Breath: Improve your health and wellbeing by discovering the lost art of breathing

Must read!!

Understood more about the power of breath. For anyone who want to turn their life around. Bit of a drag though at times.

"Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art" is part historical narrative, part journal of the author’s personal health exploration, and part guidebook to breathing techniques. While the topic might seem mundane, this combination, along with the book’s brevity, makes it an easy and interesting read. For me, the historical narrative was the most captivating part. Nestor peppers the book with fascinating stories, including how human evolution — becoming brainier, learning to speak and to cook — actually impaired our ability to breathe properly. He discusses ancient Indian yogis, the perfect teeth of Native Americans, the use of breathing techniques on Civil War battlefields, and how tough chewing gum can help with breathing. The book is filled with various breathing techniques and the science behind aerobic and anaerobic respiration. While this information can be quickly found online, Nestor provides valuable context for these different methods (he also includes a helpful appendix at the end). However, this book shouldn't be used for self-medicating various ailments. Some of the breathing techniques contradict each other, and there are clear risks to following them without medical supervision. Nestor also describes some of his personal experiments in the book. These sections are detailed and repetitive, which can drag. Nonetheless, his overall exploration of the subject still makes the book worthwhile. The best tip in the book: The perfect breath is an inhalation for about 5.5 seconds, followed by an exhalation for 5.5 seconds, which is about 5.5 breaths per minute. And yes, if you're interested, you will likely take 670 million breaths in your lifetime! Pros: Interesting exploration of a seemingly ordinary topic, historical anecdotes Cons: The description of his personal experiments

Every page is worth its weight in gold. Life changer. Perspective changer book. It’s not about breathing, it’s about your life and wellness.

Must read book for everyone . Must means must. Great insight into breathing . Awesome stuff.

Very rare book to be read. Excellent information which couldn't be found anywhere about breathe

Reading with holding my breath

Really helpful tips. Loved the way author has researched all the aspects of breathing and where we are going wrong in today's modern world. Breath Prana is indeed an important aspect of our life. I truly believe that retraining it can reverse most of the health issues

Insightful!

This is quite a good book. I really enjoyed it. Like Mike Pollan, who wrote the excellent "How to Change Your Mind", the author travels the world while researching the book to try things out for himself. And then writes about his experiences in an engaging way. Some sticklers may take issue with how he writes about the finer points of Tibetan breathing techniques. I'm not sure if there will ever be universal agreement about their history and practice, but the author makes clear that he is really novice who is telling us an often fascinating story about his journey of discovery about breathing. The strength of the book is how he learns that there are so many (to me, suprising) things about breathing that are critically important for our health. For example, he talks about how many modern maladies like asthma, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and even psoriasis could either be reduced or reversed simply by changing the way we inhale and exhale. He talks about how the shape of our months and face have changed over the past 300 years, and how this has led to so many breathing and health issues (including sleep apnea which affects so many adults now). It has to do with our food, and how it's so much easier to chew. He talks about the adverse affects of mouth breathing (which 80% of us do) and how, in an experiment, his health rebounded when he trained himself to only breath through his nose. There is also a lot of good information about breathing exercises, how they're done, why we think they work; and how this information has been ignored, for the most part, by modern medicine. If you're stressed, if you snore, if you have sleep apnea, if you have other respiratory issues, or if you know people who suffer from these (or Covid-19 breathing issues) ... then this book might be an eye opener. It's both informative, and quite readable and engaging like a great magazine article. And offers simple and easy ways for you to feel better and healthier.

A great book, very informative and a must for people who have breathing difficulties to help with gaining more control of their breathing

Book Recommendation - A New York Times bestseller Author: James Nestor Title: Breath – The New Science of a Lost Art Published by Riverhead Books, New York, 2020 The book is available in most public libraries including the Dauphin County and Cumberland County Library Systems. The cost of the hard cover book from Amazon is $18.37. A paper back version and a summary are also available. The book is also available in E book and audio book formats. The book has been placed on the purchase request list for the Bethany Village Library. Quotes from the book cover pages follow: “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 and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological functions on its head. You will never breath the same again.” Dr. Stephen Park Albert Einstein College of Medicine: “An eye opening, epic journey of human devolution that explains why so many of us are sick and tired. A must-read book that exposes what our health care system doesn’t see.” Joshua Foer, New York Times “A transformative book that changes how you think about your body and mind.” Comments by Bethany resident Charley Sproule: I have a lifelong snoring problem. Over the years I have tried a variety of methods to solve the problem. One helpful action is avoiding sleeping on my back, but this does not eliminate my snoring. Another attempt was using a device to open my nostrils. You tape it on to the outside of your nose. For me, the only result was some lost skin when I remove it in the morning. A medical specialist recommended surgery to remove some loose flesh in the back of my throat. I decided that was too invasive and did not schedule the surgery. The book Breath recommends another possible solution which is a method for keeping your mouth closed when sleeping. So far, the method has been working for me. The book contains step by step instructions on exercises to improve breathing, lung capacity and overall health. Readers who participate in yoga are likely familiar with alternate nostril breathing. A variety of other techniques are described in the book. For example, box breathing is used by Navy seals in tense situations. The book provides links to video instructions on some of the recommended techniques. The history of breathing practice described in the book includes many cultures and is fascinating and informative. Some divers have learned how to hold their breath for twelve minutes. Some runners have broken their records after using the techniques described in the book. A variety of health problems addressed by the techniques are described in the book. Cautions and limitations are also discussed.

Best book regarding the topic