Invisible Forces and Health: Magnetism, Tides, Breath

10-26-2025

By Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D. | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps | Internal Medicine | HHOM LLC

Even in silence, she is not solitary; the unseen world moves beside her — tides of spirit, breath, and memory flowing like light.

Poem — “What Moves Without Sound”

The air holds stories we never hear,

the tides breathe in and out,

magnets pull at minerals and minds.

Even silence hums with motion.

We live among forces

we can’t see —

but can feel

when we slow down enough to notice.

----Dr. Friedman, M.D.

Introduction — The Hidden Machinery of Existence

We spend much of life focused on what we can see, touch, and measure. Yet the real architecture of existence lies beneath visibility — in the magnetic field that wraps our planet, the lunar pull that guides the oceans, the oxygen molecules that move invisibly between leaf and lung.

These unseen forces are not metaphors; they are the quiet physics of life. Their constancy gives structure to chaos. Their rhythm sustains our own. But in our pursuit of speed, convenience, and control, we have trained ourselves to ignore them. To become aware of the unseen is not to abandon science — it is to deepen it. The physician, after all, learns early that the most powerful systems in the body — electrical conduction, chemical signaling, immune vigilance — are invisible to the naked eye. Healing, like gravity, begins with a force you can’t see but can feel.

We don’t see them, but invisible forces and health are always linked. The heart creates an electromagnetic field that extends beyond the body. The moon pulls at the oceans and, in smaller ways, at the fluids within us. Breath changes electrical patterns in the brain and regulates the nervous system. These forces aren’t mystical — they’re measurable. The problem is not that they are weak, but that we live too fast to feel them.

Magnetism — The Heart’s Hidden Field

Every living being carries an electrical signature. The heart, though no larger than a clenched fist, generates an electromagnetic field measurable several feet from the body. This field shifts with our emotions, our respiration, even our thoughts.

The Earth itself pulses with magnetism — a planetary rhythm that migratory birds navigate and whales follow across hemispheres. Human biology is not separate from this geomagnetic field; our circadian clocks subtly align with its fluctuations. Studies have even shown correlations between geomagnetic storms and changes in mood, sleep, and cardiovascular regulation.

When two people sit close and speak with calm intention, their heart rhythms begin to synchronize — a measurable entrainment of electrical energy. This is not mysticism; it’s medicine at its most fundamental. We are wired for connection because our very physiology depends on coherence.

The heart is both pump and compass. It reminds us that direction is not only mechanical but magnetic — that what draws us toward meaning is as real as gravity itself.

Tides — The Rhythm Beneath the Skin

The moon does not negotiate with the ocean; it pulls, and the water responds. We, too, are mostly water — and we, too, respond.

Human biology is governed by tides we often ignore. Hormones rise and fall in lunar-like cycles. Cerebrospinal fluid moves rhythmically through the spinal canal in sync with breath and pulse. Even the brain’s glymphatic system — the nocturnal wash that clears toxins during sleep — flows in slow, tidal waves.

This is why invisible forces and health can’t be separated — magnetism, tides, and breath are constantly shaping the rhythm inside the human body, whether we notice or not.

Our moods, our focus, our energy levels — they follow these internal tides. But we’ve built a society that defies them: 24-hour lighting, nonstop news, stimulants and screens that keep the mind in artificial daylight. No wonder so many live out of rhythm, exhausted yet wired.

Real medicine restores the tide. It honors recovery as much as effort, night as much as day. Healing requires ebb and flow — a willingness to let the waters recede before they return.

When we rest, we rise. When we align, we heal.

Breath and Water — The Unseen Exchanges

Air is the most democratic medicine on Earth — free, invisible, indispensable. Yet how rarely do we feel a breath? The average person takes more than 20,000 in a day without noticing a single one.

Each inhale carries the same molecules that once moved through forests, oceans, and the lungs of other living beings. The oxygen that fuels your cells may have brushed against coral reefs or mountain pines only weeks ago. Respiration is communion — a quiet, continuous exchange between self and planet.

Water tells the same story. Every drop we drink carries memory: of glaciers, storms, and the ancient seas that birthed all life. Within our bloodstream, that water becomes plasma — the medium through which nutrients, hormones, and immune signals flow. When dehydrated, the body doesn’t simply crave fluid; it loses communication.

To breathe consciously and to hydrate mindfully is to participate in the oldest rituals of survival. They are acts of remembrance — reminders that life persists through exchange, not isolation.

Silence, Magnetism, and Medicine

Modern medicine is built on measurement, and rightly so. But behind every number is an unseen process — an electron jumping, a cell dividing, an impulse firing. The physician’s stethoscope, the lab’s microscope, the scanner’s magnet — all are tools to glimpse what hides beneath.

What we can’t yet measure is the field between people: empathy, intention, the subtle resonance of healing presence. Yet every clinician has felt it — the unspoken current when trust is formed, when fear calms, when understanding dawns. That, too, is magnetism.

Healing is not the absence of disease; it is the restoration of coherence.

Closing Reflection — Learning to See Without Eyes

The unseen isn’t unreal. It’s simply unlooked for. We live in an atmosphere of wonder, held together by quiet forces — magnetic, tidal, electric, emotional. To become aware of them is to rediscover our belonging.

As a physician, I’ve learned that awareness itself can heal. When we recognize our connection to these unseen systems, we begin to align with them. Our breath deepens. Our pulse steadies. Our thoughts slow to the rhythm of the tide.

“The moment we stop rushing, the invisible becomes visible. The world has been whispering all along.”

Closing Poem — “The Quiet Forces”

The world is held by hands we cannot see —

the pull of moon, the hum beneath the heart,

the breath between one thought and the next.

We rise on tides we never command.

we fall into gravity’s trust,

we drink the same water our ancestors knew.

The unseen doesn’t ask for faith —

only attention. To notice is to return.

To breathe is to belong.

To love is to align

with everything moving quietly

to keep us alive.

— Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

—Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

Board-Certified | Internal Medicine | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps

Founder of Howard’s House of Medicine (HHOM LLC)

https://www.hhomllc.com

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: If unseen forces like magnetism, tides, and breath shape the body, how much control do we truly have over our health?

A: We don’t control the forces — we align with them. The heart’s electrical field, the lunar rhythm of our hormones, the tidal flow of cerebrospinal fluid — these are not choices we make, but systems we live inside of. Where control begins is in how we respond.

When we breathe slower, the heart’s electromagnetic field becomes more coherent. When we sleep in darkness, melatonin follows its ancient rhythm. When we rest instead of overdrive, our tidal biology repairs instead of collapses.

So yes, biology is ruled by unseen forces — but health is shaped by how willingly we live in rhythm with them.

Q: Science explains magnetism, tides, and physiology — so why do these forces still feel spiritual to us?

A: Because understanding something doesn’t make it less sacred — it makes it more honest. The heart’s magnetic field is measurable with an ECG or magnetometer, yet its power to synchronize with another person’s pulse feels intimate, almost holy.

The tides are caused by the moon’s gravity, yet watching an ocean breathe still quiets the human mind. The glymphatic system clears toxins from the brain while we sleep — science — yet waking up restored feels like grace.

Spirituality is not the opposite of science; it is what happens when knowledge is met with awe.

Q: If the most important systems in life and medicine are invisible, how do we learn to see them?

A: Not with better eyesight — with better attention. The stethoscope taught physicians to hear the heart. The microscope taught us that life exists beyond sight. Today, what we need most is not a new machine, but a new pace.

When we finally slow down, we notice breath instead of just using it. We feel the pulse instead of counting it. We sense when another human being is in distress before a word is spoken. That is clinical intuition — physiology meeting awareness.

To see the unseen, we don’t need faith. We need stillness.