Breath
The New Science of a Lost Art
Nestor tries everything on himself — and the plainest function of the body turns out to be a control panel. For the blood to release oxygen, it needs CO2: you earn your oxygen by spending it well.
James Nestor spent ten years researching this 2020 book, testing extreme breathing practices — from Tibetan monks to Ukrainian fringe science — on himself, including a self-inflicted ten-day nose-taping experiment. The book argues that most modern humans breathe wrong, and that fixing it (mostly: through the nose, slower, fuller) changes everything from blood pressure to sleep to mood.
A few lines worth keeping:
The perfect breath is this: breathe in for about 5.5 seconds, then exhale for 5.5 seconds.
Appears in think → forward