Not to overshare, but I keep two wet flesh-bags inside my chest that I puff and squish all day long. Technically, these bags are called “lungs,” and the puffing and squishing is called “breathing,” and it all feeds into a highly scientific process known as (please imagine someone in a lab coat saying this in a British accent) “keeping my body alive.”
And yet, despite its literal life-or-death importance, I tend to ignore my breathing — in the same way that I ignore the growing of my toenails, or the evaporation of rainwater from lawns, or the ungodly things that go on inside my local sewage-treatment facility. How is my breathing? I don’t know. Where does a kangaroo sleep at night? Am I supposed to be in charge of that? Don’t these things take care of themselves?
Well, yes and no.
There are plenty of signs that my breathing is suboptimal. Too often I find myself staring anxiously into screens, hardly breathing at all — a chronic deprivation that researchers refer to as “email apnea.” At night I snore, which drives my wife crazy, although every time I apologize she says it’s not my fault, because I am unconscious, which is true but also an odd feeling — to be guilty and innocent at the same time. On trains and airplanes, I frequently wake myself up with a big open-mouthed pig-snort, after which I glance around, sheepishly, to see if someone is laughing at me. (Usually it’s my kids.)
According to just about everyone on earth — my friends, my social media feeds, my colleagues who run this publication’s health and science coverage — the solution to all of this is “breathwork,” a practice I long ago filed away in the New Age drawer of my mind alongside crystals, tarot, astrology, patchouli and people juggling tasseled sticks while wearing giant billowing pants. But that might have been unfair. According to James Nestor’s best-selling book, “Breath,” which synthesizes much of the scientific research, healthy breathing can improve a surprising number of life’s ills: high blood pressure, low mood, crooked teeth, bad posture, weak bones, poor sleep and more.
Given that I’ve already attacked my life’s ills, largely unsuccessfully, with pills and pillows and therapists and machines, I decided to sit down, inhale and give breathwork a try.
Where to start? I went to the app store and loaded up my phone: iBreathe, Breathpod, Breathwrk, Breathworkk. I tested my carbon dioxide tolerance and took quizzes. (“Your Nervous System is … ‘Highly Dysregulated.’”) Behind all the dreamy electronic music, it was hard to tell what was science and what was pseudoscience. In soothing voices, the breathwork gurus intoned rhythmic positive affirmations (phrases like “I am … calm and … relaxed”) and aerobics-style catchphrases (“If in doubt, breathe it out”). The app I like best, Breathpod, is led by a Scottish guy named Stuart Sandeman, who is handsome and has a nose ring and (no offense) speaks with the kind of perpetual grin that makes me worry he is about to take my money. On Instagram, you can watch him exercising the lungs of the English national soccer team.
I settled in. I tried “ujjayi breathing” — constricting the back of my throat so it sounded as if I were dying. I hooked my fingers under my ribs, like someone in an action movie clinging to a windowsill, and massaged my diaphragm. I practiced nadi shodhana: blocking one nostril, then the other nostril, then the other nostril. To stimulate my vagus nerve, I made loud humming noises — which woke up and terrified my dog, who ran across the room.
I found myself doing a lot of counting. Inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. Cup your hands over your mouth and count to three. I felt like the drummer in an experimental band.
The umbrella term “breathwork” covers many different schools and techniques, from gentle ancient wisdom to extreme paleo tech-bro life hacking. But the basic wisdom is simple: breathe deeply, slowly, through your nose. To my surprise, it worked. Every time I did this, for even 30 seconds, my life improved. It’s hard to say how without sounding like a New Age throw pillow. I found myself anchored in my body, less anxious. I felt sufficient. I was doomscrolling less, stress-eating less.
Very quickly, I found myself addicted to breathwork. All I wanted to do, all day long, was count my breaths. This surprised me, given that I’ve tried but failed, many times, to start a daily meditation practice. I think the difference is that meditation feels like something I am doing with my mind — which means it is doomed, because, after many years of exasperated cohabitation, my mind and I basically hate each other. Whereas breathwork feels mechanical, like mowing the lawn. I learned, for instance, that my vagus nerve is a “hotline” between my brain and other organs, but also a “brake pedal,” and that, as Nestor puts it, “Breathing is a power switch to a vast network called the autonomic nervous system.” All I had to do was turn the system on and watch it crank away.
On the apps, I blazed through programs called “The Foundations” and “Nervous System Regulation” and “7 Days to Release Stress & Anxiety.” I did box breathing while I drove my car. I went to my local health food store and wandered its yeast-scented aisles until I found a neti pot — a ceramic jug that looks like a cross between a gravy boat and Aladdin’s lamp — and I took it home and filled it with a special solution and leaned over the sink and irrigated my sinuses. (Nestor says he does this every time he gets off a plane.) At night, I taped my mouth shut to make sure I breathed through my nose.
Has breathwork solved all my problems? No. The first draft of this essay was late, as usual, and I just ate a chocolate bar for lunch. But I have noticed differences. For instance, this morning I woke up and felt the daily urge to apologize for snoring — but I didn’t get the chance. My wife told me she’d had trouble sleeping, but not for the usual reason.
“You were so quiet,” she said. “I had to reach over to make sure you were still alive.”
Deep in my belly, I felt my diaphragm do whatever the diaphragm equivalent of a fist pump is.
And then I went back to counting.
The post Did You Know That I Have Been Breathing All Wrong? appeared first on New York Times.
