Book Review: Breath by James Nestor
What’s the Book About?
If you see me for massage or come to my yoga classes than you have heard me talking about the latest health book that is blowing my mind. I’m generally reading three to four books at any given time and not always finishing them. The book Breath by James Nestor was a quick read yet so chock full of amazing facts and anecdotes that I’ve already re-read it once. I keep it close at hand and read snippets all the time and continue to be blown away by the content. I wanted to share some of that content that resonated most with me and that I’ve found to be helpful to clients.
This book is a 10-year labor of love. Nestor is a journalist who has worked with many different magazines and organizations but it was a job for Outdoor magazine covering a deep diving competition in Greece that started his obsession with breath. He began researching and interviewing the top scientists, yogis, ancient texts, health organizations, adventure enthusiasts, breath gurus and teachers in the world and what he discovered was truly fascinating. Below are some key takeaways that made a big impact on me.
Always Breath Through your Nose
This is the main concern of the book. Breathing through your nose, never your mouth. There is fascinating information that he supplies from scientists, dentists and doctors who’ve studied the phenomenon of breathing through the mouth and it’s terrible affects on our health. The author even puts himself through an excruciating experiment at Stanford where he is forced to mouth breath for 3 weeks. The negative affects are astounding, from sleep apnea and insomina to high blood pressure and elevated stress. He explains how mouth breathing can ruin your health and has actually changed the facial structure of humans over the course of the last century making our faces narrower and mouths smaller. The research he provides regarding native and indigenous cultures as well as ancient texts on the importance of nose breathing really makes you stop and think about the incredible wisdom these so called “primitive” cultures contain. Chinese medicine, Ayurveda and countless native peoples have emphasized how important nose breathing is to our overall health. According to Nestor, around 40% of the American population have some form of nasal breathing obstruction and half of those people breath primary through the mouth. I find it fascinating to consider how our health as a nation could be improved with this one seemingly minute but profound change to our breathing.
Breathe Less not More
This seems counterintuitive but research has found that breathing less often is actually highly beneficial to our lungs, nervous system and circulatory system. Nestor dives in to research around asthmatics that looked at how teaching them to breath less often decreased asthma attacks and actually increased oxygen intake. Researchers have also found that the perfect length of breath is 5.5 seconds. Many prayers across religious groups actually have a cadence of about 5.5 seconds when recited out loud in a call and response method. This pace slows down the heart and helps put the body in to the parasympathetic state, the rest and digest aspect of our nervous system. This is an important state of relaxation and healing that we can achieve just by lengthening our breath.
Lengthen the Out Breath, Lengthen your Life
Yogis have been teaching this for 5000 years. Nestor actually talks about the origins of yoga and it’s roots in breath work. Ancient people did not do yoga postures the way we do today. Yoga was primarily about breathing. The Indus-Saravati, one of the most advanced ancient human civilizations, is the origin of what we now call yoga but for them it was all about the breath. They eventually dispersed due to drought and were overtaken by a group called the Aryans from the country we now know of as Iran. They took the tablets of the Indus-Saravati culture and translated the information to their language: Sanskrit. Learning to control the breath, including lengthening the space between inhale and exhale, is fundamental to yoga today. You may do yoga to exercise the body but it’s the pranayama, the breath work of yoga, that can potentially lengthen your life. This idea ties in to the previous theme of breathing less. The longer the space between your inhale and exhale the less you breath. Nestor provides tons of great resources in the back of the book on breathing techniques to try as well as websites to find out more. A favorite of mine that he mentions is breathing in through the nose to a count of 4, holding the breath for 4 seconds, breathing out for 4 seconds and then holding the breath again at the bottom of the inhale for 4 seconds. This creates a 12 second gap between inhales which slows down the nervous system, the heart and quiets the mind. This ratio is endlessly modified in yoga pranayama practices and have incredible effects upon the body depending on what you are trying to achieve be that improving memory or mood or giving your inner organs a massage. The possibilities are literally endless.
This book is filled with so much information and insights that I couldn’t help but focus more on my own breathing and how I could improve my health through the simple exercises recommended in the book. Bringing our awareness to the breath reduces stress and allows us to stay in the present moment in a way that is beneficial to our overall wellness. I highly recommend you check it out!