Breath by James Nestor - a book review

James Nestor Breath   

We've been reading Breath by James Nestor and we love it. Here’s our chat https://youtu.be/OumUqHgqh-c

We love breathing. There’s no life without breath. It’s interesting to pay attention to the way we breathe. In this book you can learn how to breathe properly; the way it’s most beneficial for your health and well being.

Breathing is such an important part of yoga. It was interesting to delve into breathing exercises and how to nose breathe.

James and his friend did an experiment and that's the first part of the book. His experiment started with terrible pain and trauma almost to do ten days breathing through the mouth. They had stuff poked up his nose and then taped shut so there's no way they could breathe that way. So day and night, showers, eating anything always breathing through the mouth.

Then it was 10 days breathing through the nose. They took all kinds of measurements every single day;  blood pressure, heart rate, how much they slept, how much snoring they did. They measured proteins and minerals to check up on their metabolism. They did exercise like cycling every day, ate the same meal every day. Everything was exactly the same the 10 days they were breathing through the mouth.

Then they replicated the same 10 days breathing through the nose and this time they actually taped their mouths shut.

So with mouth breathing all their vital statistics deteriorated.  They didn't feel very well. They didn't sleep very well, they started experiencing sleep apnea and their snoring was terrible. They were getting headaches, their blood pressure was rising as was their pulse. The put on weight.

So when they went to breathing through the nose their fitness improved by 10 percent they went further and felt better. All the problems of the first 10 days disappeared.

In the second half of the book James Nestor goes through chapter by chapter in looking at the different aspects of breathing though the nose.

He covers whether you should be breathing slow or fast,  the shape of the mouth and how you chew your food and how that affects your ability to breathe. How we've got a bigger brain and it's taking a bit up a bit more space so it's it's reduced the amount of capillaries and things in in your nose.

However it seems that it's all reversible and you can start benefiting from nose breathing straight away. So if you want to get into chewing or go and get your teeth straightened or your mouth broadened it's not too late as your jaw keeps growing right through to old age.

As yogis we're pretty enthusiastic about breathing. It’s good to get the research behind nose breathing from a scientific and biological point of view.

You know they've found that maybe five and a half breaths a minute is a great timing. It’s pretty slow for most of us. But the optimal breathing rate is around five and a half breaths a minute.

Learning to hold your breath is another practical skill. We're over oxygenated because we're breathing too much. Our system actually needs that carbon dioxide and there's a whole lot of health benefits apparently from that too.

Later in the year we're going to do a Thankful Thursday about setting up your 5 a.m routine. This can include activating your system so really pumping the breath in and out. It’s quite um warming and enlivening for the body.

Also check out Breath of Fire it’s great for winter and and very enlivening. Here’s our version on our YouTube channel

https://youtu.be/w9_1jI1dOZo

So back to James Nestor and his book! Go check it out he writes in a really engaging manner so if you've been inspired definitely check out it out.

Here’s some more clips to help you breathe well

Pranayama and the breath

https://youtu.be/8rmn6xVmQaY

Meditation and Breath Work

https://youtu.be/9YogP5iYVGE

Please like, share and comment so others can find these YouTube clips too.

Breathe well, go well.

Namaste.