Bio
Henriks research focuses on developing new treatments for chronic stress, chronic pain, and sleep disorders, with a particular emphasis on vagus nerve stimulation, neural retraining and meditative breathing therapies. He is the co-founder of the Mind-Body Lab, which he led from 2019 to 2025. He is also a senior member of the Pain Medicine Group at the Faculty of Medicine.
Trained as a fellow at the Center for Work, Health, and Well Being at Harvard School of Public Health, Henrik has spent more than a decade building a research programme that moves between clinical neuroscience, applied psychology, and translational health technology. His work has led to published randomised controlled trials comparing vagus nerve stimulation with breathing-based therapies for fibromyalgia, two patent applications in non-pharmacological pain treatment, and the development of next-generation vagus nerve stimulators.
His research has been covered widely in Norwegian national media, and his public writing has reached audiences that most academic work never approaches. His piece on stress management in VG — Norway's most widely read newspaper — received more than 600,000 unique reads. His 2023 op-ed on stress tracking in NRK was the most-read op-ed published by Norway's largest news channel that year, with more than 220,000 unique reads. He is the co-author of *Gjengangerne — stress, smerter og søvn* (Arneberg Forlag, 2017), a book exploring the relationship between stress, chronic pain, and sleep.
Henrik is available for media interviews, podcast appearances, and speaking engagements on stress, pain, sleep, and the future of mind-body medicine.
Research interests
Henrik's research sits at the intersection of health psychology, clinical neuroscience and everyday human wellbeing. His primary areas of investigation are transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation for chronic pain and stress, neural retraining paradigms, meditative and diaphragmatic breathing as clinical treatments, the interplay between stress, pain, and sleep, and the translation of clinical research into scalable health interventions.
Selected publications
Jacobsen HB et al. Meditative-based diaphragmatic breathing vs. vagus nerve stimulation in the treatment of fibromyalgia — A randomized controlled trial: Body vs. machine. *Frontiers in Neurology*, 2022.
Jacobsen HB et al. Motivational Non-directive Resonance Breathing as a Treatment for Chronic Widespread Pain. *Frontiers in Psychology*, 2019.
Jacobsen HB et al. Motivational nondirective resonance breathing versus transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in the treatment of fibromyalgia: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. *Trials*, 2020.
Oslo Chronic Fatigue Consortium (2023). Chronic fatigue syndromes: real illnesses that people can recover from. *Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care*, 41(4): 372–376. (Over 16,000 views.)
Flink IK, Reme SE, Jacobsen HB et al. Pain psychology in the 21st century: lessons learned and moving forward. *Scandinavian Journal of Pain*, 2020.
Book
*Gjengangerne — stress, smerter og søvn* (Arneberg Forlag, 2017). Co-authored with Hans-Petter Jacobsen. A book written as a conversation between a psychologist and his father about the three conditions that shape modern life: stress, pain, and poor sleep — and what the science actually says about breaking the cycle.
Media and speaking
Henrik has appeared across Norwegian national media as a communicator on stress, pain, sleep, and the limits and possibilities of mind-body medicine.
Television
NRK Dagsnytt18 — HRV and the measurement of stress (2023; one of Norway's three most-watched television programmes)
NRK Debatten — Health influencers (2024; one of Norway's ten most-watched television programmes)
TV 2 — Stress management and chronic pain
Radio and podcast
NRK Burde vært pensum — "Er stress egentlig farlig?" (Top episode of 2023, over 50,000 downloads)
Leger om livet podcast #155 — "Hvordan finne stressbalansen"
Stresset podcast — "Stress, stressaktivering og smerter"
Print and digital
VG: Hvordan stresse ned på 30 dager? (Over 600,000 unique reads)
NRK Ytring: Stressklokka (Most-read op-ed in Norway's largest news channel in 2023, over 220,000 unique reads)
NRK Ytring: Pills that do not work (2018)
Documentary
The Painful Truth — A Film About Endometriosis and Adenomyosis (IMDB)
Contact
For media enquiries and speaking engagements, please contact Henrik directly by email.