No esoterics. No bullshit.
The science behind it
We didn't invent it.We perfected it.
The foundation of FIVE MOVES. Built on science, not on opinion. Six research lines, peer-reviewed studies, open sources.
15+
Researchers
6
Research lines
2
Nobel Prizes
$14.2M
NIH funding
The Network
Your body already knows.
Six research lines. One method. They connect, and each explains a different part of how a blockage forms and how it dissolves.
Safety
No safety, no change
Your nervous system decides in milliseconds whether change is even possible.
Porges · HeartMath
Interoception
Your body senses before you think
$14.2M in NIH funding. Interoception has become mainstream neuroscience.
Damasio · Pert · Patapoutian
Ownership
Figured out yourself = forever
Insights you discover yourself build strong neural connections.
Bandura · Rock & Schwartz
Memory
Memories can change
Memory Reconsolidation. Memories don't fade, they get overwritten.
Nader · Kandel · Northoff
Embodiment
The body shapes the feeling
Vagal modulation predicts moral decisions. Nature 2025.
Niedenthal · Nature Scientific Reports
Anchoring
Transformation needs repetition
40 days. Every morning. Every evening. In the theta state.
Klimesch · Lally · Lehrer & Gevirtz
Polyvagal Theory · Stephen Porges
No safety, no change.
Your autonomic nervous system knows three states. It switches between them before your mind catches up. Only in the state of safety is transformation possible. Porges calls it the Science of Safety.
- Ventral Vagal: safety
- Sympathetic: fight, flight
- Dorsal Vagal: shutdown
Porges · HeartMath Institute
The tiers of regulation. FIVE MOVES starts not at the blockage but in the ventral-vagal state of safety.
Memory Reconsolidation · Karim Nader, McGill
Memories can change.
Recall a memory and it briefly turns unstable. A window opens in which it is not relived but overwritten. In that window a new feeling can be woven in. Eric Kandel showed: with emotion, the brain turns shapeable.
- Recall a memory, it turns unstable
- A short window opens
- A new feeling is woven in
Nader · Kandel (Nobel Prize 2000) · Northoff
Malleable for 4 to 6 hours. After recall the memory stays open for a while. That's exactly where the session works.
Interoception & Embodiment · Damasio, Pert, Niedenthal
The body senses before you think.
Physical reactions arise before the conscious thought. The brain interprets only afterward. Emotions are body states with an address: neuropeptides store them in the tissue. That's why change has to start in the body, not in talking.
- The body reacts first
- The brain interprets afterward
- Emotions have an address in the body
Damasio · Pert · Niedenthal · Patapoutian
The body first. The signal arises in the tissue and reaches the head only afterward. Interoception is mainstream neuroscience today.
Anchoring · Klimesch, Lally, Lehrer & Gevirtz
Transformation needs repetition.
One session resolves the blockage. What comes after anchors the new state neurologically. FIVE MOVES uses 40 days, morning and evening, in the theta-active time right after waking and before falling asleep. The 21-day myth doesn't hold: real habit formation takes 66 days on average.
- 40 days, every morning and every evening
- In the theta state the gate is open
- Six breaths a minute for optimal HRV
Klimesch · Lally (UCL) · Lehrer & Gevirtz
40 days of anchoring. A short anchor every morning and every evening. Average habit formation: 66 days (Lally).
The foundation holds
From research to method.
The science explains the where. FIVE MOVES turns it into a path: not the why going in circles, but the place in the body where it sits. Five guided Moves, in ninety minutes.
The method in detail →Research 2025
What's moving right now.
NIH · Scripps Research · 2025
The Interoception Project
Nobel laureate Ardem Patapoutian + Allen Institute
The world's largest biomedical research body is investing $14.2M in mapping how the body reads its own inner signals. Interoception has become mainstream neuroscience.
Nature Scientific Reports · 2025
Your nervous system decides on morality
Cardiac vagal modulation predicts decision-making in moral dilemmas
Vagal modulation predicts how people call moral dilemmas. Not values. Not beliefs. The nervous system.
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience · 2022
Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety
Stephen W. Porges
Porges reframes Polyvagal Theory as a science of safety. Safety isn't a precondition for change. Safety is the change.
Frontiers in Cognition · 2025
Memory Reconsolidation as the mechanism
First proposal for body-based therapies
For the first time, Memory Reconsolidation is put forward as a concrete mechanism for body-based work.
Sources & References
Don't take our word. Read it.
Every work cited here is peer-reviewed and publicly accessible. FIVE MOVES brings these building blocks together into a reproducible protocol.
Six questions
The science, in plain answers.
What scientific basis does FIVE MOVES stand on?
FIVE MOVES integrates six research lines: Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges), Memory Reconsolidation (Karim Nader, McGill), Neuroplasticity (Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize 2000), Embodied Cognition (Paula Niedenthal), the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (Antonio Damasio) and Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback (Paul Lehrer, Richard Gevirtz).
Why doesn't FIVE MOVES lead to retraumatisation?
The method activates the blockage only briefly, then works with the desired feeling in the heart space as a ventral-vagal anchor (Porges). We don't go digging through the past for causes. Memory Reconsolidation, shown by Karim Nader in 2000, keeps an activated memory malleable for 4 to 6 hours. In that window it gets overwritten, not relived.
How can a 90-minute session have a lasting effect?
The session itself resolves the blockage through Memory Reconsolidation. The 40 days of anchoring that follow lock the new state in neurologically. The window draws on Phillippa Lally (UCL, 2010): habit formation takes 66 days on average, and FIVE MOVES uses the lower bound of 40 days plus two short daily practices in theta-active time (Klimesch 1999).
What's the difference between FIVE MOVES and Somatic Experiencing or Hakomi?
Somatic Experiencing titrates traumatic activation over months, edging toward the charge slowly. FIVE MOVES works the other way round: first set the desired feeling as a safe anchor, then address the blockage from there. A fixed five-Move sequence in 90 minutes, not open-ended process work over weeks.
Are there clinical studies on FIVE MOVES?
Clinical trials on the method itself aren't running yet. The scientific evidence sits at the component level: Polyvagal Theory has over 200 peer-reviewed studies, Memory Reconsolidation is backed by over 1500 publications, and HRV Biofeedback is FDA-approved. FIVE MOVES brings these building blocks together into a reproducible protocol.
Why does the desired feeling always sit in the heart space?
The heart space connects through the ventral vagus (Porges) to the social engagement system. When a mover feels positive resonance there, their nervous system sits in the ventral-vagal state of safety. Only from that physiologically measurable safety (raised HRV) is transformation possible.
Enough theory
The foundation holds.Now the change.
One session, 90 minutes, body-based. Usually one is enough.
6 research lines · 2 Nobel Prizes · verifiable, not asserted
so deep. so safe.