This Book Explained Why You're Breathing Wrong

Pomp's Notes on Breath by James Nestor

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To investors,

I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was Breath by James Nestor. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday morning.

Book’s main argument:

This book argues that the importance of breathing - how we do it, when we do it, and how often we do it - is misunderstood by medical professionals and the average citizen. Although the book lays out the modern argument for the “correct” way to breathe, author James Nestor highlights the fact that many of the ideas are rooted in ancient discoveries. After reading this book, you will understand how you can become healthier, look younger, and live longer by breathing better.

6 Big Ideas:

💡 Idea #1 — Breathing is an essential function of the body, and it drives a large portion of our health, but medical professionals treat it as an after-thought. It will be your responsibility to learn the importance of breathing and how to do it properly. Nestor writes:

To get a sense of how breathing is regarded by modern medical professionals, think back to your last check-up. Chances are your doctor took your blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, then placed a stethoscope to your chest to assess the health of your heart and lungs.

But she likely never checked your respiratory rate. She never checked the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your bloodstream. How you breathe and the quality of each breath were not on the menu.

The good news is that you can significantly improve your life if you master the art of breathing:

On a more inspiring note, some of these researchers were also showing that many modern maladies - asthma, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, psoriasis and more - could either be reduced or reversed simply by changing the way we inhale and exhale.

💡 Idea #2 — Many modern humans have evolved to breathe through their mouths. These mouthbreathers are doing more harm than good. The science is overwhelming that you should always breathe through your nose. Nestor explains how people have known this for hundreds, if not thousands, of years:

The Native Americans explained to Catlin that breath inhaled through the mouth sapped the body of strength, deformed the face, and caused stress and disease. On the other hand, breath inhaled through the nose kept the body strong, made the face beautiful, and prevented disease.

Nose breathing is superior due to nitric oxide levels, which helps the body function properly. Nestor writes:

“The health benefits of nose breathing are undeniable.” One of the many benefits is that the sinuses release a huge boost of nitric oxide, a molecule that plays an essential role in increasing circulation and delivering oxygen into cells. Immune function, weight, circulation, mood, and sexual function can all be heavily influenced by the amount of nitric oxide in the body.

Nasal breathing alone can boost nitric oxide sixfold, which is one of the reasons we can absorb that 18% more oxygen than by just breathing through the mouth.

💡 Idea #3 — Your nostrils are more sensitive and interconnected with your body than you probably realize. Nestor writes:

The interior of the nose, it turned out, is blanketed with erectile tissue, the same flesh that covers the penis, clitoris, and nipples. Noses get erections.

This happens because the nose is more intimately connected to the genitals than any other organ; when one gets aroused, the other responds.

Each nostril is responsible for a different function, but they are able to self-regulate by working together.

The right nostril is a gas pedal. Inhaling through the left nostril has the opposite effect; it works as a kind of brake system to the right nostril’s accelerator.

Our bodies operate most efficiently in a state of balance, pivoting between action and relaxation, daydreaming and reasoned thought. This balance is influenced by the nasal cycle, and may even be controlled by it. It’s a balance that can also be gamed.

💡 Idea #4 — Breathing is not enough by itself though. You must also have the lung capacity to hold enough oxygen. Nestor writes:

The path to everlasting life involves a lot of stretching.

Even if we breathe through the nose twenty-four hours a day, it won’t help much unless we’ve got the lung capacity to hold in that air. Just a few minutes of daily bending and breathing can expand lung capacity. With that extra capacity we can expand our lives.

This idea is reinforced with a scientific study that found lung capacity was a great predictor of longevity:

The Framingham Study, a 70-year longitudinal research program focused on heart disease, attempted to find out if lung size really did correlate to longevity. They gathered two decades of data from 5,200 subjects, crunched the numbers, and discovered that the greatest indicator of life span wasn’t genetics, diet, or the amount of daily exercise, as many had suspected. It was lung capacity.

Our ability to breathe full breaths was, according to the researchers, “literally a measure of living capacity.”

💡 Idea #5 — Many people will immediately think of oxygen when they read about breathing, but a compelling amount of scientific research argues that carbon dioxide is much more important for human performance and longevity. Nestor writes:

Olsson claimed that we have 100 times more carbon dioxide in our bodies than oxygen (which is true), and that most of us need even more of it (also true).

What many of these doctors found, and what Olsson would discover much later, was that the best way to prevent many chronic health problems, improve athletic performance, and extend longevity was to focus on how we breathed, specifically to balance oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the body.

What our bodies really want, what they require to function properly, isn’t faster or deeper breaths. It’s not more air. What we need is more carbon dioxide.

Nestor also quotes Henderson with a direct argument for carbon dioxide:

“Carbon dioxide is the chief hormone of the entire body; it is the only one that is produced by every tissue and that probably acts on every organ,” Henderson later wrote. “Carbon dioxide is, in fact, a more fundamental component of living matter than is oxygen.”

💡 Idea #6 — You are probably breathing too much. Scientific research suggests that your body can benefit from breathing less, not more. Nestor writes:

One thing that every medical or freelance pulmonaut I’ve talked to over the past several years has agreed on is that, just as we’ve become a culture of overeaters, we’ve also become a culture of overbreathers. Most of us breathe too much, and up to a quarter of the modern population suffers from more serious chronic overbreathing. The fix is easy: breathe less.

The key to optimum breathing, and all the health, endurance, and longevity benefits that come with it, is to practice fewer inhales and exhales in a smaller volume. To breathe, but to breathe less.

Memorable quotes:

Overall, humans have the sad distinction of being the most plugged-up species on Earth.

The more we cooked, the more soft, calorie-rich food we consumed, the larger our brains grew and the tighter our airways became.

Armed with a nose, a voice, and a supersized brain, humans took over the world.

Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing.

The path to everlasting life involves a lot of stretching.

Your body, like all human bodies, is essentially a collection of tubes.

We lose weight through exhaled breath. For every 10 pounds of fat lost in our bodies, 8.5 pounds of it comes out through our lungs; most of it is carbon dioxide mixed with a bit of water vapor.

“The yogi’s life is not measured by the number of his days, but the number of his breaths.” - B.K.S. Iyengar, an Indian yoga teacher

In a single breath, more molecules of air will pass through your nose than all the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches - trillions and trillions of them.

Pomp’s Takeaways:

This book was fascinating to read. Breathing is something that we do thousands of times per day, but we never really think about it. I found myself trying to regulate my breath, and follow Nestor’s tips, while I was reading the book. The more conscious I became of my breathing, the more it seems to have slowed down time. Honestly, pretty cool.

One of my big takeaways was how society has placed a premium on mental toughness, but some of it can be explained by science. For example, there is a section in the book on Wim Hoff, who is known as the Ice Man. He has become well-known for running long distances in the snow with no shirt on or being able to physically reject viruses that were injected into his body. His secret? A special breathing regimen coupled with prolonged exposure to cold temperatures. Is Wim mentally tough? Absolutely. But does he also understand how his breath can heat up his body and recruit the necessary response to reject external threats? Of course.

My second big takeaway was how little we still understand about breathing. The entire book talks about the art and science of this activity, including historical analysis of our ancestors through the present day, but there are sections where different types of breathing are explained, yet scientists and medical professionals admit they still don’t fully understand how the outcomes are achieved. One example of this is Holotropic Breathwork - a breathing practice that reportedly has a therapeutic effect on people’s mental state. The “what” is easy to measure, but we still can’t figure out “why” it happens.

A third takeaway was the rampant evolution of the human body. There is a discussion in the book about our breathing patterns having the ability to change the way our throat, mouth, teeth, and face are constructed. It sounds implausible, but Nestor’s evidence and argument is quite convincing. Additionally, there was a section of the book that highlights the negative impact “soft foods” have had on humans once they were introduced into our diets. How we breathe, and what we eat, have changed the way we look, along with how our bodies perform.

Lastly, I walked away from the book convinced that being more intentional about my breathing would have a positive impact on my life. Am I going to spend hours a day conducting breathing exercises like a psychopath? No. But I can already tell that a few minutes of controlled breathing can help me relax, calm my mind, and increase my focus. For the few minutes invested on a daily basis in a fairly simple activity, the cost-benefit analysis is skewed towards doing it.

As I mentioned, this past week’s book was Breath by James Nestor. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes every Monday. Feel free to leave a comment - I read all of them.

-Pomp

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