There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.
Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.
Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt …
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.
Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.
Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is.
Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.
Light on science but very nice introduction to nasal breathing!
5 stars
I had practised nasal breathing a couple of years before reading Breath, but this book provided a lot of historical context and personal accounts of self experimentation, which was nice to have read. This is a great book to recommend when introducing people to nasal breathing. There are several other books who are more heavy on the science that also goes into much more detail, but they are quite dry and gives much less context to the phenomenon.
I could not get past the amount of """science""" and just bad logical arguments in this book. If the book removed all occurrences of the word science and just leaned in to the fact that it's completely anecdotal and personal experience based, I think I would have kept reading.
This was one of the most thought provoking books I've read this year (so far). It makes me want to rethink my diet and brush the dust off my meditation and yoga apps.
There's a lot to be said about breathing and its place in our lives but I'm not sure this book is saying it. Oh, it might be but it's not convincing for some reason. It's a little too dramatic--a little too "this revolutionary truth is being overlooked"--but at the same time, there are such overlooked truths about breath, I think . . . Maybe I need to do all the breathing exercises and experience it directly but some are scary--they come with warnings--and others need to be repeated over a long period for results that aren't exactly clear.
The first surprising truth is that mouth breathing is bad for you. The "proof" is experienced by the author who has his nose sealed off as an experiment, but I'm not sure it proves what he says it does. It may merely show that having your nose sealed off has adverse results. …
There's a lot to be said about breathing and its place in our lives but I'm not sure this book is saying it. Oh, it might be but it's not convincing for some reason. It's a little too dramatic--a little too "this revolutionary truth is being overlooked"--but at the same time, there are such overlooked truths about breath, I think . . . Maybe I need to do all the breathing exercises and experience it directly but some are scary--they come with warnings--and others need to be repeated over a long period for results that aren't exactly clear.
The first surprising truth is that mouth breathing is bad for you. The "proof" is experienced by the author who has his nose sealed off as an experiment, but I'm not sure it proves what he says it does. It may merely show that having your nose sealed off has adverse results. It doesn't show that breathing only partially through your nose is bad for you.
So that's he kind of book this is. If you want to take it as a starting point for your own personal research, it should serve. There's clearly stuff in there that deserves to be further explored. I tried to follow up on some of this book's claims by searching the internet and there are legit medical journals who seem to support many of its theses.
Great journalism with new research, anecdotes, and curated techniques. It’s a fast-moving personal journey using old and new age advice, and the author makes clear is something still in progress. A monograph from Stanford University Press is cited that was published in 2018, and several studies were mentioned that are currently underway, so breath and orthodontics seem to be going through a revival. A New York dentist, Dr. Michael Gelb, said in the book, “In ten years, nobody will be using traditional orthodontics”.
The entire book wasn’t 5 stars. Part 1 is the author’s personal experiments (interesting and short), Part 2 is the art and science of breathing (easily the best section), and Part 3 was “Breathing +”, which explored pushing the limits of breath and didn’t really interest me at all. This is 5 stars because it’s a quick book with immediate health benefits you can practice (my average …
Great journalism with new research, anecdotes, and curated techniques. It’s a fast-moving personal journey using old and new age advice, and the author makes clear is something still in progress. A monograph from Stanford University Press is cited that was published in 2018, and several studies were mentioned that are currently underway, so breath and orthodontics seem to be going through a revival. A New York dentist, Dr. Michael Gelb, said in the book, “In ten years, nobody will be using traditional orthodontics”.
The entire book wasn’t 5 stars. Part 1 is the author’s personal experiments (interesting and short), Part 2 is the art and science of breathing (easily the best section), and Part 3 was “Breathing +”, which explored pushing the limits of breath and didn’t really interest me at all. This is 5 stars because it’s a quick book with immediate health benefits you can practice (my average systolic dropped 10 below its average for 4 days in a row so far), and the overall ROI covered below.
Optimum breathing rate, tongue posture, lung expanding stretches, different nostril activation, chewing, and clearing nasal passages are some topics covered. The appendix is full of breathing methods to practice, and the audiobook walks you through all of them. The book features Dr Mike Mew of Orthotropics, who if you visit his Youtube channel, covers facial growth guidance like tongue chewing, swallowing, proper facial posture, mewing, exercises, sleeping position, xylitol gum, etc.
