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Health & Fitness. Science. Sports & Recreations. Nonfiction. HTML:A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR â??A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breatheâ??and how weâ??ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.â?ť â??Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if youâ??re not breathing properly. 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 arenâ??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 SĂŁo 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… (more)
User reviews
Nestor looks at historical practices and some physiological and anthropological sources to come to some
I really enjoyed the journey, his research also looked at spiritual practitioners over a much longer period. I'm more inclined to believe breathwork results of thousands of years; overall I think there's some great stuff in this book, and it's intriguing enough to try.
One never knows when picking up a book, that this book could be extremely beneficial to ones own health problems. That is what happened here, as.i both read and tried out the exercises in the book. Due to my severe breathing problems, I own an oximeter and monitor my oxygen levels. After just a short time, doing a few simple breathing exercises, my oxygen level rose quite substantially. I bought the book, the back of the book filled with items, things to do, that can help one strengthen lungs, sinuses and other areas. Aa life changed? We'll see, but right now I'm hopeful.
Breath is an atheistic book. And by this, I mean that it is all about the "how," or the mechanisms, related
That said, being at least partially acculturated in a reductionistic Western world, I can't help but find all the benefits of good breathing that Nestor documents compelling. For example, I've been hearing friends tell me about [[Wim Hof]] for years, but I can't recall what purported benefits his breathing techniques proffer, except that maybe it has something to do with cold? Nestor explores Hof, what he's doing, and how it works.
The basics of the book are intuitive to me. As a child, I recall my father mentioning on many occasions to breath through my nose, and this is something I do, despite chronic mild congestion (which I've never quite been able to diagnose). I was taught various meditation techniques and breathing techniques, some of which are go-to practices for me.
What was most striking to me about this book was its emphasis on the importance of carbon dioxide in our blood, and its effects on metabolism and efficiency. Apparently carbon dioxide is just as essential as oxygen to the function of our cells, and for some reason, no one ever taught me this! A lot of the health benefits of good breathing are actually about higher levels of CO2 in our bloodstreams; not higher (or lower) levels of oxygen.
Although Nestor documents a number of ancient techniques, Dhikr is glaringly omitted. Dhikr, in the Islamic Sufi tradition, is the most remarkable breath technique in which I have participated. Most Dhikr are practiced in community (although a few can be practiced alone), and have a certain violence to them in their gait and fervor. They also have unequivocally consciousness-altering effects. I'm sure there are many other equally remarkable techniques from traditions of which I'm currently unaware.
At the level of storytelling, in the tradition of Michael Pollan, Nestor describes his research through his own story of self-exploration—including excruciating experiments that one wonders if he participated in simple for the shock value (such as blocking his nose with silicone plugs for ten days to try a state of forced mouth breathing). I notice a lot of authors using this style, and it is an easy way to make your work more relatable. Maybe it also grabs attention in a way that is required in our attention-fragmented current day (people put down less voyeuristic books).
To move into epistemology and pedagogy, unfortunately books are one of the poorer ways to teach people about breathing. As breath is such a somatic phenomenon, it is best taught person-to-person, in-person (which is what Nestor did throughout the book). Anyone that takes Nestor's jubilance to heart will need to find ways of actually getting out and practicing what is described in the book.
We take breathing for granted, and this is a mistake. There are techniques of breathing we can and must employ if we are to live a healthy life. There is a good companion website to the
There are many myths he busts in the book. Read it.
I listened to the audiobook, capably read by the author. Nestor is obviously excited about his topic. He makes a few extraordinary claims, which I plan to investigate further. I probably will not be using a special device to expand the size of my mouth, but I do plan to adopt a few small changes, such as the breathing patterns that facilitate sleeping.
Straight away Nestor cuts to the chase about mouth breathing, and apparently we've much more than bad breath and cavities to worry about. According to the research he's done, at best mouth breathing leads to increased stuffiness / infections in the nasal cavities, and at worst leads to hypertension and the metabolic and cognitive problems that come with sleep apnea. If you regularly get up in the middle of the night for a wee your mouth breathing could be to blame as it also affects kidney regulation.
It's not only breathing through the correct airway that improves our health but also how we breathe (5.5 seconds in and out is optimal, which is probably a lot less breaths per minute than most of us take) and, believe it or not, how we chew. Science has shown that man's change of diet in evolution to softer foods has decreased the size of our mouth cavities to a size which is sub-optimal for allowing room for our teeth and room for an effective airway system. Whilst not everyone is likely to queue up for the type of orthodontic 'widening' device that Nestor tries out (successfully, in terms of his overall sinus function), he provides detail on how new facial bone can be developed at any age through the regular use of certain hard gum (nasty habit - I struggled to get on board with that idea, although the science behind it sounds plausible).
I loved this book. It was interesting and written in a very engaging style, and I took a lot from it in terms of practices I want to start adopting.
4.5 stars - entertaining, fascinating and potentially life transformative. Recommended.
I had observed that I breathed through only one of my nostrils and that it alternates at "random" times,
There are quite a few mentions of yoga exercises to better our overall health. Pranayama, being one of them, has shown significantly improve our health by cleaning/clearing our nasal channels.
I think Mr Nestor does a great job of introducing the science and history of Breath work. Although, he does not go into any particular work, he does a good job
Part of my interest is my experience with Wim Hof Method and the benefits I’ve seen. I left excited to try other breath work and best of all gain some very interesting insight to how Breath work actually works. Especially the significance of carbon dioxide.
Pros: A beautiful blend of his own story, others, history, and science.
Cons: if you want help with a particular form of breath work.
However, the information about breathing and breath is really fascinating. But maybe I should have just skipped to the end and read the section that describes all the breathing exercises and their benefits.
I learned so much about a vital function that most of