The Importance of Proper Breathing: Insights from James Nestor’s Book

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We rarely pay attention to our breath, even though it is the most important characteristic of life that distinguishes between death and life. This happens because maybe breathing is a reflex action so you don’t need to think about it too much, because we already automatically breathe 24 hours a day every day until we finally die.

The fact is that of the three main materials that enter our bodies, it is air that has the largest portion. We consume 1 to 2 kg of food every day, we consume 2 to 3 liters of liquid every day, and we consume 10 to 20 kg of air every day. But the topics that we always think about, that we always care about are healthy foods or drinks. Surprisingly we don’t really care about breathing or healthy air.

Now, this theme regarding breathing is reviewed very well and deeply in a book entitled Breath – How to Breathe Properly written by James Nestor which contains in-depth research on breathing and the author’s practice of having long problems with breathing accompanied by quite extreme experiments that he do.

In this book it is explained that it doesn’t matter what you eat, how much you exercise, however your body shape is all useless if you don’t breathe properly.

According to James Nestor, breathing is not something new, in various cultures how to breathe properly has been studied thousands of years ago, but this topic is often forgotten. So the big question is how to breathe properly and healthily? The answer is super simple, breathe only using your nose. From the research conducted, it turns out that not everyone breathes through the nose. Even 90% of us are unconscious, and too often breathe through our mouths.

An interesting fact is that long-lived animals have slow heart rates, this is associated with a slower respiratory rate in the animal world where respiration and life span are in proportion. Elephants are one of the longest living animals, they only take 4 to 5 breaths per minute, similarly alligators only take one breath per minute, in comparison, dogs, cats and mice take more breaths per minute then they live much shorter lives than elephants and alligators. Humans are between elephants or alligators and cats or dogs for breath speed during life.

Another benefit of the art of correct breathing is that it can help a person deal with anxiety. People who have panic disorder, have low carbon dioxide levels and a much greater fear of holding their breath, in order to avoid another attack, they breathe too much and eventually become very sensitive to carbon dioxide and panic if they feel this increase in gas. They are anxious because they are over-breathing, conversely, over-breathing because they are anxious. Nothing is more important to our health than breathing. This exercise can improve the quality of life and prevent serious health problems in the future

James linked this habit of breathing through the mouth with the evolution of humans who have an increasingly elongated and smaller jaw structure due to eating and chewing habits that have changed over time. In fact, as written in the book, humans are a species that has a messy arrangement even our ancestors, early humans actually had a neat tooth structure. Likewise with animals that do not have ragged teeth like humans, even though in ancient times or in the animal world there were no dentists or braces fitters.

Breathing from the mouth is a way to consume air which is very bad and detrimental to health. In animals if they breathe through their mouths then it is a sign of a condition that is not good, such as a dog that is hot or who is sick, even a horse that runs fast does not breathe through its mouth.

In his book, James volunteered for research held at Stanford University’s sinus center, he wanted to know what would happen to his body if he simply breathed through his mouth. Experiments that James did with time for 10 days, what happened to him was that his blood pressure rose 20 points on the first day, besides that James, who at first was not a snorer but then he started snoring for four hours a night. James also has sleep apnea or a sleep disorder that causes a person’s breathing to stop several times during sleep. Another impact, the oxygen level in James’ blood becomes 90%, even though in normal human conditions it should be between 95% -100%. This result is not accidental, his friend who also volunteered in this experiment, experienced the same thing. After 10 days of experimenting with mouth breathing, he then breathed through his nose again, James felt normal again, then he decided to cover his mouth with tape while sleeping so he could breathe only through his nose.

2023-08-28 20:42:33
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