How Does Physical Therapy Meet Breathwork and Spiritual/Emotional Healing? Cole Thorton from Atman PT

We’re built for the wild, not the office chair. Cole calls us “movement generalists” living in modern cages: crawling, climbing, lifting, and carrying are what our bodies still expect. Take those away, he argues, and we get stiff, anxious, and unwell, the same way any animal does in a zoo.
Breath is the bridge. It’s the rare practice that’s physical and inner at once: your diaphragm is a core muscle, and your breath is also a doorway to deep calm. The least flashy version, simply paying attention to your breath, may do the most.
We’re healers, not mechanics. Bodies aren’t cars you drop off for an oil change. Cole makes the case that the best care supports a person’s own healing and treats the whole human, especially for the slow, tangled problems that quick fixes tend to miss.

About the Expert

Alya Ahmad, MD, FAAP

Too Curious MDs

We are two and too curious physicians applying the lens of Narrative Medicine, exploring Integrative practices and psychedelic treatment in healthcare. Together with our guests we weave new learnings from stories, expertise, and the sciences. With the wisdom from holistic, alternative, and conventional medicine, we’are here to challenge the status quo!!!!We are curious about the connectivity and complexity between diverse fields of knowledge as they relate to consciousness, chronic illness, mental health, resilience, and beyond! Stories of illness in the context of caring for patients in psychedelic medicine, what emerges and what we can learn as health care changes.

Guest

Cole Thornton

Doctor of Physical Therapy and Founder of Atman

Cole Thornton is a doctor of physical therapy and the founder of Atman, a healing and wellness studio in Sacramento where he teaches functional movement, breathwork, and meditation alongside one-on-one physical therapy. A lifelong martial artist (Aikido and Tai Chi) turned EMT turned physical therapist, he stepped away from the mainstream medical model after years of hospital and neuro-rehab work to build a cash-pay practice centered on the whole person: body, breath, and mind.

His approach draws on natural human movement, both calming and more intensive styles of breathwork, and contemplative traditions, and he sees the practitioner's role as guiding a person toward their own healing. "Atman," he explains, is an old word for the self in its totality, physical, mental, and spiritual.