Regulate Your Breathing And Your World Starts To Change with Andrea Betschart (Switzerland)

A lot of personal growth advice starts with willpower and goals. We go somewhere more basic: the moment your nervous system feels unsafe, your world gets smaller, your thinking narrows, and even good guidance bounces off. Our guest, Lady Andrea Batschart, brings a sharp and refreshingly practical view of change shaped by life in Switzerland, where switching languages is normal and flexibility is built into everyday living.

From there, we dig into breath as the fastest doorway to regulation. Andrea explains intermittent hypoxia training (IHT), a method that cycles you between simulated altitude and sea level oxygen for around 20 to 30 minutes. We talk about what the body does under controlled stress, how heart rate variability (HRV) data can reveal your stress response, and why the goal is not pushing harder but teaching the system to feel safe enough to adapt. She also shares the longevity and performance angle, including the role of mitochondria and why some athletes see meaningful gains when this is added to consistent training and nutrition.

The most striking moments come from real client stories: a near panic response that uncovers a childhood drowning trauma the mind forgot but the body remembered, and the way a corrected breathing pattern can expand someone’s confidence, clarity and sense of possibility. We also discuss working alongside psychotherapy, bodywork and nutrition, because lasting change is whole-body work, not a single technique.

If you care about breathwork, nervous system regulation, trauma-informed coaching, stress resilience and performance, you’ll get a lot from this conversation. Subscribe, share it with someone who feels stuck, and leave us a review with your biggest takeaway.

Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King

Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....

Transcript

Dr Ariel R King 0:06

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Business of Life with Dr. King. Today we have a very special guest, Lady Andrea Betschart. Welcome.

Andrea Betschart 0:16

Welcome. Thanks for the invitation. I'm very curious what will happen in the 30 minutes.

Dr Ariel R King 0:22

So am I. Would you please introduce yourself to our guests and what our topic for today will be?

Andrea Betschart 0:28

Yes. So I'm coming from the heart of Switzerland. So really in the center center. And when the people ask me where I live, I tell them I live in Schwede, then they call me, yes, I know you come from Switzerland. And then I

Welcome And Meet Lady Andrea Batchev

Andrea Betschart 0:43

tell them, yes, and I come from Schwiz. Yes, you don't have to tell me that you are from Switzerland. Yeah, but I'm from Schwiz. I'm sorry. And sometimes I basically have to change my uh place where I live, what is really like in Switzerland, there's a place called Schwitz, then I have to change to Lucerne, and then they are like happy

Life In Switzerland And Four Languages

Andrea Betschart 1:05

with where I live. I love that. I love that. That's the story from where I'm from the heart of Switzerland. It's a beautiful region, great nature. And um, I was always interested in people. I always I was the oldest in a family, so so I had always two to Gordon guides, my younger siblings, all brothers, and most of basically only cousins, all you can imagine. So I did learn a lot with them. And then with the yeah, with the time I went to education, and then I did like education, professional education, had the organization for one profession for librarians and archivists to organize it over whole Switzerland. And we have a very special system that there's basically no other country does know it, a little bit Germany, but we are even in a more modern version. So we have education plans and we go over them every five years. That's fabulous. Yeah, and and this is basically, I went to several conferences in in Germany and Austria, and they don't have it. So they have education plans, but there's sometimes they're 30 years old. So imagine this. You learn and teach the children plants, they are 30 years old. And at Switzerland has four different languages. If you work for Switzerland and for whole Switzerland, you have at least to speak two languages. All the plans are written in three languages, means you have also a basic understanding for all these three languages. Uh what means I love speaking in different languages.

Dr Ariel R King 2:45

Could you please tell our audience? Sorry to interrupt, but could you please tell our audience the four languages in Switzerland?

Andrea Betschart 2:51

It's uh French, it's Italian, it's uh Roman, and it's uh Swiss German. So it's not it's a a form of German, uh, but the German uh guys don't understand us if we are speaking, and it's only a spoken language. So if we come to school, we have to learn our next language, that's high German.

Dr Ariel R King 3:11

Ach Deutsch, okay, thank you so much. I didn't mean to interrupt you, thank you.

Andrea Betschart 3:16

So uh yeah, this means like uh perhaps you get a little bit of understanding how diverse and how flexible you have to be in Switzerland, and and this is basically what is our mindset. It's we are always on connection, we we have to learn different languages, we have to listen to different languages. We grew up, grew up with a language that is only spoken, then we have to learn that we can read another language, and then when you go like to the mindset, you can imagine what happened in a brain with a history like this. And I think this is why we are quite different than other countries, because of this history, this background. And I started to understand this when I then switched from professional education to mindset coaching. So I did all these trainings around mindset coaching, I start to understand how brain works, not only psychology, but also brain works. And and then it it's what's for me very important to analyze what what is my background? Why I am the way how I am, and this is one big part, and because I'm so interested in different languages, I understand that Switzerland is the right place to be for me because here I can talk in different languages, I can switch, and yeah, it's just something I need, like it's it's some some pace, some pulse of my life.

Dr Ariel R King 4:37

Yeah, I I understand that completely. And there are times that you have a description of something that can't be translated, it's only in one language.

Andrea Betschart 4:46

Yeah. And this is why even Swiss German or even the French part, they have a lot of Italian words, they have a lot of French words, we have a lot of English words, and this is at the moment, it is a big, huge mix of different languages, and we're using them just like normal. Or sometimes we have meetings in the part around uh Olten where all the trains come together, and then I did see like people sitting on other tables listen to our group where everybody was talking in his own language. So they had guys that did talk in Italian, guys did talk in French, and the other did talk in in German. And then I mean, we just did connect, and and everybody was talking, and the people did look at us and what's happening on this table? And this is for me, Switzerland.

Dr Ariel R King 5:34

This is for me like living, like it reminds me of the United Nations in Switzerland too in Geneva, in Genève. So I love that. And you're saying this idea about being able to switch languages has helped you to switch from uh education to mindset, is it mindset coaching, or what what is it called? And can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Andrea Betschart 5:54

Yeah, here we're like coaching, it's it's basically yes, it's coaching, but this uh word becomes or this title becomes so yeah, the people are like, oh, you're a coach? Well, I don't like it. So we have a lot of it's what we're how do I say that in a big class. I mean, what do you say?

Dr Ariel R King 6:16

What would you call it? I just tried to use a word that might be no, but what would

From Coaching To Mentoring Tools

Dr Ariel R King 6:20

you call it?

Andrea Betschart 6:20

What what what you do I I started to switch to to more be mentoring, so because I I just give you the tools so that you can do you on your own. So I do enable you because I'm not here to give you crutches and be your crutch, and and I think that that's a good picture. So like the coach became more a crutch, or the people see a coach more like a crutch and use them like a crutch. Then instead of you're my mentor, you have tools, you support me like on a part of my way with your knowledge, what is just right at this uh time, and then I go on my own because I did learn it now, or I did uh learn how to regulate myself, and then I can go, and then I get the next inspiration on the right time from the right person.

Dr Ariel R King 7:04

I love that. Mentoring is so important, wonderful. Yeah, I I agree.

Andrea Betschart 7:10

And uh yeah, this is like uh I think I did really change from uh and and now I'm really going like even away from mentoring because also here you have like the big part of I need to hold your hand, otherwise you don't feel safe. So, what I now do, and I'm in the completely rebrand and the reset of the whole program because I did discover two years ago a machine and the training who was like the game changer for me. And uh, this is the intermediate hyper hypoxia training where you go between different levels of oxygen, and basically what we are doing is up and down, up and down, and this is life.

Dr Ariel R King 7:51

This is great. Could you could you explain more about that? That's so interesting.

Andrea Betschart 7:56

So, intermediate hyperhypoxia training is more is a longevity tool, but

Discovering Intermittent Hypoxia Training

Andrea Betschart 8:01

most of the people do use it to train yourselves like a chin. So you come in, push and pull hardcore, and if you don't drop like uh don't know, like a space actually and you come up like a dolphin, that's not a good training. But you serve the same patterns as we are used, you serve the same patterns that create our stress level, that hold us in that stress spiral, and if you understand that training in a different way and understand that the first thing that jumps on, if you start to do like bring the people to life through cycles of life back again with up and downs, that is the nervous system, and that in immediately the nervous system feels safe when you start to do these cycles, then you start to change the protocols, and then with the different protocols, you can to start to change behavior, and you create an environment where the person immediately feels safe, and as soon as a person is does feel safe, uh then you can start to work with the person, then you can add all the supplements, then you can add all the trainings, then you can go for your dreams, for your visions.

Dr Ariel R King 9:18

That's definitely a game changer. Now I understand exactly what you're saying. So instead of starting with the person and a goal, and this is what the goal is, you actually start with the core of the person. And the core of the people is how we take in breath and how we hold it or not and release it. And within doing that and learning that and understanding that, with that understanding and safety, then you go to the next step. Is that correct?

Andrea Betschart 9:49

Yes, because a person who does not feel safe uh is in a tunnel vision, and you know how much uh you can do with a person in tunnel vision, basically nothing, because there's nothing landing in that this system, so or that the results are very interesting.

Dr Ariel R King 10:08

Right, very iffy goes up and down. May I ask first, how how did you learn this? How did you come across this?

Andrea Betschart 10:18

Yes, I I had a lung inflammation and was completely frustrated how long it takes me to walk me back. And then I did complain uh about this to a friend of mine, and then she told me, I have a new machine, you should come. It could help you. And I did uh go to her to sit on the machine, and immediately after I came from this machine, I could feel like my lung was open again. I was so like, holy shit, that do I have a volume and I get air again. It's a new life. And then I did the same walk as I did uh before, what where I was so frustrated because I was like sweating, I was exhausted, I was tired. I did it again the next day, and it immediately changed. I just could do that walk absolutely normal, and I was so like, this is freaking crazy, this machine. That's amazing. I did a second treatment, and then I was like, in I thought this machine I need to have. I want to learn everything. That's like that's crazy. And then I started to work on myself. I did take more sessions, and then I start to realize that all my patterns where I sometimes really you have to dig deep, they just came up like on a walk. I just realized that's a deep pattern of mine, and I just did like solve it while I was on a walk with myself. So I realized being on this machine, creating a safe environment for my nervous system, creates that I can change my pattern immediately, and that only the patterns they already come up. So everything else was underneath. You you never see it, you cannot touch it. And before it was my main basic work to go down into that subconsciousness was it's 90% of us to find where's an open door, where can we solve a pattern, where is this blocking pattern, this limiting belief that this this person holding back? But I'm telling you if you did the first work with this machine, with the clients, and then did the the sessions and looking like where where are the patterns? They got they are not very helpful for you. You you immediately did find it.

Dr Ariel R King 12:36

For for all of us have never seen or heard of, and this is an international podcast, have heard of this machine. Can you tell us more about this machine? Where did it come from? How do you use it? And where are they available? I would guess.

Andrea Betschart 12:52

I don't know. So yeah, this is, I think that's the most difficult part. So in Europe, that's some kind of a hype. Here you have about 10 different machines. Everybody the the basic technology is everybody everywhere the same, but the I let's say the software is quite different. So here it's worse to look a little bit deeper what kind of machine you're buying, because most of them are like uh don't have many possibilities. I'm at the moment working because I want really to scale that uh machine and bring it to the world because I know how easy it is and how much it can change. So this machine has a software where I can sit here, and you are in Geneva or in the United States or wherever in the world, and I can even I can monitor the session, I can start this session, I can end this session from here. So this is and and most of the machines you have everything on the machine, so then you have to be on the place.

Dr Ariel R King 13:53

Okay, so it's it's it's virtual, a virtual but a connection with the virtual.

Andrea Betschart 14:00

And then you as to to do the training, the person needs the machine, but but I have like over the software, I can start every machine who is connected with my dashboard. So you need this machine, and this machine has a compressor inside, and is mixing these different levels of the oxygen. We are playing with like altitude air and sea level air. And this switch between different levels of altitudes, this is really like very personal, so you never know what kind of a hypoxia tolerance you have. This is really then the training and the tests we're doing will will show you, and and then we go with that training. And you go for um about uh between 20 and 30 minutes, that's enough. You go with this training,

How The Machine Measures Stress

Andrea Betschart 14:44

and then you have about three to six cycles in the 30 minutes where I put you up to let's say 4,000 meters for five minutes, then I go back for three minutes to sea level, and then I put you up to 4,000 meters five minutes, and I put you back to uh sea level three minutes, and this you do about three or five times. Wow.

Dr Ariel R King 15:07

And so what what does the physiology show when when you do this? When you go up to altitude to you know high altitude and then sea level or below sea level. What does the physiology do to help with this? I know something must be happening in the body.

Andrea Betschart 15:23

Yeah, it's uh the first thing that reacts is we're creating a stress. So so the the second benefit is if you have also the HRV data where we are measuring all these heart rate variabilities where where it tells me like how stressed is your autonomic nervous system. And then I can also measure how is your system reacting, what is the stress response under pressure. So, how do you handle stress? So, this is everything we can tell if you are on the machine and have these trainings because of the data we get. And the second thing is that going up and down, also with the oxygen saturation in your body, so we're really playing with uh levels of 85% oxygen saturation in your body, but normally the machines get like freak out, you have you need more oxygen. No, that's dangerous. No, it's not because we're not holding you like for long term there, because we just go back again. And uh, but this stress destroys dysregulated mitochondrias, and what gives the new one time to reproduce. And this is really the physiological aspect that you gain more power back. And uh, they did some studies with the athletes, and they could regain power around 20% more power with the same training, the same nutrition, just doing additional IHT training.

Dr Ariel R King 16:49

My goodness, that's amazing. Did you say you call it what's the name of the training? Did you say IHT? What did you say?

Andrea Betschart 16:56

For intermediate hyper hypoxia training.

Dr Ariel R King 17:00

Okay, thank you. That's absolutely amazing. Could you give us an example? It doesn't have to be a name of someone that came to you with a uh a particular want or goal, and walk us through how that you were able to interact with that person and perhaps what the result was in the end.

Andrea Betschart 17:22

So I had uh one lady coming in with um telling me I I could like my vision came true so fast, I'm overwhelmed. What I'm gonna do now, and I'm sitting now like in my dream vision reality, but what now? And I was like, okay, that's luxury. Let's dive into that. That's really not a problem that's like great to do.

Dr Ariel R King 17:52

We'd all love to have that problem that works, yeah.

Andrea Betschart 17:56

And and then, but like then I first edited,

Trauma Memory Stored In Breathing

Andrea Betschart 17:59

put her on the machine, and then she got a very interesting and super high stress response. So knowing that she works a lot with her body, did a lot of like also sports, she is like a lot in out in nature, it didn't make any sense that she is reacting like this on the machine, but it was like close to a panic attack, and then I did check her all the time, always like, okay, yeah, still good. She'd also start to realize it's a very heavy reaction, but she told me I'm still okay, I want to do it. And then she went through this 20 minutes and 24 minutes. It got calmer with the time, and at the end, was then not the first thing to go, like, what are we gonna do now with your luxury problem? But first, why do you have this response? And then we figured out that uh she had a problem as a child that she basically did thrown, but nobody did realize it. And somehow she could crawl out of the sea, but uh she also did lose consciousness during that time. So that was a lot like with this area with Brias, with the water in the lungs and everything. So it was a re-traumatization immediately.

Dr Ariel R King 19:15

Oh, having a master. The body remembered her being under the sea or under the ocean and not being able to breathe and struggling, and nobody there to help her to do it. She didn't remember, but the body remembered. Yeah.

Andrea Betschart 19:29

And then, like, but while asking some questions and figuring out why is this response, suddenly this topic came up. So then we could solve this topic, and like then the second time when she came in, uh, she hadn't that response again. So she could sit on the machine completely normal. And we did also then what we had also to adjust, and this is like the first thing we have to work with, and it's for me the basic main thing. What did learn me like this machine is if you start to regulate your breath everything else starts to regulate afterwards. So what I did, I did look, how are you breathing now after we did solve that trauma? And then I could see she was blocked. Because out of this accident, he started to develop very strange breath breathing patterns. But this was when she was six, and now she was 45. And then she thought then we could also like I could correct that that pattern and the body, how she was like, yeah, how she was breathing, and then she told me that's amazing. I even went to the Buddhist monks to go like for breath work and and meditation, and they always tell me you have to try harder, you don't try hard enough, and I was trying so hard, and then she was so frustrated because she said, I'm trying so hard, but I don't get that air down into my stomach. And after we could like adjust all the trauma, the how she was breathing, she suddenly got the whole room. Well, she could fill the whole room, the whole space, all the whole lungs with air, and then she told me breathing could be such easy, and I told her, Yes.

Dr Ariel R King 21:26

Wow, so that that trauma, which was almost 40 years old, 39 years old, changed.

Andrea Betschart 21:32

Yes, yes, and then what happened next was the next gesture, because also realizing that was like a big tunnel vision she was in, like breathing her into this tunnel vision, but because it was her normal, nobody did realize it that she was like in a super stressed tunnel vision because it was the normal version of her. Next session. I start to realize she thinks her vision so small. And she just it feel uh felt like the call, but she couldn't imagine more because this tunnel vision was there. And the next session, everything did open. And then she didn't know. Now I have to go out for the world. I just don't have to do that with my small community here. I have to go out and tell the people, teach the people, and bring that version because I have a solution for tomorrow for the world here. And after the third session, she called me and told me we have immediate coaching. I have a guy reaching out to me again who wanted to hire me like five four years ago for uh like really basically no money. You can work for me. You you are my gardener, like yeah, like just like this. And then he reached, and then uh luckily she did tell him, No, I will not work for you. So I have my own reason, I will go for my own reason. And then he did reach out to her immediately after the third session and did ask her if he could work with her and if he she would advise him and coach him.

Dr Ariel R King 23:16

That's a turnaround.

Andrea Betschart 23:21

Yeah, so these are things that can happen immediately when you start to change, like a little bit your reality.

Dr Ariel R King 23:28

So what changes is not just the core of who you are, but what changes is the possibilities of what you have in the future, because you were able to put aside or address what was before, even if it was in childhood and you and you forgot about it.

Andrea Betschart 23:50

Yes, yes, and and most of the people forget about different or or today I had a guy in, and also uh the second thing I do after the machine, and if if the data don't get better, I'll look how are you breathing? And also there he was blocked. Even he has the whole knowledge about how to breathe, how to change it. He really he he has all the knowledge, but he didn't figure out or couldn't realize that he has also a blockage. And then I did ask him, Did you ever have an accident with your back? And then first he told me, No, never, I don't had any accident. And then I just waited for some more minutes because I did know there must have been something because otherwise we wouldn't have this pattern. And then suddenly he came, yes, I broke uh three bones from the back. And I thought, okay, that's not my goodness. Yeah, it's quite an accident, but if you forget, it's okay.

Dr Ariel R King 24:53

And then I even could feel that was changing his breathing, but he had forgotten that that happened, so he had all the knowledge about proper breathing. He understood what his body should do, but his body wouldn't allow him to do it.

Andrea Betschart 25:08

Yeah, because it was this shock stealing stored in the body. He has now the job to go to somebody who can fix him, like an osteopod, chiropractor. Then he will I I even could like uh press uh push on the I could find like the place where it was most uh blockage, and then I press inside and told him breeze again, and he told it's even easier now. Even if when you press, it's it's getting immediately easier. So he knows now really has to go and fix that, and then I think all the data will change, and then also everything else will change in his world.

Dr Ariel R King 25:46

It makes all the difference because I have have you ever worked with um young people, anybody under the age of 25 or so? And if so, even to children or young people, and if so, could you give us an example of that? I'm just so curious whether or not uh young people would have an opportunity or have they had an opportunity to do this and how it might have affected them.

Andrea Betschart 26:07

Yeah, it's interesting that you're asking. We have now a guy 14 years old, and this is a little bit, yeah, it's a challenge also for us. Here I'm working together with a psychotherapist, and uh we did train him, and uh first he got better and better, so he had ADHS, and then uh, but then he could really focus way better in the school.

Young People ADHD And Whole Body Work

Andrea Betschart 26:30

He could do his homework on his own, he didn't need this much of support. He got like one note better in school, like from five, it was then a six instead, and he came in like on his own, really on the free will, and he really had to come by train to to get to me to do the trainings twice a week. He came in, and now suddenly I just could feel he was always like had some cold, he didn't get better, he got tired, and trainings that have been good and easy for him. He told me it's hard. And then he thought, what's wrong here? And we're still a little bit uh figuring it out, but I think we found now some trace. So the first thing would happen when I realized um that he was basically he had um he was was in school with ADHD. So so they have like some I think he has more an aisle and separate, like not a whole thing over an IQ, but but I mean like an small part where he's highly, highly over every IQ, and uh but he did we couldn't find till now where where where where is this skill because he did downgrade so much himself, this is really like covered, covered, covered. And I think now the system is reacting on that. We are starting to discover what this kill could be, and and uh but but I think the other thing is where we're now on the trade is also that um nutrition. So it's really like we start to look holistically at the whole stuff. So if I don't get further on and and somebody gets sick and sicker, because the the training does somebody with the body to get make him stronger, so then here we have a lack on the other side. And and the next trade we are doing now is uh he has to do a blood test so we can figure out how how are his values here, like nutrition, minerals, but now it's the big holiday, so he will come in there in the past.

Dr Ariel R King 28:45

Also, is that you're saying there's always a connection to other things. So you work in hand in hand or in tandem with others. So, you know, for example, the first one with the chiropractor, or with this one with um with nutrition, with psychotherapy, whatever it is. And I think that that's really fantastic because it allows then for the person to have a real transformation that's whole rather than just part.

Andrea Betschart 29:09

Yeah, and then really they have you have we have to to take our body with us. If you only go with the mind or with the plant or with the nutrition or with the sport, it's it's one part and it will never hold. So, or then we need it the whole life. And if you take every part of us with us, and if we start with our breath, because what I basically did see and discover, and it's now really my theory, we have to perhaps to do sometimes some minutes, some studies, but the more dysregulated your your breathing is, the thicker you are, and the longer it takes me to teach you back into a proper breathing, also the thicker you are.

Dr Ariel R King 29:54

Thank you. And we have one minute left, which I told you I can't believe it. It just goes by so quickly. Well, what is some of the last um thing you'd like to tell our audience about this very, very important issue?

Andrea Betschart 30:07

Learn or take the breath as your picture, as a metaphor, breathe in and breeze out, and do all the regulation of the whole life. It regulates your emotions, your thoughts, your surroundings, and it will make every relationship better and easier if you and it will reconnect it with yourself.

Dr Ariel R King 30:30

Thank you so much. And to our audience,

Breath As A Metaphor For Life

Dr Ariel R King 30:32

remember if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? That's by the philosopher Hillel. And I've added, if not me, then who? Thank you so much for joining us.

Andrea Betschart 30:46

Thank you for having me.