I recently read the book Breath. Some of the ideas were very interesting.
Most of us don't pay attention to our breathing, even though we take somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 breaths per day, unless something is wrong, like episodes of asthma, snoring, or persistent sinus infections.
James Nestor, a science journalist, first noticed this when he repeatedly developed pneumonia and bronchitis.
"My doctor would simply prescribe an antibiotic or bronchodilator and send me on my way. This continued for years and years. I spoke with a different doctor, who advised me to take a breathwork class and that I might be breathing inappropriately."
After trying it, Nestor was surprised to discover that his breathing problems had vanished.
In Nestor's book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, he discovered a lot of information that connected breathing problems to conditions like crooked teeth, sleep apnea, hypertension, and ADHD. "It doesn't matter if you maintain a healthy diet, exercise routine, and sleep schedule. If your breathing is problematic, you will never be healthy," he asserts, "and the vast majority of us have dysfunctional breathing."
In Breath, author Nestor takes readers on a fascinating tour of the world of breathing and explains how altering our breathing patterns can benefit everyone's health.
How improved breathing and improved health and performance are related
Here were four key takeaways from his book:
1. We have developed into poor breathers
Snoring and asthma are relatively recent occurrences that are specific to modern humans. This is a result of evolutionary adaptations that have altered our physiology over time and reduced our ability to breathe effectively. Humans were able to consume more calories, which went toward developing larger brains, as we switched from a diet of soft, cooked, and tenderised food to one of raw meat and plants. As the human brain became larger inside the skull, it compelled the nose and mouth to close, weakening the jaw and constricting the airways.
This was one of Nestor's most startling finds during his research. "I thought evolution was always associated with advancement. We are consistently getting better, stronger, and taller. However, this isn't the case, as you can tell by looking at the typical mouth. Because of our small mouths, which also restrict our ability to breathe, our teeth tend to erupt unevenly. Even if we wanted to breathe normally, it would be difficult for most of us to do so because of how drastically our faces have changed.
2. Best nose breathing
In Breath, Nestor begs a Stanford surgeon to shut his nose for 10 days so he can only breathe via his mouth, turning him into his own test subject. Nestor monitored his health indicators during the experiment and saw changes in his blood pressure, pulse rate, snoring, and stress hormones. When the plugs were taken out and Nestor could once more breathe through his nose, all of these measures improved over the course of the following 10 days.
Nasal breathing makes it possible for our bodies to handle air more effectively by warming, moistening, and filtering the air we breathe. Additionally, forcing the airways to open when breathing via the nose makes it simpler to inhale more air.
Nestor emphasises that the most crucial modification to make to your breathing after reading the book is this one.
"More than 60 per cent of people use their mouths to breathe while they are asleep. Our health will be severely harmed by this," he claims. To train yourself to breathe via your nose, he advises placing a piece of tape over your lips for 10 minutes each day, working your way up to an hour, and then wearing the tape at night.
Some people dramatically alter their health by switching to nasal breathing, according to Nestor. We are the only animals that consistently breathe via the lips, and it is seriously harming us.
3. Drink less air
Despite the fact that the average person breathes between 12 and 20 times per minute, Nestor's research demonstrates that this is still well beyond the ideal rate. The balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood can be upset by rapid breathing. Inhaling extra air causes carbon dioxide levels to rise, which slows the flow of oxygenated blood to our muscles, tissues, and organs. Nestor compares breathing to rowing a boat in the book: "While many short, awkward strokes will get you where you're going, the efficiency and speed of fewer, longer strokes is unmatched."
Nestor discovered that the Buddhist chants, Catholic prayer cycles, Hindi yoga chants, and other prayers from Taoist, Native American, and African cultures all followed the same pattern while examining various religions and traditions: Breathe in for 5.5 seconds and out for 5.5 seconds, averaging 5.5 breaths per minute and around 5.5 litres of air in total. This is what Nestor refers to as "perfect breathing," and you can practice it at any moment.
According to Nestor, when you breathe in that rhythm, your heart rate and respiratory rate synchronise, your blood pressure frequently drops, you feel incredibly peaceful, and your brain receives more oxygen. "Every cell in your body can now take in oxygen more readily. In terms of biology, this is how our bodies function at their peak performance."
4. At times, breathing more is okay
Even while you should generally be breathing softly, it can be good to periodically overbreathe. Rapid breathing has been used throughout history to educate the body to react more effectively to stress (Tibetan Buddhists refer to it as Tummo, or "inner fire" breathing ).
The sympathetic nervous system, which sets off our fight-or-flight response, is activated by this sort of breathing.
We learn to deliberately control and switch off tension to feel calmer in daily life by purposefully producing this sensation. Conscious heavy breathing helps us to be the pilots — not the passengers — of our autonomic nervous systems and our bodies, as Nestor puts it.
Hopefully these tips get you thinking. They certainly got me thinking and I am trying to implement some of these things myself. For more information like this and other tips visit www.everardpilates.com/book to get my free book Get to the Line in the Best Shape Possible.
