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Mission Organization Certification Workshops About Breathing Professional services Instrumentation Business Opportunity Downloads Links Contact us Are you overbreathing? Which brain is yours?	David L. Beales, FRCP Click here for Peter M. Litchfield Ph.D. David L. Beales, FRCP (UK); MRCGP; DCH; DRCOG; Dip Psch. Dr. Beales is currently the Director of Hearts and Minds, Medical Director of Better Physiology Ltd, Research Associate at the Buckingham and Chilterns University College, and Director of Mindful Physiology Institute in Europe. With more than 30 years of experience in the field of medicine, he is currently a practising physician, general practitioner, educator, and researcher. His focus is on promoting the benefits of behavioural physiology in health care. Dr. Beales resides in Cirencester in the West of England. His mission is to integrate research findings from physiology, education, medicine, and social science into a holistic framework that is applied in the health and performance arena. It is within this framework that individuals may understand and work with the factors in their make up and physiology that promote or prevent optimal health and performance. The ability to remain well with good energy and performance become central in the midst of the ever-increasing pressures of complex lives. His work is to help individuals take responsibility, with knowledge and support, to regain and maintain autonomy, self-respect and wellbeing. Dr. Beales is particularly interested in unexplained and functional medical symptoms and the relief of symptoms ranging from fibromyalgia to depression, posttraumatic stress, and functional syndromes such as irritable bowel syndrome. He helps clients recognize the effect of an over-aroused mindbody system and an overcharged metabolism, and how these conditions lead to unhealthy internal changes, including the impact of deregulated breathing (overbreathing) on body chemistry resulting in disturbed emotional resilience, thinking, behaviour, and performance. Establishing physiological feedback as an integral component of his practice, creates a window on how feelings and emotions affect physiology and behaviour. Based on the sharing of this information he forges a practitioner-patient partnership for creating a restorative programme to reestablish and optimize health and performance. Restoration, then, is a combination of outside-in services and inside-out patient participation, leading to more successful work and life style choices. Dr. Beales earned his medical degree in 1967 at Guy's Hospital and specialised in rheumatology and rehabilitation. Posts in neurology, paediatrics and obstetrics ensured a broad training in all aspects of medicine, including membership and fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians. After five years he chose to do general practice, during which time he completed the requirements for membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Work in an inner city London practice was followed by a move to Cirencester where he combined general practice with hospital medicine, including eighteen months as a consultant in elderly care. During his 24 years as a physician and as a partner in Phoenix Practice in Cirencester, he personally provided holistic care to an ongoing patient group of 1800. And, the Phoenix Practice expanded from 3,400 to 10,500 patients during his tenure. He also served the organization through his leadership in practice research and development. Dr. Beales was appointed in 1996 to the Department of Epidemiology at Oxford University and as the general practitioner member of the Clinical Standards Advisory Group. He established an independent trust - the Phoenix Charitable Trust - providing services such as complementary therapies, stress management, and educational guidance. He researched and developed a preventive service for older people called Stay Well 75+ that earned national recognition through its Beacon Award for innovation and excellence. Dr. Beales developed a special interest in the role of heightened emotional arousal in the development of symptoms and disease states. Thus, during 1996 - 1998 he served as a research practitioner for the South West Regional Directorate to more fully pursue these research interests. Publication in the Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners followed with a scientific paper on the effect of personality and unexpressed emotion on recovery in eating disorders. He retired from general practice in 2000 and became Medical Director of the Bristol Cancer Help Centre before developing an independent practice seeing individuals and couples in Cirencester at the Complete Health Centre. Dr. Beales has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. He has also edited and contributed to the book, Community Care for Older People, Radcliffe 1998. He contributed the chapter, “Science and the Holistic Approach” to a book published by the Bristol Cancer Help Centre. He lectures widely and conducts workshops and seminars on a regular basis in the UK and abroad. Recently, he presented research on overbreathing in people with asthma at the 11th Exeter Conference in complementary medicine in November 2004, and was a keynote speaker at the Holistic Medical Health Care Conference in December 2004. In 2005 he will serve as a tutor to medical students at Bristol University in their Whole Person Medicine program. He is booked to do workshops for general practitioners, including a “Master Class” that he will do with Dr. Peter Litchfield at the Royal Society of Medicine. He enjoys a rural life looking after a small farm with his wife Marian. As well as gardening, playing tennis, and making pottery he enjoys walking, singing and time with his family.