The method

Soundmoves is a contemporary approach to yoga grounded in the science of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Resonant Frequency Breathing (RFB). The practice uses slow, paced breathing at the resonant frequency of the human cardiovascular system — typically between 4.5 and 6.5 breaths per minute — to bring respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure into harmonic alignment.

When these systems synchronise, the nervous system shifts into the ventral vagal state — a physiological signature of safety, presence, and connection. This is the state where deep yoga happens. Soundmoves is a system for getting there reliably, and for staying there long enough that the body's baseline can begin to change.

Soundmoves takes the experiential practice of yoga and brings it into alignment with the latest research into wellbeing.

The origin

The method emerged in 2018 from an earlier teaching approach called Sukhashanti Yoga, which combined modern postural therapy with traditional yoga between 2008 and 2018. The question that prompted the transition: what would yoga look like if it were informed only from recent and validated therapeutic interventions?

The answer, developed over years of testing and refinement, became Soundmoves. The method prioritises emotional stability and physiological coherence over physical extremes. It draws on contemporary neuroscience, polyvagal theory, and breath sciences to design practices that exercise the parasympathetic nervous system as a measurable, trainable system.

The science that informs the practice

Soundmoves draws on four well-established and active fields of research. Each contributes to the method in a specific way.

The music

Soundmoves music is composed specifically as a timekeeper for the yogic breath. The audio uses acoustic elements drawn from contemporary research into how the brain responds to sound — designed to support attention, mood, and the ventral vagal state. Stephen Porges contributed personally to the composition, advising on the audio characteristics that mimic the prosodic features of the human voice known to cue safety.

The audio techniques used include just intonation (the Pythagorean tuning system that maximises the natural overtone series), isochronic beats (sympathetic vibration of brain waves), and ventral vagal filtering (audio shaped to mimic the soothing maternal vocal range).

The teacher

Soundmoves was developed by Noah Mckenna over three decades of yoga teaching, teacher training, and clinical work as a yoga therapist. His background spans chiropractic, acupuncture, bodywork, and breathwork — modalities that gave him a working knowledge of the body as an integrated system before yoga therapy formalised the same understanding.

Noah has trained hundreds of yoga teachers and worked with a wide range of clients seeking yoga therapy. He spent two decades immersed in the international yoga community in Mysore, India, with the specialisation of treating injured yogis — work that shaped his eventual move toward restorative practice and away from the extremes of postural ambition.

The Soundmoves method represents his synthesis: traditional grounding, contemporary science, and the conviction that yoga's most measurable benefits come from working with the nervous system as the primary site of practice.

The ecosystem

Soundmoves is a complete online learning environment for practitioners, teachers, and yoga therapists. Five pathways are available — from a free taste of the method through to full Yoga Alliance teacher certification.

The intention

Soundmoves was built to make the deep effects of yoga practice instantly accessible — to remove the barriers of jargon, ambition, and stylistic gatekeeping, and to give practitioners and teachers a method that holds up alongside the science.

It is offered as evidence-informed yoga teaching. The work draws from contemplative tradition, contemporary neuroscience, and the practical science of breath. The aim is a yoga that can be practiced anywhere, by anyone, with confidence that the underlying physiology is doing what the practice intends.

Questions? Email Noah directly · Read the Soundmoves Journal for articles on the method and the science.