PURPOSE
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art An Interview with James Nestor EDITORS’ NOTE James Nestor is an to keep taking antibiotics or to be less author and science journalist who active which didn’t really work for me. has written for Scientific American, I discovered breathing as a way Outside Magazine, BBC, The New to first dampen the symptoms of my York Times, The Atlantic, National respiratory problems, then, after Public Radio, and more. He spent several months, all the problems I the last several years working experienced disappeared completely. on a book called Breath: The New I haven’t had them since and this was Science of a Lost Art. Breath was an more than a decade ago. But this was instant New York Times, Wall Street just my personal experience so I kept Journal, Los Angeles Times, Sunday it to myself. As a journalist, I was London Times bestseller. Breath was not going to write a memoir about James Nestor awarded the prize for Best General my breathing which, frankly, sounds Nonfiction Book of 2020 by the awful, so I just filed it away until years American Society of Journalists and Authors and later as I read more and more scientific research was a Finalist for the Royal Society Best Science on breathing therapies and the profound effects Book of 2020. Breath has been released in 35 they could have on asthma, snoring, anxiety, languages and has sold more than one million respiratory infections, and more. I also read copies worldwide. Nestor’s first narrative nonfic- about how poorly the modern species was tion book, DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, at breathing. We’re the worst breathers in the and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves animal kingdom. After five or six years of doing (2014), was a BBC Book of the Week, a Finalist very casual research, I went to my agent and for the PEN American Center Best Sports Book of told her that I had an idea for a new book. the Year, an Amazon Best Science Book of 2014, She asked me what the focus would be, and BuzzFeed 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2014, when I said it would be about breathing, she ArtForum Top 10 Book of 2014, New York Times thought it was one of the worst ideas she had Book Review Editor’s Choice, Scientific American ever heard. It took another year of convincing Recommended Read, and more. DEEP has been her. So, yes, in many ways the book was an translated into more than seven languages overnight success that took about 12 years of and was the basis for the Emmy-nominated constant work and hearing the word “no” from Virtual Reality documentary, “The Click Effect.” everyone. Nestor has been an invited speaker at Stanford There is a major focus on the impact of Medical School, Harvard Medical School, Yale breath and breathing today. Is the converSchool of Medicine, the United Nations, UBS, sation taking place the right conversation as well as more than 100 radio and television and what do you feel are the key elements shows, including Fresh Air with Terry Gross, that need to be addressed? The Joe Rogan Experience, BulletProof, ABC’s Each of us has our own breathing fingerNightline, CBS Morning News, and dozens of print. We all breathe in a unique way, and the vast NPR programs. majority of us have unique breathing dysfunction. We get it wrong in our own individual ways. Will you discuss the journey that led you Along these lines, everyone responds slightly to the study of breathing and writing the differently to breathing retraining and therabook, Breath: The New Science of a Lost pies. When you hear people say that breathing Art? cures chronic panic attacks, asthma, autoimI wish I could say that I had a grand plan, mune issues, or depression, it is true that it has but what happens a lot in journalism is that you worked tremendously well for some people, stumble onto one thing that leads to another but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to have thing which leads to another. This is exactly what the same transformative response. The good happened with my interest in breathing. I had news is that improving your breathing – just been suffering from a number of respiratory prob- like improving your diet or exercise regimen – lems – bronchitis, mild pneumonia, wheezing – will only have benefits. It’s always a net gain. while I was exercising. All pretty common, and For some people, those benefits will be subtle nothing too serious, but it went on for years. while, for others, it will dramatically change Every doctor I saw told me the only solution was their health and change their lives. I’ve seen 30 LEADERS
this in hundreds of people, and experienced it myself, which is one reason I kept digging into this research for so many years, even while my journalist friends and agents were mocking me the whole time. Do you feel that there is a strong awareness and understanding of the impact and benefits that breathing can make? Everybody breathes, just like everybody eats and everybody sleeps. I think that there is considerable scientific evidence showing that it’s not just that you are eating food that’s important, it’s what you are eating, and how much. The same goes for sleep. It’s not just that you go to sleep every night that counts, but how you sleep, how long, what ratio of deep sleep, REM, and light sleep. We know our diets and sleep are essential to good health, but fewer people talk about breathing. They are just focusing that we are breathing, not how; which foods, how much – same goes for sleep. But how we breathe is as least as important as what we eat and how we sleep. Consider, we get the majority of our energy from our breath, not from food and drink, but from air. How you get that energy will determine so much of your mental and physical health, and even your longevity. The science around breathing has been there for decades and decades, and while it was new for me, it was not new for people who have been studying it, mostly to little fanfare, for the past 50 years. These researchers were at top institutions – Stanford, Yale, Harvard – and constantly publishing in academic journals, but the general public never got the message. Most of what I just have mentioned was documented at Stanford in the 1970s, and even earlier. My role in writing the book was to try to give those people a little louder bullhorn and to put their research together so that people might listen, because what they were saying impacts every single person on the planet. As you look at your journey in writing this book, were there many surprises along the way? Yes, to say it mildly. In nonfiction, you write a book proposal and then you pitch that proposal to secure an advance, which is usually a pittance of cash to just get by until you finish the book. I spent about six months writing up a 60-page book proposal, and at the end I thought I was all set, but I did not realize that the real story behind breathing was not two layers deep, but 10 and 20 layers deep. It wasn’t anything you could really find on the
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VOLUME 45, NUMBER 3
