John Amaral, DC, is a chiropractor-turned-energy practitioner known for the Energy Flow Formula, decades of work with high-profile clients, and a 2020 appearance on Netflix’s The Goop Lab that introduced millions of people to energy healing for the first time. He’s not a mystic and he doesn’t present himself as one. He’s a former chiropractor who spent 25-plus years turning body-based energy work into something teachable, repeatable, and—according to the people who’ve trained under him—genuinely effective. Here’s who he is, what he actually does, and where you can learn his method if Los Angeles isn’t an option.
Who Is Dr. John Amaral, DC?
John Amaral is a Doctor of Chiropractic, energy practitioner, author, and educator. Over more than 25 years, he’s worked with thousands of people across more than 50 countries, including A-list celebrities, professional athletes, entrepreneurs, and thought-leaders. He’s the creator of the Energy Flow Formula, a body-and-energy-based method aimed at moving people out of chronic stress and into what he calls a state of “flow.”
He originally trained as a chiropractor. Early in his career, he trained directly under Dr. Donny Epstein, the founder of Network Spinal, and became one of a small number of top practitioners of that technique. Since then, he’s developed his own framework and now trains other practitioners directly in it through his Somatic Energy program, rather than continuing to teach Network Spinal itself.
From Chiropractor to Energy Healer: How John Amaral’s Work Evolved
Amaral’s path is part of why he’s an interesting case study in the wellness world. He didn’t start as an energy healer. He started as a licensed chiropractor, working with the spine and nervous system in a conventional clinical setting. What changed his trajectory was his training under Donny Epstein in Network Spinal — a gentle, contact-based technique that works with the nervous system rather than forcing joints into alignment.
From there, Amaral kept refining what he was doing in the room. Over two and a half decades, that refinement became the Energy Flow Formula: a combination of breathwork, focused movement, mindfulness, and hands-on body work, built specifically to shift a person’s nervous system out of fight-or-flight and into a more connected, coherent state. It’s chiropractic training and energy work fused into a single, teachable method — which is a big part of why his clients describe him as different from a typical energy healer.
What Is the Energy Flow Formula?
The Energy Flow Formula is John Amaral’s signature method. In his own words, it’s designed to help bring people “from fight-or-flight to flow.” Practically, it combines a few core elements:
- Hands-on body work that engages the nervous system directly, not just the mind
- Breathing and focused movement that help the body process and discharge stored stress
- Mindfulness and awareness practices that build a person’s ability to actually sense what’s happening in their own body
- Energetic field work that Amaral teaches alongside the physical component, not as a substitute for it
Amaral describes the shift that happens in a session in mechanical, almost engineering terms: “It’s a hardwiring shift. And then you can play new software. It’s like you just updated the hardware and now the system can receive new information and start to operate differently. And once you have that connection, even for a brief moment, you never forget it on some level. Now it’s encoded.”
Why Is John Amaral Famous? Goop Lab and a High-Profile Client List
Amaral reached mainstream attention in 2020, when he appeared in Episode 5 of Netflix’s The Goop Lab, where Gwyneth Paltrow and her team experienced his energy work firsthand. For a lot of viewers, it was the first time they’d seen this kind of body-based energy work presented outside of a New Age framing — conducted, on camera, by a licensed chiropractor.
Outside of Goop, Amaral has worked privately with a long list of high performers, including NHL player Brooks Laich, entertainer and Kinrgy founder Julianne Hough, Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba, Bulletproof founder Dave Asprey, and The Female Quotient founder Shelley Zalis. He has also traveled and worked alongside performance coach Tony Robbins. His private one-on-one sessions are based in the Los Angeles area, offered elsewhere only on a limited basis, and priced well beyond what most people can access — which is part of why practitioners he’s trained directly, in other parts of the country, matter.
Is This Backed by Anything, or Is It Just “Energy Healing”?
This is the fair question, and Amaral doesn’t dodge it. His work sits at the intersection of chiropractic training, nervous system science, and energy work — and he explains it in mechanical terms on purpose. The core idea isn’t mystical: chronic stress keeps the nervous system locked in a sympathetic, fight-or-flight state, and the body holds onto that activation as physical tension long after the original stressor is gone. Amaral’s method is aimed directly at that stuck activation, using touch, breath, and movement to help the nervous system complete the stress cycle and settle.
None of this requires a person to believe in anything before it works. That’s a deliberate part of how Amaral frames it, and it’s the same standard his trained practitioners hold their own work to.
Studying Directly Under John Amaral: André Crabb and Top Hūman
Amaral’s private sessions are based in Los Angeles and largely inaccessible to most people, both by location and by cost. But his method doesn’t only exist in that room. André Crabb, founder of Top Hūman in Orange County, trained directly under Dr. Amaral and practices his method — not a downstream variation of Network Spinal, but the Energy Flow Formula itself, applied hands-on. André calls the work Somatic Energy Engineering, a title that reflects both his own background as a former Silicon Valley engineer and the mechanical, non-mystical way Amaral teaches it.
For readers in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine, or elsewhere in Orange County, that means access to this specific lineage of work without a flight to Los Angeles or Amaral’s private-client waitlist. You can read more about André’s own experience training under Dr. Amaral and what that apprenticeship taught him.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is John Amaral a chiropractor or an energy healer? Both. He’s a licensed Doctor of Chiropractic by training who has spent the last 25-plus years developing and teaching energy-based body work, most recently through his own Energy Flow Formula.
- Did John Amaral invent Network Spinal? No. Network Spinal was founded by Dr. Donny Epstein. Amaral trained under Epstein early in his career and was one of Network Spinal’s top practitioners before developing his own method.
- Can I book a session directly with John Amaral? Private sessions are available in the Los Angeles area, and elsewhere on a limited basis, at a significant cost. Several practitioners he’s trained directly, including André Crabb of Top Hūman in Orange County, offer his method locally.
- Is this the same as Reiki or other energy healing? No. Reiki is typically practiced off the body. Amaral’s method requires hands-on, physical involvement alongside the energetic field work — the body has to be part of the process for the shift to hold.
Two Ways to Work With This Method in Orange County
Table Work is the in-person way to experience the same lineage of work John Amaral teaches, applied one-on-one by someone who trained directly under him. If you’d rather start on your own first, Mindworx is a self-guided daily method for undoing stress without meditation. Stress can be undone either way — the question is just whether you want to work through it yourself or with someone trained in it.