Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

Book Recommendation - A New York Times bestseller Author: James Nestor Title: Breath – The New Science of a Lost Art Published by Riverhead Books, New York, 2020 The book is available in most public libraries including the Dauphin County and Cumberland County Library Systems. The cost of the hard cover book from Amazon is $18.37. A paper back version and a summary are also available. The book is also available in E book and audio book formats. The book has been placed on the purchase request list for the Bethany Village Library. Quotes from the book cover pages follow: “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 functions on its head. You will never breath the same again.” Dr. Stephen Park Albert Einstein College of Medicine: “An eye opening, epic journey of human devolution that explains why so many of us are sick and tired. A must-read book that exposes what our health care system doesn’t see.” Joshua Foer, New York Times “A transformative book that changes how you think about your body and mind.” Comments by Bethany resident Charley Sproule: I have a lifelong snoring problem. Over the years I have tried a variety of methods to solve the problem. One helpful action is avoiding sleeping on my back, but this does not eliminate my snoring. Another attempt was using a device to open my nostrils. You tape it on to the outside of your nose. For me, the only result was some lost skin when I remove it in the morning. A medical specialist recommended surgery to remove some loose flesh in the back of my throat. I decided that was too invasive and did not schedule the surgery. The book Breath recommends another possible solution which is a method for keeping your mouth closed when sleeping. So far, the method has been working for me. The book contains step by step instructions on exercises to improve breathing, lung capacity and overall health. Readers who participate in yoga are likely familiar with alternate nostril breathing. A variety of other techniques are described in the book. For example, box breathing is used by Navy seals in tense situations. The book provides links to video instructions on some of the recommended techniques. The history of breathing practice described in the book includes many cultures and is fascinating and informative. Some divers have learned how to hold their breath for twelve minutes. Some runners have broken their records after using the techniques described in the book. A variety of health problems addressed by the techniques are described in the book. Cautions and limitations are also discussed.

Most people deal with breathing problems sometime in life. This includes mouth breathing, snoring, sleep apnea, hyperventilation, shortness of breath, asthma, bronchitis, COPD, etc. Consequently, it’s useful to read a book addressing into the topic. James Nestor has traveled around the world to learn current and ancient wisdom about breath. He has interviewed dozens of “pulmanauts” as he calls breathing experts. His book contains what he has learned. A few of his eye-popping assertions: • “Nine out of ten people breathe incorrectly.“ • “Forty percent of today’s population suffers from chronic nasal obstruction, and around half of us are habitual mouth-breathers.” • Most modern humans have a deviated septum, and half have chronically inflamed turbinate, the erectile tissue lining our sinuses. This combination often leads to chronic breathing difficulties. There’s a reason that humans are the worst breathers in the animal kingdom. It’s because human faces are smaller today than our ancient ancestors. They had forward-facing jaws and wide mouths, which created wider airways. They needed strong jaws to eat a raw diet of fibrous fruits and vegetables, which took a lot of time and effort. We don’t have the same need to chew. Highly refined and processed foods require much less chewing than raw foods. It is well documented that cultures where traditional diets were replaced by modern, softer, processed foods saw more cavities and crooked teeth and more obstructed airways. In short, the industrialization of farmed foods is responsible for the physical changes. Compared to our distant ancestors, modern homo sapiens have larger brains, narrower and longer noses, and less prominent jaws, crooked teeth and shrunken sinuses. Chewing hard gum is a way to strengthen the jaw line and expand the palate. . Mouthbreathing is a problem. That’s because the lungs extract less oxygen from air sucked in through the mouth, compared to air that is heated, slowed and pressurized coming via the nose. So nose breathing is more efficient. In addition, inhaling from the nose forces air against the flabby tissues at the back of the throat and widens the airways. Breathing through the mouth, however, allows the soft tissues to become loose and to flex inward, leaving less space for breathing. Mouthbreathing leads to snoring and sometimes to sleep apnea or to insomnia. One technique to reduce mouthbreathing at night is to put one small piece of tape vertically across part of the mouth. The average American takes about 18 breaths a minute. At that rate, most oxygen is exhaled back out. Heavy breathing causes too much loss of carbon dioxide, which narrows blood vessels and decreases circulation, particularly to the brain. At a slower breathing rate, by concentrating on longer exhales, our lungs soak up more oxygen in fewer breaths. Slower breathing also lowers blood pressure and heartrate. The most efficient breathing, according to research, is 5.5 second inhales followed by 5.5-second exhales, which totals 5.5 breaths per minute. Some asthmatics improve after they learn to breathe less. This is a fascinating book with lots of tips about self-improvement. One surprise is that sometimes it is good to hold your breath. -30-

I have been loving this book so far and was gripped by this book immediately and fascinated by the lost art of breathing as I felt my health declining further in my middle age. It’s very well written and the humor James uses throughout brings a much needed levity to a very serious subject that has life or death consequences and massive implications for health and quality of life. One star less for by far the most comical and fantastical nonsense in chapter 1 about human beings coming from primordial soup got the best laugh out of me. The simplest life form is so wildly complex and the fact that we can’t even intelligently create life in a laboratory with our intelligent minds and setting up perfect conditions (which would prove intelligent design even if we were able to produce life) have failed miserably. I’m not sure is James actually believes the insanity written in chapter 1 or if it’s meant to be more levity and trolling people with common sense? Perhaps we should keep the disproven and flat out outrageous ideas far away from a book about biological function and provable facts? Or perhaps credit the Creator who breathed the first breath into human beings and designed an INCREDIBLE AND MARVELOUSLY COMPLEX system and the ability for us to adapt and learn to use it to its full capacity for our health and His glory. Enough of the Godless nonsense that has been disproven over and over again. Since he is from San Francisco, I can’t say I’m surprised. Just saddened because the book other than this really is this good and the proven research fantastic. More actual science please and less pseudoscience and bad philosophy.

Insightful!

This is quite a good book. I really enjoyed it. Like Mike Pollan, who wrote the excellent "How to Change Your Mind", the author travels the world while researching the book to try things out for himself. And then writes about his experiences in an engaging way. Some sticklers may take issue with how he writes about the finer points of Tibetan breathing techniques. I'm not sure if there will ever be universal agreement about their history and practice, but the author makes clear that he is really novice who is telling us an often fascinating story about his journey of discovery about breathing. The strength of the book is how he learns that there are so many (to me, suprising) things about breathing that are critically important for our health. For example, he talks about how many modern maladies like asthma, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and even psoriasis could either be reduced or reversed simply by changing the way we inhale and exhale. He talks about how the shape of our months and face have changed over the past 300 years, and how this has led to so many breathing and health issues (including sleep apnea which affects so many adults now). It has to do with our food, and how it's so much easier to chew. He talks about the adverse affects of mouth breathing (which 80% of us do) and how, in an experiment, his health rebounded when he trained himself to only breath through his nose. There is also a lot of good information about breathing exercises, how they're done, why we think they work; and how this information has been ignored, for the most part, by modern medicine. If you're stressed, if you snore, if you have sleep apnea, if you have other respiratory issues, or if you know people who suffer from these (or Covid-19 breathing issues) ... then this book might be an eye opener. It's both informative, and quite readable and engaging like a great magazine article. And offers simple and easy ways for you to feel better and healthier.

A great book, very informative and a must for people who have breathing difficulties to help with gaining more control of their breathing

Best book regarding the topic

I am more aware than ever about my breathing. I have done something as simple as downloading a snoring app and adding a wedge pillow. I can't believe how much more energy I have during the day now that I'm not snoring and actually getting a full flow of oxygen through the evening. And the history is exceptional as well.