Booklist Reviews
We all take more than 25,000 breaths each day, usually without giving much thought to the process. Nestor is determined to change that, and he's not above using himself as a test subject: he has his nose taped shut for 10 days to rely on mouth breathing, he experiments with extremely short breaths and extremely long exhales, and he inhales excessive carbon dioxide. He travels to Sweden to interview an expert (and lures him back to the U.S. for a study) and journeys to the tunnels beneath Paris to examine ancient skulls. He digs into ancient tomes, attends breathing classes, and traces the evolution of humanity's sinuses. It turns out that breathing has been touted for centuries as the way to increase life force, calm the mind, energize the body, and reset the immune system. Nestor delves into the science of the mechanics and the art of the techniques designed to bring back human beings' innate breathing abilities. (An appendix details specific instructions.) The result is a surprisingly entertaining study that will help readers tune into and hopefully fine-tune their own respiration. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
BookPage Reviews
Breath
Our obsession with productivity is a defining characteristic of modern society. Smart watches streamline and gamify our workouts and sleep cycles. Smartphones make us permanently available. And of course, social media drives us to put our most personal moments online. In some ways, James Nestor's Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art points out the obvious: This productivity obsession is killing us. Yet, not all hope is lost. Nestor's work reveals the importance of our breath and promises us a changed life if only we'll take a moment to stop, slow down and breathe.
Nestor's obsession with breathing started with a sort of spiritual experience—a conversion moment during a breath workshop that led to lifelong change. "I wasn't conscious of any transformation taking place," he writes, but after a long evening of intentional breathing, "it was as if I'd been taken from one place and deposited somewhere else." However, skeptical of encounters that might be fake or gimmicky, Nestor decided that the experience alone wasn't enough. So he dug deeper.
Breath is the result of Nestor's digging, and it offers more than a simple guide to meditation. He details the history of breathing, from ancient cultures to modern innovations that have changed our facial structures and thus our breathing patterns. Over time, these changes resulted in the loss of much of the breath work practiced by early humans—but it's being rediscovered now, just in time.
From yogis to monks, from voice teachers to athletic trainers, from people with scoliosis to those with asthma, Breath details how these rediscovered breath practices are providing the promise of a better, longer, healthier life. If this all sounds too good to be true, Nestor assures us that breath isn't a golden ticket. It's not a magic cure for everything that ails us, but it is "a way to retain balance in the body." And if that still sounds like a bunch of baloney, go ahead and give it a try. Stop. Slow down. Breathe.
Copyright 2020 BookPage Reviews.Kirkus Reviews
A science journalist takes a measured look at the way we breathe and finds it out of whack. "No matter what we eat, how much we exercise, how resilient our genes are, how skinny or young or wise we are—none of it will matter unless we are breathing correctly." So writes Nestor, who, having suffered breathing problems, followed a doctor's suggestion to take a breathing class. What he found set him on a long chain of discovery into the realms of the most modern science and the most ancient wisdom, leading to this readable treatise on improving the way we breathe. A great many of us could stand to improve. By Nestor's measure, about half of us are "habitual mouthbreathers," which leads to all sorts of structural, physical, and medical consequences. Things should be happening in the nose instead, even if "for the past century, the prevailing belief in Western medicine was that the nose was more or less an ancillary organ." The nose is key, for using it properly can clear up breathing obstructions and militate against the "dysevolution" caused over countless mille nnia by the lowering of the larynx to permit speech. Instead, notes the author, nose breathing widens the airways and makes breathing easier, with success building on success to clear up breathing problems such as the ones he'd been laboring under. In the way of an ancient master of prana—or chi, pneuma, atma, and many another spiritually resonant term—Nestor offers the lessons he learned from pulmonologists and "pulmonauts" alike. These include what he calls "the perfect breath": breathing in deeply through the nose for 5.5 seconds and out for 5.5 seconds, which yields 5.5 breaths a minute. It's free, he counsels happily, "and you can do it wherever you are, whenever you need." A welcome, invigorating user's manual for the respiratory system. Copyright Kirkus 2020 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Reviews
Although we all breathe, there is an art and science to breathing correctly, claims Nestor (
PW Annex Reviews
In this fascinating "scientific adventure," journalist Nestor (