Rizun Resilience Therapy

References

Every research claim on this site is listed here, grouped by what it supports. Where a page says a study found something, this is the study.

Exercise as a mental health intervention

  • Noetel et al., The BMJ, 2024. Network meta-analysis, 218 trials, over 14,000 people: strength training, walking or jogging, and yoga reduced depression symptoms as effectively as cognitive behavioural therapy.
  • Dimmock et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2026. Umbrella review: exercise matched or exceeded pharmacological and psychological interventions for depression and anxiety across every age group.
  • Nature Mental Health, 2026. Meta-analysis, over four million people: high cardiorespiratory fitness cut depression risk by about thirty-six percent and dementia risk by thirty-nine percent.
  • British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2024. Overview of 26 meta-analyses, over twenty million observations: high fitness predicts lower risk of heart failure, chronic disease and early death.
  • European Heart Journal, 2025. Network meta-analysis: exercise training improved quality of life, depression and anxiety in people with heart disease, especially with in-person coaching.

Addiction and recovery

  • Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2025. Network meta-analysis, 57 trials, nearly 3,000 patients: aerobic and mind-body exercise improved substance-use outcomes, craving, sleep and mental health.
  • Wang et al., 2014. Meta-analysis: exercise raised abstinence rates and eased withdrawal symptoms.
  • UCLA trial, 2026. Eight weeks of walking, jogging and resistance training restored dopamine receptors in methamphetamine users.

Heart rate variability and the autonomic nervous system

  • Wendt & Thayer, 2024, and an umbrella review in Translational Psychiatry, 2025. Higher HRV tracks with better emotional regulation and stress resilience; lower HRV with anxiety and depression.
  • Inter- and Intrapersonal Associations Between Physiology and Mental Health, 2025. Longitudinal wearable study of over 180,000 people: lower resting heart rates, higher HRV and better sleep tracked with lower depression, anxiety and stress.
  • Satapathy et al., 2025. Meta-analysis: depression linked to roughly twenty percent higher risk of developing hypertension.
  • Scientific Reports, 2023. Slower resting breath rate associated with higher psychological well-being and lower distress.
  • Manresa-Rocamora et al., 2020 and 2021. HRV-guided training and autonomic recovery.
  • Grossman et al., Clinical Neuropsychiatry, February 2026. International expert evaluation concluding polyvagal theory is untenable, with Porges’s reply published in the same issue.

Nature-based interventions

  • Nature Human Behaviour, 2026. Second-order meta-analysis covering over ten million participants: nature-based interventions cut anxiety and depressive symptoms with large effects.
  • Frontiers in Public Health, 2026. Network meta-analysis ranking green exercise as the most effective intervention for mental health, above indoor exercise.
  • Nature Mental Health, 2025. Nature-based retreats produced larger and more durable reductions in depression and anxiety than single-session interventions.
  • Trail Running as a Therapeutic Modality, 2025. Meta-analysis: clinically meaningful reductions in anxiety and depression.
  • Environment International, 2024, and EFUF, 2025. Forest exposure and health outcomes.

Psychological screening

  • Kroenke et al., 2001 and 2010. The PHQ-9: nine items, depression severity over two weeks, cutoff of ten for moderate-to-severe symptoms.
  • Spitzer et al., 2006. The GAD-7: seven items, generalised anxiety, same cutoff of ten.
  • Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995; Henry & Crawford, 2005. The DASS-21: twenty-one items across depression, anxiety and stress.
  • Gibbons et al., Annals of Family Medicine, 2019. Validation of the CAT-MH computerised adaptive test in primary care.
  • JMIR, 2023;25:e45334. Graded response model analysis and computer adaptive test simulation of the DASS-21.

Sleep

  • Scott et al., 2021. Meta-analysis of randomised trials: improving sleep quality produced medium-sized improvements in depression, anxiety and stress.

Nutrition, the gut, and the vagus nerve

  • Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2025; Gut Microbes, 2026; Frontiers in Microbiology, 2025. Gut microbiome and the gut-brain axis.
  • British Journal of Nutrition, 2024; Dicken et al., 2025; Brunstrom et al., 2026. Whole foods, ultra-processed foods and appetite.
  • International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2025; Clin Sci, 2025; Calvillo et al., 2025; Kumar et al., 2026; Liang et al., 2026; Zhou et al., 2024; Lashus et al., 2025; Bozdarov et al., 2025; Allergy Asthma Immunol Res, 2025; PLOS ONE, 2024.

Performance-enhancing drugs, peptides and HRV

  • Maior et al., Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 2013. Recreational lifters using anabolic steroids had lower resting HRV (SDNN, RMSSD, pNN50, HF power) than non-users, and lower parasympathetic measures after exercise.
  • Kouidi et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021. Forty steroid-using strength athletes against forty non-users: lower baroreflex sensitivity, higher sympathetic activity, and left-ventricular diastolic changes correlated with years of use.
  • Kumarathurai et al., Diabetes Care, 2017. Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial: liraglutide raised mean heart rate by 8.1 beats a minute and lowered HRV (SDNN by 33.9 ms).
  • Grosicki et al., American Journal of Physiology – Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 2025. Sixty-six people on a wearable: over twelve weeks on a GLP-1 drug, resting heart rate rose 3.2 beats a minute, mediated by a 6.2 ms drop in HRV.
  • Simon et al., Obstetrics & Gynecology, 2019. Year-long open-label extension of the bremelanotide phase 3 trials: nausea 40.4%, flushing 20.6%, headache 12.0%.
  • U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2023. BPC-157 placed in Category 2 of the 503A bulk drug substances list, “may present significant safety risks”.
  • Health Canada, “Think twice before injecting peptides bought online”, 9 April 2026. Peptides are generally regulated as prescription drugs in Canada; unauthorized products are unassessed and carry risks listed in the advisory.
  • Pietilä et al., JMIR Mental Health, 2018. 4,098 Finnish employees: alcohol lowered HRV-derived recovery in the first three hours of sleep by 9.3, 24.0 and 39.2 percentage units at low, moderate and high intake.

Strength, ageing and injury

  • Ciaccioni et al., 2022 and 2024. Resistance training across the lifespan.

Further reading — books, not evidence

These are popular books. They are listed separately on purpose: they are where a lot of the language around nervous-system work comes from, and they are worth reading, but they are not the evidence base above and should not be read as though they were.

  • Stephen Porges, The Polyvagal Theory, 2011. The origin of the three-state model of the autonomic nervous system. Read alongside the Grossman evaluation listed above, which disputes its core physiology, and Porges’s reply.
  • Stanley Rosenberg, Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve, 2017. A practitioner’s exercise manual built on Porges’s model. Useful exercises; the same caveat applies, since it inherits the theory rather than testing it.
  • Doc Childre, Howard Martin, Deborah Rozman and Rollin McCraty, Heart Intelligence, 2016. The HeartMath framework. The mainstream scientific view of HeartMath’s broader claims is unfavourable, particularly those about the heart’s electromagnetic field and intuition. What does hold up independently is the breathing practice underneath it: breathing at around six breaths a minute raises HRV, and that is measurable on any wearable.

Sound credits

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