Grounded in neurocardiology, this training helps providers understand and address the often-overlooked link between mental and cardiovascular health, and how to protect both.
Deepen your understanding of the cardiovascular dimensions of mental health and the safe clinical application of breath-based regulation, and gain a more integrated understanding of how the psychological and cardiovascular presentations overlap in this unique clinical training.
That the mind can directly influence the heart is no longer theoretical. Takotsubo syndrome, or stress cardiomyopathy–in which acute emotional stress can produce real and measurable cardiac dysfunction–is one of the clearest neurocardiac examples. Alongside this are autonomic dysregulation, arrhythmias and blood-pressure disturbances, all of which demonstrate the complex relationship between emotional state, nervous-system function and cardiovascular physiology.
The Heart–Brain Connection Training, led by Sherezade Ruano, RN, CFPP, draws on the RhythmiaBreath Method, an evidence-based clinical approach rooted in neurocardiology, the interdisciplinary study of the bidirectional relationship between the nervous system and cardiovascular function, as well as in the wider fields of cardiology and mental health. It addresses an important dimension of mental health care: the close relationship between mental health and cardiovascular health. The training provides a practical, evidence-based approach to nervous-system regulation for patients who may otherwise be seen by two separate medical specialties: cardiology and psychiatry. Explore how these approaches can be incorporated responsibly into clinical practice, with particular attention to scope of practice, cardiovascular considerations and the distinction between integrative support and medical care.
This is not simply a cardiology training for mental health practitioners. This training helps keep your patients’ hearts and minds safe.
PROGRAM FORMAT: Fully online training combining self-paced curriculum and three (3) online sessions providing live faculty guidance and trainee Q&A time (available as recordings for those unable to join)
ENROLLMENT FEE: $499
PROGRAM START & LIVE TRAINING DATES: Training dates forthcoming and enrollment opening soon.
THIS INTENSIVE TRAINING IS IDEAL FOR: Qualified professionals working across mental health, healthcare and integrative practice, such as psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health practitioners, nurses, therapists, functional and integrative practitioners, nutritional therapists, and other qualified healthcare professionals working with anxiety, stress and autonomic dysregulation; recommended for practitioners who already have clinical experience and want to deepen their understanding of the cardiovascular dimensions of mental health and the safe clinical application of breath-based regulation.
The Heart–Brain Connection Training Curriculum
In this training you’ll explore the shared biology linking cardiovascular disease and common mental disorders, from depression as an independent cardiac risk factor, to the metabolic terrain beneath both. You’ll learn how to ground breathwork, mindfulness, and body-based regulation in physiology, showing their measurable effects on the autonomic nervous system, vagal pathways, and heart rate variability (HRV).
- Module 1 – Shared Biology: A Patient, Two Clinics
Uncover the bidirectional relationship between cardiovascular and mental health through four shared bridges (autonomic regulation, the HPA axis, inflammation, and biochemistry), with heart-rate variability as a clinical through-line and the neuroanatomy that ties it all together. - Module 2 – Deeper Shared Biology: The Metabolic Terrain
Examine the biochemical and metabolic foundations beneath both cardiovascular and mental health presentations, from the roles of magnesium, folate, B12, and homocysteine, to the glucose–insulin–cortisol loop and its relationship to depression. - Module 3 – The Breath as the Bridge: The Foundation of the RB Method
Explore the physiological foundation of the RhythmiaBreath Method and why the breath is the entry point to the heart–brain system, covering diaphragm mechanics, how breathing steers the autonomic nervous system through HRV and resonance breathing, and how to observe and assess breathing patterns. - Module 4 – Completing the Regulation: Practices for the Patient in Cardiology and Psychiatry
Translate the RhythmiaBreath Method into clinical application, covering how to “prescribe” breathing patterns, how to work safely by recognizing contraindications and high-risk flags, supervise, or refer, and how breathwork applies across specific mental health conditions, including depression, and alongside mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT).
What’s Included in the Psychiatry Redefined
The Heart–Brain Connection Training
- Live Sessions: Join Sherezade Ruano, RN, CFPP, for three (3) live clinical discussion sessions to examine curriculum, key topics, practice strategies, helpful tools, and real patient cases.
- 4 Hours of Clinician-Led Curriculum: Discover the latest science linking cardiovascular disease and common mental disorders, and the metabolic terrain beneath both
- Faculty Mentoring & Support: Connect directly with faculty and get clinical guidance for patient assessment and treatment
- Self-Paced Study: Learn at your own pace with online curriculum, accessible from any device.
Clinical Mentoring & Support
Get direct faculty mentorship and clinical guidance during three (3) live, hands-on sessions conducted by Sherezade Ruano, RN, CFPP. Each online session is led with practical application in mind, focusing on clinical skills and concepts that can be immediately implemented with your patients. These sessions begin with a short presentation by faculty, and then allow for collaborative case discussions with peers, where you can exchange clinical insights and navigate challenging, real-world cases. Attendance is encouraged but not required for live sessions, and all sessions are recorded for later viewing.
Live Sessions with Faculty
- Session #1: The Shared Biology and The Metabolic Terrain
- Session #2: The Breath as Bridge & The Foundation of the RB Method
- Session #3: Completing the Regulation & Practices for the Patient in Cardiology and Psychiatry
“The heart and the brain are not separate systems that happen to share a patient–they are deeply interconnected, seen from two doors. My hope is that practitioners leave this training seeing their patients differently: noticing the heart in the anxious patient, the mind in the cardiac one, and the breath as a bridge between them—always grounded in the evidence, and honest about where that evidence is strong and where it is still emerging.
This training offers practitioners an evidence-informed framework for understanding and supporting the complex relationship between psychological and cardiovascular health within an appropriate clinical scope of practice. I’m truly thrilled to help providers weave these evidence-based tools into practice.”
~ Sherezade Ruano, RN, CFPP, Faculty & Training Instructor
In this Training, You’ll Learn How to:
- Explain the bidirectional relationship between cardiovascular disease and common mental disorders, including how depression acts as an independent cardiovascular risk factor and how cardiovascular events can contribute to or precipitate psychiatric symptoms and disorders.
- Understand the interplay between the nervous and respiratory systems in cardiology and mental health, and how this relationship forms part of the physiological foundation of clinical breathwork.
- Describe the shared biochemical and metabolic terrain underlying both cardiac and psychiatric presentations, including homocysteine and methylation, key micronutrients, and the glucose–insulin–cortisol loop.
- Apply clinical breathwork as an evidence-based tool for nervous-system regulation, distinguishing the needs of the anxious or hyperventilating patient from those of the cardiac patient, and understanding why ‘take a deep breath’ is often the wrong instruction.
- Interpret heart rate variability (HRV) as a shared physiological measure of relevance across cardiology and mental health, and understand its clinical uses and limitations.
- Integrate breathwork, mindfulness and body-based regulation into practice within a clear scope of practice, knowing precisely where the role of integrative support ends and medical care begins.
- Understand the physiological and anatomical basis of breath-based and body-based regulation as evidence-informed adjunctive approaches increasingly explored across cardiology and mental health, including emerging research into clinical breathwork for anxiety and anxiety-related tachyarrhythmia.
Go beyond “take a deep breath” with evidence-based, physiology-grounded tools to care for the mind and heart in every patient you see.
Scientific Education Led by Trusted Experts
Sherezade Ruano, RN, CFPP
Sherezade Ruano is a therapist specializing in neurocardiology, nervous system regulation, and breathwork, with a 17-year career that spans cardiology, mental health, and integrative medicine. She began in the UK under the mentorship of leading consultant cardiologists, including Professor Avijit Lahiri and Dr. David Lipkin, and spent four years as a research fellow studying cardiology and diabetes. After earning an MSc in Cardiac Intensive and Critical Care, she became one of the few senior clinical nurse specialists in arrhythmia in the UK, at Imperial College NHS Trust. Over a decade in NHS community and hospital settings, she also trained as a High-Intensity CBT Therapist through NHS Talking Therapies (formerly IAPT). She then led an approved pilot study on breath-based stress reduction for cardiac patients, which showed positive subjective and objective outcomes. That work led to a seminar for 160 cardiac experts on managing mental health alongside cardiometabolic risk, and it became the foundation of her signature method, RhythmiaBreath.
Ruano’s extensive credentials include a Neurocardiology Diploma from the HeartMath Research Institute, NICABM’s Master Programme on the Treatment of Trauma, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction training, a diploma in grief counseling with a specialization in heart transplant and cardiac device support, and certification as a Specialist in Psychosomatic Medicine and as a Psychiatry Redefined Certified Functional & Integrative Psychiatry Provider (CFPP). She contributed expertise to the bestselling The Pioppi Diet by cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra and taught nurses at Baptist Hospital in Miami how to manage patient risk factors through stress reduction. Internationally, she has served as a stress management expert at renowned addiction and recovery clinics in Switzerland. As an ICF-trained executive coach, she counsels NASDAQ company founders, investors, and Fortune 500 entrepreneurs in the USA, Kuwait, and Oman. She lectures at conferences in the UK and abroad and runs her private practice in London and Zurich.
Join us to learn where cardiology and psychiatry meet—and how to act on it safely with your patients.
Training Tuition:
$499
Enrollment and dates for the 2027 training will be announced soon. Trainees are granted six months of access from training start date. All refunds must be requested within seven (7) days of enrollment. In order to qualify for a refund, learners must have progressed through less than 10% of the educational content in question. All refunds will be processed minus a 10% transaction fee.
Questions? Please email training@psychiatryredefined.org.
