Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

Journalist James Nestor's argument: humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, and most modern health complaints — from snoring and sleep apnea to anxiety and asthma — track back to that loss. Breath is his investigation into what changed and how to reverse it.

Nestor reports across thousands of years of medical texts and recent research in pulmonology, biochemistry, and human physiology, alongside ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo. He underwent a Stanford University experiment in which his nostrils were taped shut for ten days, then unblocked, to test the effects of mouth-breathing versus nasal breathing on the body. The book argues for the primacy of the nose, the slow exhale, breathing less rather than more, and the cultivated practice of breath-holding. Spent eighteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, won Best General Nonfiction Book of 2020 from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and was a finalist for the Royal Society Science Book Prize.

Details

• Author: James Nestor
• Publisher: Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
• Published: May 2020
• Pages: 304

About the Author

James Nestor

American author and science journalist whose work has appeared in Scientific American, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Outside, and on NPR. His first book, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves, was a finalist for the PEN American Center Best Sports Book of the Year and an Amazon Best Science Book of the Year. Breath has sold over three million copies and been translated into more than forty-four languages. Nestor's collaboration with the Global Classroom — a partnership with the World Health Organization, supported by UNICEF — teaches breathing techniques to schoolchildren around the world. He lives in San Francisco.