Author and science journalist James Nestor says breathing wrong can have dire consequences to our health. Justin Paget/Getty Images
Breathing is something we do naturally, often without thinking. But many of us are doing it completely wrong, according to science journalist James Nestor. He spent a decade investigating all the ways we breathe and compiled the information into the instant bestseller Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art released May 2020.
He calls breathing the missing part of health, as vital to our well-being as how much we exercise, what foods we eat and how much we sleep. Doing it wrong has dire consequences on our health, he says, and contributes to sleep-disordered breathing problems like snoring, sleep apnea and insomnia; mental and behavioral conditions like anxiety, depression and ADHD; and medical issues like high blood pressure, increased heart rate and diabetes.