a pleasant scent. Give that familiar sensation your attention, without a required count, depth, or hold.
Brain-imaging research found distinct patterns when people attended to breathing versus visual information.
Farb, Segal & Anderson, 2013. Attentional modulation of primary interoceptive and exteroceptive cortices.
Pressure & choice
Your weight, hands, and position let you change the contact. You can feel where it lands and make the next small adjustment yourself.
Laboratory studies found that controlled deep pressure could feel pleasant and calming, and that choosing where a person was touched increased pleasantness.
Case et al., 2021. Pleasant deep pressure: Expanding the social touch hypothesis.Gorman et al., 2024. Choice enhances touch pleasantness.
Responsive movement
Twist gently. Explore a smaller roll or a little less weight. Linger, then let a changing sensation guide your next move or a rest.
In a crossover study of 31 adults, stretching to the first point of pain offered no additional immediate change in pressure-pain sensitivity over stretching to ordinary discomfort. More intensity was not more effective on that measure.
Støve et al., 2025. The effect of stretching intensity on pain sensitivity: A randomized crossover study on healthy adults.
The sources below support terminology and context.
Savoring Inhalation
These studies examine interoception, attention to breath, nasal respiration, slow breathing, and diaphragmatic breathing.
Nasal rhythm
Intracranial recordings and behavioral experiments found that the phase of nasal respiration coordinated electrical activity in the amygdala and hippocampus. The effect diminished during mouth breathing. This is the strongest direct reason the cue begins with the nose.
Limit: The study did not show that nasal breathing is always better, nor that it causes calm, pain relief, or better stretching.
Zelano et al., 2016. Nasal respiration entrains human limbic oscillations and modulates cognitive function.
Slow breathing
A systematic review of slow-breathing studies in healthy adults found recurring changes in autonomic, cardiovascular, and central nervous system measures. The authors also noted that the mechanisms were still debated and that study methods varied.
Limit: Savoring Inhalation does not prescribe a rate or ask you to slow the breath. This is adjacent evidence, not proof of the cue.
Zaccaro et al., 2018. How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing.
Diaphragm
A quantitative systematic review found only three eligible adult studies. All reported reductions in at least one stress measure, but their methods and outcomes were too different to combine statistically, and the evidence base was small.
Limit: A soft belly is not the same as a formal diaphragmatic-breathing intervention. The review did not test a single easy inhale.
Hopper et al., 2019. Effectiveness of diaphragmatic breathing for reducing physiological and psychological stress in adults: a quantitative systematic review.
Body feedback
Supports: Internal body sensing, interpretation, and regulation language.
Limit: Does not prove Slow Yoga outcomes or product effects.
Chen et al., 2021. The Emerging Science of Interoception: Sensing, Integrating, Interpreting, and Regulating Signals within the Self.
Supports: Position sense and movement sense as core body-feedback concepts.
Limit: Does not prescribe a specific floor method.
Han et al., 2016. Assessing proprioception: A critical review of methods.
Supports: Body awareness at rest and in movement.
Limit: Does not make Slow Yoga a medical treatment claim.
Pérez-Peña et al., 2022. Mindfulness-Based Interventions and Body Awareness.
Research update
These studies were added in October 2026. Each one notes what it did not test.
Pain and attention
Pain is built to grab attention. Lab studies show it interrupts what you were doing and pulls focus toward itself.
Reviews of long-term pain link it to weaker attention, memory and planning. Brain scans of people with long-term back pain show changes in gray matter and in the brain’s resting network.
Limit: These studies show pain competes for attention. They do not measure a fixed “amount” of brain capacity.
Eccleston C, Crombez G. 1999. Pain demands attention: a cognitive-affective model of the interruptive function of pain. Psychological Bulletin. DOI 10.1037/0033-2909.125.3.356.Moriarty O, McGuire BE, Finn DP. 2011. The effect of pain on cognitive function: a review of clinical and preclinical research. Progress in Neurobiology. DOI 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2011.01.002.Apkarian AV et al. 2004. Chronic back pain is associated with decreased prefrontal and thalamic gray matter density. Journal of Neuroscience. DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2541-04.2004.Baliki MN, Geha PY, Apkarian AV et al. 2008. Beyond feeling: chronic pain hurts the brain, disrupting the default-mode network dynamics. Journal of Neuroscience. DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4123-07.2008.
Long-term pain
The nervous system can turn up the volume on pain, so pain does not always match what is happening in the tissue.
As back pain becomes long-term, brain activity tied to it shifts from pain-signal areas toward emotional areas.
Limit: This explains why long-term pain is complex. It does not show that any single practice turns the volume down.
Woolf CJ. 2011. Central sensitization: implications for the diagnosis and treatment of pain. Pain. DOI 10.1016/j.pain.2010.09.030.Hashmi JA, Baliki MN, Huang L et al. 2013. Shape shifting pain: chronification of back pain shifts brain representation from nociceptive to emotional circuits. Brain. DOI 10.1093/brain/awt211.
Lying flat
Pressure measured inside a spinal disc was lowest when lying on the back, and much higher standing or sitting.
In people with back pain, loading the spine during a scan brought on pain in about two of three patients, and most said it felt like their everyday pain.
Limit: These studies measure load on the spine. They do not show that lying down lowers back pain.
Wilke HJ, Neef P, Caimi M, Hoogland T, Claes LE. 1999. New in vivo measurements of pressures in the intervertebral disc in daily life. Spine. DOI 10.1097/00007632-199904150-00005.Torén L, Brisby H, Waldenberg C et al. 2025. Load-induced alterations in posterior parts of intervertebral discs in patients with load-induced pain during MRI. European Spine Journal. DOI 10.1007/s00586-025-09262-5.
Open question
Reviews of related approaches are not encouraging. Traction, a mechanical way to unload the spine, showed little or no effect on pain.
For sudden low back pain, advice to stay active did slightly better than advice to rest in bed.
Limit: Slow Yoga is gentle movement on the floor, not bed rest or traction. It has not been tested directly.
Wegner I, Widyahening IS, van Tulder MW et al. 2013. Traction for low-back pain with or without sciatica. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. DOI 10.1002/14651858.CD003010.pub5.Dahm KT, Brurberg KG, Jamtvedt G et al. 2010. Advice to rest in bed versus advice to stay active for acute low-back pain and sciatica. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. DOI 10.1002/14651858.CD007612.pub2.
Our working idea
Our idea is that when pain eases, attention it was using becomes available for other things, such as noticing your body.
No study tests this directly. The nearest evidence is that when pain is relieved, thinking often improves.
Limit: This is a hypothesis, not a finding.
Moriarty O, McGuire BE, Finn DP. 2011. Progress in Neurobiology. DOI 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2011.01.002.
Quiet and darkness
Floating in a dark, quiet tank lowered anxiety and stress in a single session, and lowered blood pressure compared with watching a film.
Yoga nidra, a guided rest lying down, shifted heart-rate measures toward the body’s rest side. A review of 28 studies found better blood pressure, though most studies had weaknesses.
Limit: Floating combines darkness, quiet, warmth and lying back, so the effect of each part is unknown. None of these studies tested Slow Yoga.
Feinstein JS et al. 2018. Examining the short-term anxiolytic and antidepressant effect of Floatation-REST. PLoS ONE. DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0190292.Flux MC et al. 2022. Exploring the acute cardiovascular effects of Floatation-REST. Frontiers in Neuroscience. DOI 10.3389/fnins.2022.995594.Markil N et al. 2012. Yoga Nidra relaxation increases heart rate variability and is unaffected by a prior bout of Hatha yoga. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. DOI 10.1089/acm.2011.0331.Ghai S et al. 2025. Yoga Nidra for cardiovascular health: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Complementary Therapies in Medicine. DOI 10.1016/j.ctim.2025.103231.
Cannabis and balance
One small study found oral THC increased how aware of body and mind people said they felt. That was self-report.
Other studies found THC increased body sway, and older cannabis users had less balance adaptability.
Limit: Slow Yoga describes ingestible cannabis as something that helps you relax and tune in, not as a way to sharpen body sense.
Murray CH et al. 2022. Consciousness and Cognition. DOI 10.1016/j.concog.2022.103357.Zuurman L et al. 2008. Effect of intrapulmonary tetrahydrocannabinol administration in humans. Journal of Psychopharmacology. DOI 10.1177/0269881108089581.Workman CD et al. 2022. Sample entropy discriminates balance performance of older cannabis users from non-users. Clinical Biomechanics. DOI 10.1016/j.clinbiomech.2022.105593.
The Relief Recipe and selected psychedelic research sessions share recognizable setting choices: laying down or reclining, eyeshades, music, physical support, warmth, and inward attention.
The founder arrived at similar choices while developing the Relief Recipe. The parallel highlights an important idea: the setting is part of the experience.
Davis and colleagues describe a couch in a living-room-like environment, eyeshades, music through headphones, and encouragement of inward reflection. A University of Minnesota protocol describes a bed with blankets and pillows for comfort.
These concrete examples give context to Sensory Management. They show deliberate preparation for an inward experience. Slow Yoga adds its own floor-supported, responsive Body-Weight Self-Massage.
The comparison concerns preparation. The studies involve different interventions, screening, supervision, and procedures; their outcomes do not establish Slow Yoga or Liquid Stretch outcomes.
Davis AK et al., Effects of Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy on Major Depressive Disorder, JAMA Psychiatry, 2021.
University of Minnesota, Visual Surround Suppression and Perceptual Expectation Under Psilocybin, protocol version 10, May 18, 2023.
Darkness is intended to reduce competing visual input and make bodily sensations easier to attend to. Complete darkness is the founder's preference; practical alternatives belong to Sensory Management.
Vision involves the retina, neural signaling, and cortical processing. Maintaining the electrical conditions for signaling requires energy. But visual input, attention, brain activity, and energy consumption are different quantities.
Rod photoreceptors maintain an electrical dark current. Ion pumping in that state consumes energy. Okawa and colleagues estimated more ATP consumption in mammalian rods in darkness than in bright light. This is a finding about rod cells, not total human-brain energy use.
An fMRI comparison of eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions in darkness found different activity patterns, including visual and other sensory-system activity with eyes closed. Closing the eyes does not switch the visual system off.
Reducing competing visual input may make bodily sensations easier to attend to. That is the experiential rationale connecting darkness with Enhanced Biofeedback and Follow That Feeling.
Whether a particular setting reallocates measurable neural resources to interoception is a research question. The stronger “50% of brain power” explanation is unsupported and is not used as a fact. The practical preference for darkness does not depend on that percentage.
Okawa H, Sampath AP, Laughlin SB, Fain GL. ATP consumption by mammalian rod photoreceptors in darkness and in light. Current Biology. 2008;18(24):1917–1921. DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2008.10.029.
Marx E and colleagues. Eyes open and eyes closed as rest conditions: impact on brain activation patterns. NeuroImage. 2004;21(4):1818–1824. DOI 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.12.026.
Related review: Wong-Riley, Energy metabolism of the visual system, 2010. DOI 10.2147/EB.S9078.
These references explain visual physiology; they are not trials of Slow Yoga or Liquid Stretch.