Even before the pandemic, we weren’t taking full advantage of all the benefits of good respiration. Here’s a checklist to make every breath count.

By Adam Bluestein

Journalist James Nestor once sought out the breath-holding secrets of free divers, some of whom can stay beneath the surface of the ocean for 10 minutes or more on a single gulp of air. In his latest book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art (Riverhead, $28), he broadens his lens, examining how the way we breathe can harm us, heal us, and help us live happier lives.

He finds striking confirmation for the benefits of ancient breathwork practices in modern scientific research and describes how rapid evolutionary changes in the human skull, exacerbated by a shift to refined foods, have hampered our ability to breathe properly—and given us crooked teeth. He meets “pulmonauts,” explorers of the breath, who have developed techniques to cure chronic diseases and enable astounding athletic performances. He experiments on himself, too. Plugging his nostrils for 10 days straight, he experiences the frightening physiological and mental effects of mouth breathing, and by training himself to breathe properly, he finds relief from his recurring bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis. He spoke with us about his exploration of breath and its key takeaways—including his cure for snoring.

In your book, you make the case that breathing is, basically, really powerful medicine. So why don’t more doctors prescribe breathing exercises?

This stuff has fallen through the cracks for so long. My father-in-law has been a pulmonologist for 40 years and was the CEO of a huge health-care system. And I would say about 70 percent of the research I was finding he had never heard of, and now he’s completely [angry]. There are all these silos of medicine, and even a rhinologist, they’re just concerned that you’re breathing through the nose, but they’re not looking at how often you’re breathing or diaphragmatic movement, because that’s not their jam. But what happens in one organ affects what’s happening in the others, which is something that a lot of doctors acknowledge, but if you’re seeing 15 patients an hour for about five minutes each, you don’t have time to sit them down and teach them how to breathe properly.

You found substantial scientific backing for the benefits of an array of ancient spiritual practices involving the breath. Was that surprising?

I knew that a lot of people would [doubt] this stuff. But if you look at just alternate-nostril breathing [called nadi shodhana], there are 20 years of studies, and some of these studies have been done at top institutions, clearly showing that your body will react differently and your brain will function differently depending on which nostril you’re breathing through. If you’re looking at other systems, like qi gong, or what we in the Western world call prayer, they are all essentially paced breathing. They’re so similar because they’re doing the same thing and having the same benefits.

A big part of your book involved experimenting on yourself. How did you stop snoring? Asking for a friend.

When I first heard about sleep taping, it sounded completely sketchy to me, but there are tons of case studies. I want to be clear this doesn’t work for everyone. But it’s free, so there’s not a lot to lose. All you need is a teeny piece of tape with a very light adhesive, about the size of a postage stamp, to keep your mouth closed through the night. It sucks for the first few days, but now that I’ve been doing it for a couple of years, I can’t imagine not doing it every night. If you think about the physics, it makes sense. If your mouth is open, your tongue is more apt to go in the back of your throat.

You show how better breathing can help improve conditions ranging from sleep apnea to emphysema to scoliosis. Can breathing also alter the way we think and feel, too?

Just breathing at different rates and through your nose can organize activity in the emotional centers and the memory centers of your brain. We know that you’re able to remember better if you’re breathing through your nose at a certain pace. And we know that you’re able to help connect the emotional centers with other areas of your brain, so you can make more conscious and reasoned decisions when you’re stressed. It’s fascinating to me, even though it shouldn’t be unexpected, that how you breathe is affecting your brain chemistry every second of every day.

Can you sum up the takeaway of your book in a sentence or two?

Breathe through your nose, all the time. Learn to take fewer inhales
and exhales, but deeper and lighter and more slowly. Breathe, but breathe less.

ON THE NOSE

Breathing through your nose has many benefits, including increasing intake of nitric oxide, a miracle molecule that opens the blood vessels, improves immune function, enhances fat loss, and can boost mood and sexual function. (Viagra works by elevating nitric oxide levels in the body.) If you are one of the roughly 40 percent of people suffering from some kind of chronic nasal obstruction that makes breathing through one or both nostrils difficult, it’s worth the effort to get unclogged. Try applying a dab of eucalyptus oil under your nose or use a neti pot to flush one nostril at a time with a solution of non-iodized salt and warm distilled water. A regular practice of the yoga technique called nadi shodhana, or alternate nostril breathing (see a demonstration on James Nestor’s website, mrjamesnestor.com), not only keeps nasal passages clear but also helps balance the right nostril, which activates the “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous system, and the left, which is connected to the calming parasympathetic nervous system.

THE OXYGEN MYTH

We generally use only about a quarter of all the oxygen we inhale;

the rest we breathe back out, because our cells don’t absorb it. For a healthy body at a normal altitude, inhaling pure oxygen has no benefit. (Which is bad news for all those oxygen bars.) What does help our tissues and organs work better are healthy levels of carbon dioxide, a “waste product” of respiration that allows cells to pull oxygen from circulating hemoglobin and also plays a key role in metabolism—for every 10 pounds of fat lost in our bodies, eight and a half pounds comes out through the lungs, mainly as carbon dioxide mixed with water vapor. To keep carbon dioxide and oxygen balanced, just take fewer, longer breaths. A study at the University of Pavia in Italy found that blood flow to the brain increased and the heart, circulation, and nervous systems functioned most efficiently when participants inhaled and exhaled at a rate of about 5.5 seconds each—the time it takes to chant the Buddhist mantra Om Mani Padme Hum—about 5.5 breaths per minute. 

BREATHING LESSONS

Pranayama, “control of the life force,” is the branch of yoga that focuses specifically on breathwork. B.K.S. Iyengar’s classic book, Light on Yoga, describes hundreds of exercises for manipulating the breath and the mind.

The Wim Hof Method. On his website, wimhofmethod.com, the Dutch extreme athlete nicknamed “The Iceman” teaches the practices that have allowed him to control his breath, heart rate, and blood circulation through such challenges as standing in an ice-cube-filled container for nearly two hours and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts.

Tummo breathing is an ancient meditation technique practiced by Tibetan monks that uses breathing and visualization to enter a deep state of meditation and increase “inner fire.” Search the term on YouTube for a demonstration.

The Breathing Class. Belisa Vranich, a clinical psychologist and fitness expert, teaches breathing methods borrowed from free diving, jujitsu, vocal training, and yoga to increase strength and endurance, reduce stress and pain, and treat PTSD. Private sessions and group workshops (currently online) are at thebreathingclass.com.

Sudarshan Kriya is a hard-core yogic breathing practice that incorporates breath restriction (ujjayi breathing), rapid forceful exhalations, chanting the mantra Om, and rhythmic cyclical breathing. It can relieve stress, anxiety, and depression. The nonprofit Art of Living Foundation offers workshops to guide new students through the practice at artofliving.org.

Developed by Ukrainian physician Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko in the 1950s, the Buteyko Method is an arsenal of techniques emphasizing nasal breathing and increasing the time between inhalations and exhalations, aka breath holding. The Buteyko Method has been used to treat asthma in adults and children and has been shown to help with stress and anxiety, ADHD, and disordered breathing during sleep. Access live online clinics with Buteyko instructor and author Patrick McKeown at buteykoclinic.com or search his TedX talk on YouTube.

THREE ANYTIME EXERCISES FOR BETTER BREATHING

1. Box breath
To stay calm and focused in tense situations, try six rounds or more of box breathing. Inhale to a count of 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4. Repeat.

2. Humming 
Humming increases the release of nitric oxide in the nasal passages 15-fold. Breathing normally through the nose and humming any song or sound for five minutes a day can have a potent effect.

3. Chew Gum
Chewing gum, especially harder varieties like Falim, a Turkish brand, or mastic gum, from a Mediterranean evergreen shrub, can help strengthen the jaw, building new bone in the face and opening airways.

BREATHING BY THE NUMBERS

20,000 - average number of breaths we take each day

2,000 - gallons of air we breathe each day

50 - percentage of mouth breathers in population

30 - pounds of air molecules we inhale and exhale every day

57 - percentage of U.S. men who snore

40 - percentage of U.S. women who snore

24 - percentage of men with sleep apnea

9 - percentage of women with sleep apnea

10 - percentage of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

8 - percentage of people with moderate to severe asthma

12 - percentage of lung capacity we lose by the age of 50

90 - Percentage of people who have crooked teeth (a result of mouths getting smaller in the last few hundred years)

20 - percentage of additional oxygen you get from breathing through your nose instead of your mouth

5.5 seconds - optimal length of an inhale or exhale, equaling about 5.5 breaths a minute

15 - points that blood pressure can drop when you breathe at this pace

24 minutes, 3 seconds - World record for the longest breath held, by Aleix Segura Vendrell