Let me tell you a little about breath. Not just any breath either, the perfect breath. It turns out my shallow two second inhale followed by two second exhale may just be doing both my mind and body the type of harm you wouldn’t immediately imagine something that brings life would. In truth two seconds may even be a little generous. It is a long way from the recommended five point five second inhale and five point five second exhale, which conveniently equates to the perfect amount of breaths per minute. Five point five for those who don’t fancy the maths. This is according to James Nestor whose new book Breath delves into the art of something which we all seem to be doing wrong.
Nestor explains the science and art of breathing. He uses anecdotes and scientific research to back up and prove his theories. He discusses thousands of years worth of knowledge like ancient Indian pranayamic breathing techniques and the Buddhist Tummo. Tummo has in the last ten years been sexed up, repackaged and proven to the western world by Wim Hof. He goes into his own experiments with Stanford University of only nasal breathing and only mouth breathing, all of which are backed up by the research results which show a dramatic and scary contrasting end result. Our mouths have shrunk and our teeth don’t have enough space to grow straight anymore, three hundred years of industrial processed food haven’t helped. Heart disease, anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, asthma – the list of diseases related to incorrect breathing seems endless. He doesn’t suggest breathing is going to cure a rampant disease of course but it can help with the preventative part, the bit western medicines ‘cut it out and cure it’ approach seems repeatedly limited in. It does turn out we’ve been breathing wrong all these years and he explains how and why.
What he shares is immediately relatable. This dissection of the consequences of a breathing I know I do and which I instinctively know and have known for a while to be wrong and dangerous. Nestor has managed to explain something which is hard to disagree with within our narrow prism of proved truth. We need things to be proven in certain ways that Eastern texts don’t do, Nestor manages to do this with language and information it is hard to disagree with. As I said I can relate to what he is saying though and I suspect that is probably what has led to this book being the success it has been. Good authors manage to give new information in a way that makes the author feel they’ve always known it and finally it has been confirmed. Genuinely, I want everyone, and especially everyone I care about to read this. Now then, it’s time to go practise my breathing.
Observations and Misunderstandings 