Drs. Naras and Kusum Bhat

Mind-Body Medicine, Biofeedback, stress management, heart disease reversal and prevention, teaching meditation, test anxiety control , and stress control at UC Berkeley

Naras Bhat, M.D., F.A.C.P., is a physician, board-certified in Internal Medicine Immunology, and also certified in Metabolic Cardiology and Stress Management. He currently teaches at the University of California, Berkeley and was a professor of behavioral medicine at Rosebridge College of Integrative Psychology. Dr. Bhat is the author of the internationally known book, How to Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease and Cancer. He also wrote a course book for his U.C. Berkeley class, Unlearning Test Anxiety and Stress and produced two popular videos, Uprooting Anger and Meditation Prescription.

Born in India and educated in the West, Dr. Bhat connects Eastern disciplines with Western high-tech medicine using computer feedback systems known as cybernetics. Dr. Bhat is the founder and director of the Cybernetix Medical Institute, located in Concord, California. His active stress and heart disease reversal clinic has training programs for patients, physicians, and health care workers. His collaborating wife, Kusum Bhat, Ph.D., is the institute’s clinical director. Their three daughters, Anita, Jyoti, and Joy, also contribute to Dr. Bhat’s various creative endeavors.

Research ; Dr. Bhat has done extensive research on how stress affects the heart from the perspective of heart-centered physiology, called cardio-neuro-immunology. This work focuses on how the heart rate and blood pressure are changed by emotions, such as anger or loving kindness. To further his research, Dr. Bhat traveled to the Himalayas to study the physiology of spiritual sages during meditation by utilizing biofeedback technology. Dr. Bhat was president of The Biofeedback Society of California (2002) and a board member of the mind-body organization, Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback ( http://www.aapb.org ), professor of Meditation at the University of Natural Medicine , teaching doctorate students. (http://www.universitynaturalmedicine.org/Pages/FacultClinPsych.html ) Dr. Bhat’s work has been cited in National TV, Time Magazine, Cardiology Today, Business Week, The Contra Costa Times, and The San Francisco Examiner. India Currents also published an article about Dr. Bhat and his healing work. His photo was featured on the cover of the magazine.

Medical Economics featured Dr. Bhat's approach to stress control in Strategic Medicine. Dr. Bhat has conducted more than 500 seminars on “Do-able Stress Control for the 21st Century” “Reversing Heart Disease" and “Time Management by Attentional Intelligence.” Through these seminars, he has shared his wisdom internationally with over 100,000 people. His “Doctor’s Doctor” Program has taught thousands of physicians in North America, Europe, and Asia how to recover from the “wounded healer syndrome.” In 2001 at England’s Cambridge University, Dr. Bhat’s presentation: “Time and Focus Management—Tools for Stress Control,” earned him the honor of being recognized as one of The 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century.


Kusum Bhat, Ph.D., is a certified Biofeedback specialist and physician assistant, with a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. She is currently the clinical director of the Cybernetix Medical Institute, as well as a mental health clinical specialist at the Contra Costa County Hospital in Martinez, California. She has also previously interned at the Children's Hospital in Oakland, the Battered Women's Alternative, the Hume Center in Concord, and the Contra Costa County Hospital Psychiatric Emergency Service. Currently she is professor of Clinical Psychophysiology at the University of Natural Medicine for doctorate students. (http://www.universitynaturalmedicine.org/Pages/FacultClinPsych.html )
Dr. Bhat has repeatedly demonstrated her expertise in the field of Biofeedback and Applied Psychophysiology. Her doctoral dissertation was on The Role of Biofeedback Assisted Anger Control in Reversing Heart Disease. Moreover, she has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and has held workshops all over the world on heart rate variability and anger control, "Emotional Intelligence by Self-disclosure", and "Do-able stress control for the 21st century".

In her spare time, Dr. Bhat enjoys photography, writing poetry, short stories, and articles for various newspapers and magazines. She also loves spending time with her husband, Naras Bhat, M.D., and their three daughters, Anita, Jyoti, and Joy.