Breath
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Description
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020
Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR
“A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love
No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly.
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.
Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.
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 function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.
Book Information
Posts
Pleasant, easy read overall. The book included many interesting stories and facets that piqued my interest, whether to try and experiment or to deepen my understanding. Unfortunately, most of the time the book was too shallow to satisfy the curiosity it caused and adequately explain what it was mentioning. Instead of going more in depth at times, providing more contextualisation, more detailed assessment, more reflection, a large portion was taken up by anecdotal storytelling. This was perfectly fine at the beginning but incredibly frustrating as the book went on. The duality and lack of (?) balance reminded me a bit about having an interesting, if casual, conversation at a dinner party but every time it gets interesting, some health bro keeps butting in. I’m glad I read it. I picked out some things to maybe follow up on and try just for fun. I would hesitate to recommend the whole book and am unlikely to read it again.
1.5/5.0 I absolutely love the cover but I didn't like the book at all and I am highly disappointed as the premise soounded great. I found the story mostly boring and not entertaining or even thrilling at all. I didn't care for the characters either, maybe the different pov's made this difficult, I don't know.
Description
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020
Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR
“A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love
No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly.
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.
Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.
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 function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.
Book Information
Posts
Pleasant, easy read overall. The book included many interesting stories and facets that piqued my interest, whether to try and experiment or to deepen my understanding. Unfortunately, most of the time the book was too shallow to satisfy the curiosity it caused and adequately explain what it was mentioning. Instead of going more in depth at times, providing more contextualisation, more detailed assessment, more reflection, a large portion was taken up by anecdotal storytelling. This was perfectly fine at the beginning but incredibly frustrating as the book went on. The duality and lack of (?) balance reminded me a bit about having an interesting, if casual, conversation at a dinner party but every time it gets interesting, some health bro keeps butting in. I’m glad I read it. I picked out some things to maybe follow up on and try just for fun. I would hesitate to recommend the whole book and am unlikely to read it again.
1.5/5.0 I absolutely love the cover but I didn't like the book at all and I am highly disappointed as the premise soounded great. I found the story mostly boring and not entertaining or even thrilling at all. I didn't care for the characters either, maybe the different pov's made this difficult, I don't know.