This post is about a book, so stick with me!
The autonomic nervous system controls functions in our bodies that keep us alive without conscious effort. We wouldn’t last long without circulation, digestion, the release of hormones, lymphatic drainage, and breathing, but none of these subsystems require us to think about them to work.
Breathing is unique on this list because it is an automatic system we can control. What’s more, breathing seems to exert its will on the rest of the autonomic nervous system. Have you ever tried to slow down your heart rate? If you succeeded, chances are you accomplished the feat via breathing rather than thinking about your circulation. Same goes for digestion and the release of certain hormones.
Breath
Breath by James Nestor is all about the author’s journey into the strange world of what he calls pulmonauts, or the scattered collection of people trying to hack the pulmonary system. Much has been written about Breath, and Mr. Nestor has appeared on numerous television programs and podcasts to talk about his book, so I will sum up like this:
Mr. Nestor’s book is quick, interesting, and, if the examples of the pulmonauts are followed, transformative. One of the core tenets of Breath is that experimentation with breathing is simple, fast, and cheap, so a person has very little to lose and much to gain by trying some of the techniques mentioned in its pages.
The notion of experimentation is what caught my attention as I read Breath. My first career was at a software startup where we tolerated—encouraged, even—a significant number of mistakes as we tried to find what worked for our clients. Trial and error was the name of the user satisfaction game.
When I read about Mr. Nestor’s personal experiments with breathing, I became intrigued, especially when I realized how inexpensive such efforts were. We live in a world accustomed to costly solutions to modern ailments. In some cases, the time and money are worth it because there’s no other option. Consider Type 1 diabetics and their dependence on insulin. Even with the advances in the field, things aren’t quite normal for these folks, but the money, time, and lifestyle changes are a small price to pay when the alternative is death.
Yet for other maladies, is there an alternative?
I won’t answer that question. I’m not a doctor. I haven’t conducted large-scale double-blind research to justify claims of broad effectiveness. I am not qualified to diagnose medical conditions and/or prescribe treatment. Again, I am not a doctor!
I will share my experiences with four techniques mentioned in Breath and describe their cumulative effect on my wellbeing.
Sleep Taping
I tape my mouth shut when I sleep.
You just had a negative reaction, something like, “That’s weird, I would never do that.” I had the same reaction while reading about the concept in Breath.
Sleep taping isn’t what you imagine (an abductee with a thick strip of silver duct tape over his or her mouth). Sleep tape is a postage-stamp-sized bit of medical tape over the center of the lips, just under the nose to keep the lips together, rather than seal the mouth closed. When I use sleep tape, I can still speak if I need to. I can take a drink (through a straw) if I need to. And I can easily remove the tape if I need to.
Why do such a thing?
The short answer is that I sleep better.
The long answer is that the tape forces me to breathe through my nose while I’m sleeping, which in turn promotes better airway function, which in turn leads to longer, better stretches of sleep.
The first night I tried it, I ripped off the tape after a half hour. The second night, I pulled it off in my sleep sometime during the night. The third night, and almost every night since, I’ve slept with the tape without any issue.
A week after I began this experiment, I slept, without moving, for six hours straight. I hadn’t had such a stretch of sleep since the late ‘90’s. I regularly sleep 4-6 hours without waking. Before sleep tape, it was usually 2-3 hours. I get up less frequently to use the bathroom. I have more energy during the day.
I haven’t been connected to a sleep monitor, so I can’t make claims about apnea frequency, but I suspect, based on results, that I have fewer obstructive events during the night. I still snore, but less frequently and at a lower volume.
Diaphragmatic Nasal Breathing
I breathe through my nose, and I breathe with my diaphragm rather than my chest.
The autonomic nervous system I wrote about above has two parts: the sympathetic, or fight-or-flight system, and the parasympathetic, or rest-and-digest system. Breathing with your mouth and chest activates the fight-or-flight response, whereas breathing with your nose and diaphragm activates the rest-and-digest response.
When we breathe with our mouths and chests all the time, we unwittingly keep the fight-or-flight system active, which keeps blood pressure elevated, increases cortisol levels, and does a host of other things on which I’m unqualified to elaborate. Patrick McKeown, a breathing expert from Ireland, has a number of resources that explain the benefits of nasal breathing as well as belly/diaphragmatic breathing. If you want to learn more, check out his videos on YouTube.
What are the benefits? I’ve noticed the biggest difference on the basketball court. When I’m focused on nasal breathing while I’m playing basketball—such focus is difficult, by the way; breathing through your nose during exercise is no easy task—I’ve noticed a couple of shifts in my body’s response to the exertion.
First, I get less dehydrated. When I breathe through my mouth, I need 36-48 ounces of water during an hour of basketball. When I breathe through my nose for most of the morning, I need 24 ounces of water or less.
Second, the stress moves from my lungs to my heart. I feel less breathless, and become more aware of my heart rate.
[Side note: sadly, I’m not any better at basketball than I was before]
These benefits come at a very low cost (no money, a little time). Switching to nasal breathing was easy, at least in my daily, non-exercise life. Retraining my body to belly breathe was, and continues to be, more difficult. I find I must be more mindful of my breathing, and force myself to practice pulling air into my lungs ‘through my gut’.
Wim Hof Breathing
Wim Hof is the Ice Man. He’s an interesting person worth reading about and/or watching on YouTube. He holds many world records, most of which center around doing things in the extreme cold (e.g. longest free swim under a sheet of ice). His ability to withstand extreme temperatures, he claims, is tied to the Wim Hof Method.
The Wim Hof Method has three pillars—breathing, cold exposure, and mindset—and is an extension of ancient yogic breathing and lifestyle practices. Mr. Hof has plenty of online resources if you want to learn about him and his method.
I haven’t done much with cold exposure and mindset/visualization, but I have adopted Wim Hof breathing into my routine.
A Wim Hof breathing session is similar to other meditative breathing techniques, and is broken into at least three rounds of breathing followed by breath retention. A round of breathing is thirty deep breaths followed by a 30 to 90 second (or longer) breath hold.
Simple. Relatively easy. Wim Hof has several guided breathing exercises on YouTube to introduce newcomers to the practice. A breathing session takes ten to fifteen minutes, once a day.
The benefits?
For me, Wim Hof breathing sessions unlock unique sensations. Tingling hands, feet, and mouth. Moments of deep focus. Acute awareness of my body. Calm. Breathing sessions are followed by several hours of focus, which benefits my writing or whatever I have planned for the morning.
Mr. Hof claims a number of other benefits of his method, but I can’t speak to those benefits because I only do the breathing.
Buteyko Breathing
Patrick McKeown, who I mentioned earlier, is a Buteyko Breathing expert. This breathing technique, if it can be called that, was pioneered by Konstantin Buteyko, a Ukrainian who practiced in Moscow in Soviet days.
The primary thesis of Buteyko Breathing is that we breathe too much. Overbreathing causes the carbon dioxide concentration to drop in our blood. Isn’t that good? According to Buteyko and his adherents, no, after a certain point. Oxygen can only be exchanged inside our cells in the presence of carbon dioxide, so if we breathe too much, we actually take up less oxygen.
Seems counterintuitive. Mr. McKeown and Mr. Nestor explain this much better than I do, so watch their videos and read their books.
Here’s how I include Buteyko breathing in my routine. I use an app that helps me track my progress, and I do one to three sessions a day. Each session lasts around 15 minutes. This is the most ‘expensive’ experiment, in terms of time. A session looks similar to a Wim Hof session, with breathing intermixed with breath holds, but in Buteyko, instead of taking deep breaths, you restrict your breathing for several minutes, breathe normally for a minute, then hold your breath for somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds.
The effect in my life? I breathe less frequently. I’ve gone from something like 18 to 20 breaths per minute to 10 to 14. My breath is softer while I sleep. My wife reports there are times when she can’t hear me breathing during the night, not because I’m having an apnea event, but because my breathing is quiet. I believe this contributes to better sleep, in conjunction with the mouth tape.
Cumulative Effect
The overall change in my wellbeing has been surprising. My resting heart rate has dropped from 75 bpm to 65 bpm without additional changes to my exercise routine. My blood pressure has dropped from 145/85 to 130/80. I sleep better, and have more energy. I am more focused.
As I mentioned, it’s difficult to attribute certain aspects of this improvement to any one practice. In addition, there may be other factors at play. Correlation is not necessarily causation, as the saying goes.
And again, I’m not a doctor. I’m just reporting my experience.
These experiments have been cheap ($4 for tape, some time), and have had a remarkable effect on me. I have also found them to be safe and easy, but your mileage may vary, so proceed with caution and listen to your body (and your doctor!).
Conclusion
Read Breath by James Nestor. I will repeat my review from above:
Mr. Nestor’s book is quick, interesting, and, if the examples of the pulmonauts are followed, transformative. One of the core tenets of Breath is that experimentation with breathing is simple, fast, and cheap, so a person has very little to lose and much to gain by trying some of the techniques mentioned in its pages.
Also, the ability of certain books to expand our vision and enrich our lives is astounding. I read Breath on a whim, because it matched a category I needed to cover for a reading challenge. I’ve been blessed because of my chance encounter. I hope, as an author, to one day have a similar effect on someone else.
