About
Matteo Pistono is a writer and meditation teacher. His books include Roar: Sulak Sivaraksa and the Path of Socially Engaged Buddhism (North Atlantic Books, March 2019) Meditation: Coming to Know Your Mind (Hay House 2017), Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal (Hay House 2014) and In the Shadow of the Buddha: One Man's Journey of Discovery in Tibet (Dutton 2011).
Matteo's photos and writings about meditation, Buddhism, yoga, and Himalayan and Southeast Asian cultural, political, and spiritual landscapes have appeared in The Washington Post, The Global Post, Buddhadharma, Tricycle, BBC's In-Pictures, Men's Journal, Kyoto Journal, and HIMAL South Asia.
Matteo was born and raised in Wyoming where he completed his undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Wyoming, and in 1997 he obtained his Masters of Arts degree in Indian Philosophy from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. After working with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. on Tibetan cultural programs, Pistono lived and traveled throughout the Himalayas for a decade, bringing to the West graphic accounts and photos of China’s human rights abuses in Tibet, which was documented in In the Shadow of the Buddha. Matteo sits on the Executive Council of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. Matteo and his wife, Monica, live in southern California with their dog.
Featured Work
Breathe How You Want to Feel: Your Breathing Tool Kit for Better Health, Restorative Sleep, and Deeper Connection
Breathwork guide and meditation teacher Matteo Pistono offers a how-to book for upgrading your nervous system to live your optimal life physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Do you want to calm your racing thoughts before lying down for a restful night of sleep? Or raise your energy levels before your morning exercise or spin class, and have laser focus before an important meeting? Are you overwhelmed from the flood of information from your social media and news feed? Any time your emotional state is out of balance, there are time-tested, practical methods to breathe your way back into the state of being you want.
You have the capacity to change how you feel, in any moment, when you partner with your breath. It’s a matter of paying attention and then consciously altering your breathing pattern.
Too often books on breathing and breathwork coaches do not teach the actual mechanics of breathing. Instead, they guide one-off sessions, teach protocols, or direct you to an app. The consequence of just following a protocol without understanding breathing mechanics leaves the student disempowered and dependent on the teacher. Instead, in Breathe How You Want to Feel, learning functional breathing becomes the basis upon which you gain control of your well-being—it’s the secret tool behind resiliency.
Breathe How You Want to Feel offers you a psychophysical tool kit that includes:
awareness building,
understanding the dials of your nervous system,
the importance of nasal breathing,
how breath holds (even when very short) are a superpower, and
how to integrate optimal breathing throughout your everyday life, especially when you're sleeping.
You’ll use these tools to optimize your breathing to overcome being tired, wired, and uninspired. You’ll learn how to breathe optimally during your workday, while exercising, when entering meditative and flow states, and for deep rest. And you’ll partner with your breath to discover deeper meaning in life. This book meets you, the breather, where you are with step-by-step actionable tools to improve your health, sleep, and well-being.
Other Works
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Roar: Sulak Sivaraksa and the Path of Socially Engaged Buddhism (North Atlantic Books, March 2019)
2019
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Meditation: Coming to Know Your Mind
2017
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Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal
2014
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In the Shadow of the Buddha: One Man's Journey of Discovery in Tibet
2011
