Breath
The New Science of a Lost Art
Book Edition Details
Summary
"Breath (2020) is the fascinating and unexpected story of the power of breathing. Western science has overlooked the amazing effects that different methods of breathing can have on our health."
Introduction
Right now, as you read these words, you're performing one of the most fundamental acts of life without even thinking about it. You're breathing. Every minute, you take about fifteen breaths, and over your lifetime, you'll breathe roughly 670 million times. Yet here's something that might shock you: most of us are doing it completely wrong, and this simple mistake is quietly undermining our health in ways we never imagined. Modern humans have somehow managed to become the worst breathers in the entire animal kingdom, a bizarre evolutionary twist that's contributing to everything from crooked teeth and sleep problems to anxiety and chronic disease. This isn't just about getting more oxygen into your lungs. The way you breathe controls your nervous system, shapes your face, influences your immune response, and can literally determine whether you feel calm or stressed, focused or scattered. Through fascinating research and ancient wisdom that's finally being validated by science, we're discovering that something as simple as closing your mouth and slowing your breath can transform your energy levels, improve your sleep, and potentially add years to your life. The lost art of proper breathing holds secrets that could revolutionize how we think about health and human potential.
How Modern Humans Became the Worst Breathers in Evolution
In the grand story of evolution, humans have achieved something truly remarkable, and not in a good way. We've managed to become the only species on Earth that routinely suffers from crooked teeth, sleep apnea, and chronically blocked airways. No other animal needs braces, struggles with snoring, or has trouble breathing through their nose. This wasn't always our fate. Archaeological evidence reveals a startling truth: our ancestors, even those from just a few hundred years ago, had perfectly straight teeth, wide jaws, and clear, unobstructed airways without ever seeing a dentist or breathing specialist. The transformation began around 1.5 million years ago when our brains started expanding rapidly. As our skulls grew to accommodate these larger brains, something unexpected happened: our faces actually became smaller and flatter. The invention of cooking made things worse by allowing us to survive on softer foods, which meant less chewing and weaker jaw muscles. Over thousands of generations, our mouths gradually shrank while our tongues stayed the same size, creating the perfect recipe for breathing problems. The real catastrophe occurred just 300 years ago with industrialization and the rise of processed foods. Suddenly, humans were eating nothing but soft, mushy foods that required minimal chewing. Within just a few generations, the effects were dramatic. Children's faces became longer and narrower, their airways more constricted, and breathing problems epidemic. Today, studies show that 90 percent of children have some degree of facial deformity compared to their ancestors, and nearly half of adults are chronic mouth breathers. This isn't merely a cosmetic issue. When your airways are narrow and your breathing is compromised, every system in your body suffers. Poor breathing affects your sleep, which impacts growth hormones, which further influences facial development, creating a vicious cycle that gets worse with each generation. We've essentially evolved ourselves into a state of perpetual, low-grade suffocation, and most of us don't even realize it.
Nose vs Mouth: The Science Behind Optimal Breathing Pathways
The difference between breathing through your nose versus your mouth might seem trivial, but it's actually one of the most important distinctions for your health. Your nose isn't just a simple air intake valve, it's a sophisticated piece of biological engineering that has evolved over millions of years to optimize every breath you take. Inside your nasal passages are intricate, scroll-like structures called turbinates that create turbulent airflow, ensuring maximum contact between incoming air and the nasal tissues. This process filters out particles, kills harmful bacteria, warms the air to body temperature, and adds the perfect amount of humidity before it reaches your delicate lung tissues. When you breathe through your mouth, you bypass all of these protective mechanisms. Raw, unfiltered air rushes directly into your respiratory system, carrying with it dust, allergens, and pathogens that your nose would have caught. Mouth breathing also causes you to lose significantly more water through evaporation, which can lead to dehydration, dry mouth, and disrupted sleep. Studies show that chronic mouth breathers are more susceptible to infections, dental problems, and sleep disorders because their mouths simply weren't designed to be primary breathing apparatus. Perhaps most remarkably, your nose produces a molecule called nitric oxide, which acts as a natural bronchodilator, opening up your airways and improving oxygen delivery throughout your body. This means that even though nasal breathing might feel like you're getting less air, you're actually absorbing oxygen more efficiently. Research has demonstrated that nasal breathing can improve athletic performance by up to 10 percent compared to mouth breathing, simply because the oxygen is being utilized more effectively. Your nose also follows fascinating daily rhythms that influence your entire physiology. Every few hours, one nostril becomes dominant while the other partially closes, a cycle that affects everything from brain function to hormone production. Ancient yogis discovered these patterns thousands of years ago and developed techniques to consciously control them, using left nostril breathing to promote calm and relaxation, and right nostril breathing to increase alertness and energy. Modern science has confirmed that these practices can indeed influence your autonomic nervous system in predictable ways.
The Power of Less: Why Breathing Slower Improves Health
One of the most counterintuitive discoveries in breathing science is that most of us breathe too much, and learning to breathe less can dramatically improve our health and performance. The average person today takes about 12 to 20 breaths per minute, but research reveals that the optimal rate is much slower, closer to 6 breaths per minute. This isn't just ancient wisdom, it's backed by solid physiology. When you breathe more slowly and deeply, you maximize the efficiency of gas exchange in your lungs and maintain the proper balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your blood. Carbon dioxide often gets a bad reputation as just a waste product, but it actually plays a crucial role in delivering oxygen to your tissues. According to the Bohr effect, discovered over a century ago, carbon dioxide helps release oxygen from your red blood cells so your muscles and organs can actually use it. When you breathe too fast and exhale too much carbon dioxide, you make it harder for your body to access the oxygen you're taking in. This explains the paradox of hyperventilation: despite taking in more air, you actually feel short of breath because your tissues aren't getting the oxygen they need. Elite athletes have long understood this principle intuitively. Olympic swimmers train using hypoxic techniques, deliberately restricting their breathing to improve efficiency rather than trying to breathe as much as possible. Distance runners from high-altitude regions naturally develop more efficient breathing patterns that emphasize control over volume. The legendary Czech runner Emil Zátopek, who won multiple Olympic gold medals, was famous for his unusual breathing rhythm that prioritized breath control over maximum air intake. The therapeutic applications of slower breathing are equally impressive. Patients with asthma, anxiety, panic disorders, and other conditions have found remarkable relief by learning to breathe less, not more. The Buteyko method, developed by Russian scientist Konstantin Buteyko, teaches people to gradually reduce their breathing volume and rate. Clinical studies have shown this approach can reduce asthma symptoms by up to 70 percent and dramatically decrease the need for rescue inhalers. The key insight is that many modern breathing problems stem from chronic overbreathing rather than not getting enough air, and retraining your respiratory system to work more efficiently can have profound effects on your overall health.
Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science: Transformative Breathing Techniques
For thousands of years, cultures around the world developed sophisticated breathing practices that seemed almost magical in their effects. Tibetan monks could generate enough internal heat through breathing to melt snow around their bodies. Indian yogis claimed they could control their heart rate, blood pressure, and even their immune systems through pranayama techniques. Western science long dismissed these claims as impossible, since the autonomic nervous system was thought to be completely beyond conscious control. Recent research has not only validated many of these ancient practices but revealed the fascinating mechanisms behind their effects. Tummo, or "inner fire" meditation, involves rapid, forceful breathing followed by extended breath retention. When researchers studied Wim Hof, a modern practitioner of these techniques, they discovered he could voluntarily activate his sympathetic nervous system and suppress inflammatory responses in ways that should have been physiologically impossible. Even more remarkably, when they taught his methods to volunteers, the subjects developed similar abilities within just days of training, demonstrating that these aren't rare genetic gifts but learnable skills. The secret lies in the vagus nerve, a major highway connecting your brain to your heart, lungs, and digestive system. Specific breathing patterns can stimulate this nerve in precise ways, triggering either the relaxation response or controlled stress responses that ultimately strengthen your body's resilience. Slow, deep breathing with extended exhalations activates your parasympathetic nervous system, promoting healing and regeneration. Rapid breathing techniques can trigger beneficial stress responses that train your nervous system to be more adaptable and resilient. Modern applications of these ancient techniques are showing remarkable therapeutic potential. Holotropic breathwork, developed by psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, uses intensive breathing patterns to help patients process trauma and achieve psychological breakthroughs. Carbon dioxide therapy, once widely used in medicine but later abandoned, is being rediscovered as an effective treatment for anxiety and panic disorders. Even simple techniques like coherent breathing, which involves breathing at exactly 5.5 breaths per minute, can quickly reduce stress hormones and improve heart rate variability. These practices reveal that breath is far more than just a means of gas exchange, it's a powerful interface between your conscious mind and your body's automatic systems.
Summary
The most fundamental act of life has become a lost art in modern society, but reclaiming proper breathing offers one of the most accessible and powerful tools for transforming health and well-being. What emerges from this exploration is that breathing isn't just about oxygen and carbon dioxide, it's about accessing a master control system that influences every aspect of your physiology, from your immune function and stress response to your sleep quality and mental clarity. The convergence of ancient wisdom and cutting-edge science reveals that many of our modern health problems, from anxiety and sleep disorders to chronic inflammation, may be rooted in something as simple as dysfunctional breathing patterns that can be corrected with proper understanding and practice. This raises profound questions about human potential: if we can consciously influence systems once thought to be completely automatic, what other aspects of our biology might we be able to optimize through awareness and training? How might our approach to healthcare change if we treated breathing with the same attention we give to diet and exercise? For anyone interested in taking an active role in their health through natural, accessible methods, the science of breath offers a fascinating gateway into the remarkable adaptability of the human body and mind.
By James Nestor
