Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

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 (through our nose), with grave consequences. Breath trumps everything - what you eat, how much you exercise, how much you weigh, how young you are, how smart you are. If you’re not breathing properly, nothing else matters.

Journalist James Nestor, who has worked with scientists at Stanford University, 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 Sao 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
• Straighten scoliotic spines
• Improve overall health

None of this should be possible, and yet it is.

This book examines the history, science, and culture of all things breath and breathing, and its impacts on human health. It investigates the history of how humans shifted from the natural and healthy state of nasal breathing to chronic mouth breathing. Nestor explores research that argues that this shift - which is largely due to the increased consumption of processed foods - has led to a rise in snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, autoimmune disease, and allergies.

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts, and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, as well as Nestor’s own personal experience and ten years of research, 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.