Breath by James Nestor- Illustrated book lessons

BREATHING IS THE LINK BETWEEN MIND AND BODY. This book by James Nestor shows the importance of breathing well. This is a book about how to breathe well and how to improve further with time.

Here are the main highlights from the book.

We should breathe through nose as mouth breathing harms all aspects of your airways. Mouth breathing leads to unhealthy and fragile teeth. It increases blood pressure and stress hormones.

We take 650 million breaths in average lifetime of a human. As yogi Iyenger said, ”Life of a yogi is measured by the number of breaths.” We use only 10% of capacity of our diaphragm during normal breathing. Complete exhalation good for asthma patients.

Chewing hard foods in early life and suckling help in the normal development of airy nasal and sinus cavities. So do not chew only soft foods.

As we evolved our larynx sank deeper into the neck and we became more prone to choking.

Oral retainer devices help in opening the airways and to expand volume of our nasal sinuses. Like Balfor and monobloc retainers.

We should breathe slowly. And we should breathe less. One effective technique is 5.5 breathing. In it we inhale for 5.5 seconds and exhale for 5.5 seconds. This trains our mind to control breathing during stress. We breathe slowly during prayers.

We should in between put stress on breathing to train it. Examples are pranayam which are deep breathing exercises which have multiple health benefits. One special type of this type of breathing is Sudarshan kriya. Others are alternate nasal breathing, kapalbhati etc.

Other example is free divers who hold their breath for extreme durations (upto 12 minutes) by slow practice. Other is inner fire meditation which was started in Tibet by Naropa. In it monks claim that they reset their vagus nerve to generate heat in extreme cold and reduce their metabolism.

Other is Wim Hof method which is a type of tomma or inner fire meditation only. In this you lie on your back. Then you take forced inhalation and forceful exhalation. You do it 30 times then at mid exhale you hold the breath for as long as possible. Then you inhale fully and hold breath for 15 seconds. This helps you fight extreme cold environment.

One extreme form is holotropic breathing which involve vigorous breathing and lasts for 3 hours.

Carbon dioxide is an important chemoreceptor stimulator and it can create panic attacks if given by inhalation. Its role has been studied in various psychiatric disorders especially anxiety.

So the correct breathing looks like this.

breathe through nose. Breathe less. Hold breath intermittently. Use diaphragm capacity. Exhale fully. Chew hard foods.

And then put stress on your respiratory system sometimes by pranayam, tomma, holotropic breathing.