About this Episode
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.
Award-winning science journalist, James Nestor, travels the world to find out what went wrong in our evolution of breathing -- and how to fix it.
James Nestor is an author and journalist who has written for Scientific American, Outside, The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Public Radio, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more. His latest book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, was released May 26, 2020 by Riverhead/Penguin Random House and was an instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and London Sunday Times bestseller. Breath spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in the first year of release, and will be translated into more than 30 languages. Breath was awarded the Best General Nonfiction Book of 2020 by the American Society of Journalists and Authors and was nominated for Best Science Book of 2021 by the Royal Society.
Breath explores how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly. This sounds impossible, but it’s true. Snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, allergies and even autoimmune diseases are among the most prevalent diseases in the modern world, and all of them can be either exacerbated, or sometimes caused, by poor breathing. Nestor spent years in laboratories and ancient burial sites, working with researchers at Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, and other institutions to figure out what went wrong with our breathing--and how to fix it. Breath spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in its first 11 months of release, and will be translated into more than 30 languages in 2021
Nestor has spoken at Stanford Medical School, Yale School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, the United Nations, Global Classroom, (World Health Organization+UNICEF), as well as more than 60 radio and television shows, including Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Joe Rogan Show, ABC’s Nightline, CBS Morning News, and dozens of NPR programs. He lives and breathes in San Francisco. More at mrjamesnestor.com.