After more than 30 years of chronic pelvic pain, stress, exhaustion, and even a suicide attempt, nothing brought lasting relief — not yoga, breathwork, meditation, or intense Buteyko practice five times a day. Only the Cardihaler created a permanent shift. Within months, Wouter’s lifelong pain reduced by more than 80%, his strength and endurance soared, his digestion and sexual function improved, and the crushing fatigue that once dominated his life disappeared. At 60, he now feels stronger, calmer, and healthier than he has since his twenties.

My story with chronic stress and pain goes back more than thirty years, and for most of that time, I felt completely alone in trying to understand what was happening in my body. Today, after using the Cardihaler for about eight months, I can say that it has changed my life in a way I never thought possible.

My problems began around the age of 25, shortly after a period of heavy cannabis use and then quitting. From that moment on, I was constantly under stress. Looking back, I had never been resilient to stress, probably because of my background. I was born after a stressful pregnancy, spent time in an incubator, then two years in a children’s home, followed by two years with foster parents before returning to my mother at age four. My mother has always had similar stress-related issues, so part of it may also be genetic.

By my mid-twenties, I started experiencing severe sexual and pelvic problems. Later on, doctors told me I had prostate issues, but no one could ever explain or solve the chronic pain I felt in my penis and especially in the perineal area (between the anus and scrotum). The pain and itching were strongly stress-related and often unbearable. This went on for 30 years. Sex was extremely difficult, and the constant physical and emotional pressure eventually drove me to attempt suicide in 2020 — purely because the pain had become too much to live with.

I tried everything over the years: yoga, tai chi, sports, and many forms of breathwork. For a long period, I practiced the Buteyko method five times a day. After six weeks, the pain and stress disappeared completely, my body felt light, and mentally I felt wonderful. My Control Pause (CP) improved from 20 to 40 seconds, and my CO₂ tolerance clearly increased. But when I stopped the five daily sessions, everything returned within a week. I tried several times to “reset” my breathing center, but the improvements were never lasting. I simply couldn’t maintain such an intense routine day after day. It became clear how deeply rooted the problem was.

When I discovered the Cardihaler — after reading Breath by James Nestor and seeing Anders Olsson mentioned — I decided to try it because I knew that chronic stress and low CO₂ tolerance were at the core of my issues. During the first months, I didn’t feel much, except during sports. I used the Cardihaler for about six minutes a day at 5–6%. Even early on, my physical performance changed dramatically: cycling into a strong headwind suddenly felt easy, my legs hardly burned, and my endurance improved in a way that felt almost unbelievable. I could ride 30 to 60 minutes straight into the headwind of force 4–5 without getting tired, something that would have been impossible before. Push-ups improved from barely being able to do 10 to doing 50 twice a day. I am now 60 years old, weigh 85 kg, and can even do pull-ups again — recently eight in a row, after barely managing one in the past.

It took around six months before the deeper changes began. Then, almost suddenly, the chronic pain I had lived with for decades started to disappear. Today, that pain is reduced by at least 80%. It is not completely gone, but the difference is enormous. The constant pressure, irritation, and suffering that dominated my life have finally lifted. My sexual function also improved significantly during this period. My digestion is better, and long-standing gut discomfort has almost completely resolved.

Another major improvement is that the severe fatigue I lived with for years is gone. Getting out of bed used to feel like torture. My legs felt as if they were full of lactic acid, as if I had run a marathon the day before. That constant exhaustion has disappeared, and it feels like a total relief. I had reached a point where the pain and fatigue were so overwhelming that I no longer wanted to live. Today, I feel healthier and stronger than I have in decades.

The most remarkable part is that the improvements have been lasting, even though I don’t use the Cardihaler every day. Sometimes I forget, and sometimes I’m away for weeks, like on vacation. Still, the progress remains. This was never the case with anything else I tried. After more than thirty years of searching, I finally found something that keeps my CO₂ levels higher in a sustainable way.

I truly believe the Cardihaler saved my life. No doctor ever managed to help me — I had to find everything out myself. After decades of pain, stress, and hopelessness, I finally feel relaxed in my body again. Thank you, Anders, and thank you to everyone behind Conscious Breathing. Your work has given me my life back.

— Wouter, 60 years, The Netherlands