Reading Breath

Proof of Purchase.

We usually think of evolution as progressive.  Human beings today are superior to pre-humans a million years ago because we think deeper faster and make more clever use of our opposable thumbs.  We improve as a species through time.  That sounds comforting but, in fact, it is not true.

We no longer breathe as well as we used to.  Our bodies evolved in “dysevolution.”  Our body parts frequently ache and hurt.  We develop osteoporosis.  Our teeth come in crooked and our jaws are often misaligned.  In fact, for the past million years our nostrils have greatly contracted.  We now have sleep apnea, snoring, and all manner of throat inflammations.  Our ancestors may have lived shorter lives but they were healthier than we are in one basic respect.  They breathed better.  Today human beings have dysevolved into “the worst breathers in the animal kingdom.”

That’s how James Nestor opens his 2020 book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art.  He then proceeds to tell the reader why breathing through our mouths is meant only as a back-up system to the nose.  Breathing through your mouth has all sorts of detrimental effects on the body.  It dehydrates the body much faster.  The sleep apnea from mouth breathing causes numerous problems.  Mouth breathing can even help trigger ADHD. 

Our nose is rather neglected in most accounts of human evolution but it is highly evolved.  The right nostril elevates your heart rate and consequently your blood pressure among many other effects.  You become more animated.  The left nostril relaxes your heart rate and produces a more calming effect on the body.  Breathing through your nostrils allows your body of absorb 18 percent more oxygen than through your mouth among many other positive effects.

Breath emphasizes the importance of incorporating your diaphragm more into your breathing, especially when you exhale to empty your lungs for the next breath.  Breathing too fast reduces carbon dioxide which is actually bad for your body.  You should exhale slowly to allow for a sufficient carbon dioxide level.  As Nestor is told by a Yale professor:

“Carbon dioxide is the chief hormone of the entire body; it is the only one that is produced by every tissue and that probably acts on every organ.  Carbon dioxide is, in fact, a more fundamental component of living matter than is oxygen.” (page 78)

Slow breathing is the key to healthier carbon dioxide levels.  It is even more important to breathe less.  “The key to optimum breathing, and all the health, endurance, and longevity benefits that come with it, is to practice fewer inhales and exhales in a smaller volume.  To breathe, but to breathe less.”  (page 104)

Even athletes benefit from breathing this way as a “practice” each day.  According to Nestor, though a challenge, many higher performance athletes have learned to run and workout breathing only through their noses.  In addition to more fully oxygenating their blood, it can reduce hypertension and headaches and help manage a myriad of breathing illnesses.

“…the optimum amount of air when should take in at rest per minute is 5.5 liters.  The optimum breathing rate is about 5.5 breaths per minute.  That’s 5.5-second inhales and 5.5-second exhales.  This is the perfect breath.

“Asthmatics, emphysemics, Olympians, and almost anyone, anywhere, can benefit from breathing this way for even a few minutes a day, much longer if possible: to inhale and exhale in a way that feeds our bodies just the right amount of air, at just the right time, to perform at peak capacity.  To just keep breathing, less.” (page 104)

See a couple of excellent YouTube interviews with Nestor here and here.

One of the book’s most interesting claims pertains to some archaeology I have not noticed before.  Virtually every piece of prehistoric human jaw ever unearthed has been sturdy and its teeth are perfectly aligned.  The reason our ancestors did not have crooked teeth is because they chewed far more often and more vigorously than we do today.  

By chewing less our mouths and jaw lines have altered.  Surprisingly, 90 percent of the evolved obstruction of the airway occurs because bodily changes from eating cooked foods and chewing less.  Nestor points out that “sleep apnea, snoring, asthma, ADHA are all linked to obstruction in the mouth.” (page 120)

“…our tongues don’t fit properly in out too-small mouths.  Having nowhere else to go, the tongue falls back into the throat, creating a mild suffocation.  At night, we choke and cough, attempting to push air in and out the obstructed airway.  This, of course, is sleep apnea, and a quarter of Americans suffer from it.” (page128)

Chewing vigorously can actually realign your jaws, widens your palette, and opens up the airway enough to where the “mild suffocation on your own tongue” side-effect vanishes.  Essentially, chewing is like giving yourself an airway adjustment.  “Unlike other bones in the body, the bone that makes up the center of the face, called the maxilla, is made of a membrane bone that’s highly plastic.  The maxilla can remodel and grow more dense into your 70’s, and likely longer…And the way we produce and signal stem cells to build more maxilla bone in the face is by engaging in masseter – by clamping down on the back molars over and over.” (page 131) 

Ideal breathing is, on occasion, not preferred.  Sometimes heavy breathing is a beneficial practice.  Various rapid breathing techniques are known to have therapeutic value.  Depression, arthritis, psoriasis, inflammation can all be reduced by engaging in periods of “over breathing.”  Nestor discusses a few such techniques, which he does throughout the book on whatever the topic might be, and how these offer beneficial effects. 

Also, sometimes holding your breath has some value.  This goes back to ancient Hindu breathing techniques and is used today by deep water divers who swim without oxygen tanks.  Holding your breath heightens your awareness and allows for more focused attention, for example.

In fact, regular breathing exercises have been a tradition for at least the last 3,000 years as a religious technique and medicinal skill.  The yogic discipline of pranajama is one such practice that I learned in India long ago and still practice from time to time today.  According to Nestor, we should stop taking our breathing for granted and pay much more attention to it.  We will live healthier lives if we do.

Obviously, it takes more than just breathing.  You still have to eat well, exercise and reduce toxins. Nevertheless, “Breathing is a key input.  From what I’ve learned in the past decade, that 30 pounds of air that passes through out lungs every day and that 1.7 pounds of oxygen our cells consume is as important as what we eat or how much we exercise.  Breathing is the missing pillar of health.” (page 206)

By breathing in oxygen through our nose, exhaling carbon dioxide properly, chewing much more, and practicing breathing exercises we can all be healthier.  This is based on science that actually has been around for several decades. The most surprising thing about reading Breath is that everything in it has been scientifically proven long ago, and proven by certain cultures long before that. 

I am shocked at my own inattention to breathing now that it has been pointed out so well to me.  By simple coincidence, I ordinarily breathe at close to the “best” rate already.  It will take very little adjustment for me to obtain this, something to which I will now commit myself.  I am certainly going to start chewing gum for the first time in decades again, for example.  I’m only 61, I still have time to impact my maxilla.  

Nestor’s book is sensational not because it offers insight on something new.  Rather, the insights are so ordinary, so fundamental and so accessible that anyone can put them into practice.  This is truly “a lost art.”  No matter who you are, you can learn how to breathe better.  And that is likely the best (and simplest) single thing you can do for your health. 

Late Note:  By coincidence, James Nestor wrote an article in The Guardian on the subject of slow breathing.  It was published the day after this post.