Breath

One

 

The Worst Breathers in the Animal Kingdom

 

The patient arrived, pale and torpid, at 9:32 a.m. Male, middle-aged, 175 pounds. Talkative and friendly but visibly anxious. Pain: none. Fatigue: a little. Level of anxiety: moderate. Fears about progression and future symptoms: high.

 

Patient reported that he was raised in a modern suburban environment, bottle-fed at six months, and weaned onto jarred commercial foods. The lack of chewing associated with this soft diet stunted bone development in his dental arches and sinus cavity, leading to chronic nasal congestion.

 

By age 15, patient was subsisting on even softer, highly processed foods consisting mostly of white bread, sweetened fruit juices, canned vegetables, Steak-umms, Velveeta sandwiches, microwave taquitos, Hostess Sno Balls, and Reggie! bars. His mouth had become so underdeveloped it could not accommodate 32 permanent teeth; incisors and canines grew in crooked, requiring extractions, braces, retainers, and headgear to straighten. Three years of orthodontics made his small mouth even smaller, so his tongue no longer properly fit between his teeth. When he stuck it out, which he did often, visible imprints laced its sides, a precursor to snoring.

 

At 17, four impacted wisdom teeth were removed, which further decreased the size of his mouth while increasing his chances of developing the chronic nocturnal choking known as sleep apnea. As he aged into his 20s and 30s, his breathing became more labored and dysfunctional and his airways became more obstructed. His face would continue a vertical growth pattern that led to sagging eyes, doughy cheeks, a sloping forehead, and a protruding nose.

 

This atrophied, underdeveloped mouth, throat, and skull, unfortunately, belongs to me.

 

I'm lying on the examination chair in the Stanford

James Nestor

A transformative book that changes how you think about your body and mind. Joshua Foer, The New York Times bestselling author of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
 
Breath is an utterly fascinating journey into the ways we are wired. No matter who you are, you ll want to read this. Po Bronson, The New York Times bestselling author of What Should I Do with My Life? and coauthor of NurtureShock
 
An eye-opening, epic journey of human devolution that explains why so many of us are sick and tired. A must-read book that exposes what our health care system doesn t see. Dr. Steven Y. Park, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, author of Sleep, Interrupted 
 
I don t say this often, but when I do I mean it: This book changed my life. Breath is part scientific quest, part historical insight, part Hero s Journey, full of groundbreaking ideas, and a rollicking good read. I had no idea that the simple and intuitive act of inhaling and exhaling has taken such an evolutionary hit. As a result, I figured out why I sleep so badly and why my breathing feels so often out of sync. With a few simple tweaks, I fixed my breathing and fixed myself. A transformational book! Caroline Paul, bestselling author of The Gutsy Girl
 
If you breathe, you need this book. When we undervalue anything, including something so basic as breathing, bad things always happen and Nestor makes it clear how awful it s gotten. But he also provides a clear airway back to better, deeper, stronger respirations. Wallace J. Nichols, PhD, The New York Times bestselling author of Blue Mind
 
Breath shows us just how extraordinary the act of breathing is and why so much depends on how we do it. An enthralling, surprising, and often funny adventure into our most overlooked and undervalued function. Bonnie Tsui, author of Why We Swim and American Chinatown

A welcome, invigorating user s manual for the respiratory