The Breathing Cure for Yoga: Apply Science Behind Ancient Wisdom for Health and Well-Being with a Foreword by James Nestor

by Patrick McKeown, Anastasis Tzanis, James Nestor (Foreword by)

Overview

READY TO JOIN THE BETTER BREATHING REVOLUTION? 

READY TO LEARN FROM INTERNATIONAL BREATHING EXPERT PATRICK McKEOWN?

READY TO LEARN FROM LEADING YOGA EDUCATOR ANASTASIS TZANIS?

TAP INTO YOUR FULL YOGA POTENTIAL WITH THE SCIENCE BEHIND ANCIENT WISDOM BY READING THE BREATHING CURE FOR YOGA

With a Foreword by award-winning science journalist James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

What if you are only tapping into 75% of the full potential of yoga?

If there was a simple and free way to harness the other 25% and make major improvements in both your asana practice and overall health, would you want to know what it is?

This revolutionary yoga and breathing manual unites modern science, with clinically-proven breathing techniques, and the (mostly) forgotten wisdom of ancient Yogis to enhance your yoga practice. Written by international breath expert Patrick McKeown and leading yoga educator Anastasis Tzanis, this is an essential book for every practitioner and instructor.

In THE BREATHING CURE FOR YOGA: APPLY SCIENCE BEHIND ANCIENT WISDOM FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING you will learn how to:

• Enhance your physical practice and lower the risk of injury.
• Learn breathing techniques to self-regulate, gain control over your nervous system, and diminish stress, anxiety, and panic attacks.
• Increase mindfulness and cultivate a deeper mind-body connection.
• Learn the connection between physiology and the mind, and how to optimise gas exchange and open the lungs.
• Reduce breathlessness during yoga, and boost stamina, endurance, and recovery time.
• Learn the three pillars of sleep, breath, and the mind, and their interconnection.
• Optimise energy flow and strengthen your connection to self.
• Dramatically reduce snoring, sleep apnea, and insomnia; decongest the nose; and improve menopause symptoms.
• Enhance your overall health and wellbeing.

READY TO JOING THE REVOLUTION NOW?

Get "Breathing For Yoga" today, and be among the first to benefit from this revolutionary breathing and yoga manual.

“In your hands is the operating manual for new and old yogis alike. For the past 20 years, McKeown has researched why so many of us breathe so poorly and how we can do it better and improve our lives. He’s spent several more years piecing together this carefully constructed compendium of yoga knowledge and distilling it into step-by-step directions, illustrations, scientific context, biomechanics, biochemistry, and more! My advice: Take a seat, shut your mouth, breathe it in.”—James Nestor

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630063047
Publisher:	Humanix Books
Publication date:	12/31/2024
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

PATRICK McKEOWN (GALWAY, IRELAND) is creator, CEO and Director of Education and Training at Oxygen Advantage®, Director of Education and Training at Buteyko Clinic International and President of Buteyko Professionals International. He is a leading international expert on breathing and sleep, teaching functional breathing for resilience and improved sports performance. He has provided breath training to improve breathing, sleep, anxiety, resilience, concentration and chronic illness since 2002 and there are currently more than 3,000 trained Oxygen Advantage® instructors across 50 countries.

McKeown’s mission is to empower more people every day to breathe better, feel better and achieve their potential. His interest in breath training began when he discovered the Buteyko Breathing Method, aged 26. After a lifetime of asthma medication and inhalers, he found immediate relief from his symptoms, and has remained asthma-free ever since. He traveled to Moscow, Russia, to learn from Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, and was accredited to teach the Buteyko Method in 2002.

To date, Patrick has written ten books about breath training, including The Breathing Cure: Develop New Habits for a Healthier, Happier, and Longer Life and The Breathing Cure for Sleep Using the Buteyka Method: Stop Snoring, Sleep Apnea, and Insomnia in Seven Days for All Ages, and the three Amazon category bestsellers: Close Your Mouth, Asthma-Free Naturally, and Anxiety Free: Stop Worrying and Quieten your Mind. He also wrote The Oxygen Advantage which is considered a foremost source on breathing for exercise performance and is currently translated into sixteen languages. 

Patrick's professional memberships include Fellow of The Royal Society of Biology and The Academy of Applied Myofunctional Sciences. His work has been published in The Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 

Patrick’s work has featured on the BBC, USA Today, Ted Talks, the New York Times, the Times, Men’s Health Magazine, Women’s Health Magazine, Dr Oz Magazine, Mercola and Mind Body Green website. Patrick hosts The Oxygen Advantage® Podcast and has featured as a guest on many other podcasts, including Ben Greenfield’s Life, Dave Asprey’s The Human Upgrade, Scott Caney Investigates, Dr Jay T Wiles Mindhacker’s Radio, Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Feel better, live more, the Happy Pear Podcast and many more.

The author lives and works in the Galway, Ireland metro area.

OxygenAdvantage.com

ButeykoClinic.com

ANASTASIS TZANIS (LONDON, UK) is a yoga teacher, nutritional therapist, and globally sought-after breath-work expert. He has helped countless individuals improve their mental, postural, and metabolic function through private consultations, over 150 workshops, and lectures across 8 countries.

Maxing-out life out as a Greek Special Forces paratrooper, earning a Master’s degree at the rigorous Brandeis University, and trading derivatives in New York and London for seven years, Anastasis experienced firsthand how detrimental highly competitive environments can be on one’s health. All this led to a health crisis that stopped him in his tracks and prompted a deep study of naturopathic medicine to heal himself.

Afterward, Anastasis started helping higher-stress individuals, following a multi-disciplinary approach, with great success at his London studio. He aims to powerfully improve thousands more lives by raising awareness of the importance breathing has on mental, postural, and metabolic function.

Anastasis provides breathwork courses in his system: #freebreathing and delivers trainings and offsites for companies.

The author lives and works in London, England.

Atzanis.com

JAMES NESTOR (SAN FRANCISCO, CA) is an author and journalist who has written for Outside Magazine, The Atlantic, National Public Radio, The New York Times, Scientific American, Dwell Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more. 

Nestor’s book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, was released through Riverhead/Penguin Random House on May 26, 2020. Breath spent 18 weeks of the New York Times bestseller list in the first year of publication and was an instant bestseller in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Sunday London Times, and more. Breath was awarded the Best General Nonfiction Book of 2020 by the American Society of Journalists and Authors and was a Finalist for the Royal Society Science Book of the Year. Breath has sold more than two million copies and has been translated into more than 35 languages. 

Breath explores how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly over the past several hundred thousand years and is now suffering from a laundry list of maladies — snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, autoimmune disease — because of it. Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of Sao Paulo. 

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. 

Nestor's first narrative nonfiction book, DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What The Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was released in the United States and UK in June 2014. DEEP was a BBC Book of the Week, a Finalist for the PEN American Center Best Sports Book of the Year, an Amazon Best Science Book of 2014, BuzzFeed 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2014, ArtForum Top 10 Book of 2014, New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, Scientific American Recommended Read, and more. The book has been translated into German, Chinese, Italian, Polish, and more; the audiobook, read by Nestor, was released by Audible in June 2016.

Nestor also wrote a "little, silly booklet" released in 2009, which he described as "a coffee table thing culled from notes on meditation and other ancient/hippy practices discovered in the crawlspace of my uncle’s retro-mod bachelor pad in the Hollywood Hills. The book combined medical science with humor and illustrations and was given a horrid and misleading title by a dishonest editor, which I soon after—and still—very much regret."

Nestor has presented his research at Stanford Medical School, the United Nations, UBS, Global Classroom (World Health Organization+UNICEF), as well as more than 40 radio and television shows, including Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Joe Rogan Show, BulletProof, ABC’s Nightline, CBS Morning News, and dozens of NPR programs.

The author lives and works in the San Francisco metro area.

MrJamesNestor.com

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS to THE BREATHING CURE FOR YOGA: APPLY SCIENCE BEHIND ANCIENT WISDOM FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING by Patrick McKeown

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

SECTION ONE: THE BREATH IN YOGA AND OXYGEN ADVANTAGE®

Chapter One: The Breath in Yoga and Oxygen Advantage®

Dispelling Common Breath Myths

Our Goal with This Book

Why Breath Training Matters On and Off the Mat

Yoga Origins and Hierarchy

Breath Basics and the Three Dimensions of Breathing

Important: Safety First

Benefits of Yoga and Functional Breathing

Our Recommendation for Navigating This Book

Chapter Two: The Science of Breathing

The Biochemistry of Breathing

The Journey of Oxygen in the Body

Chapter Three: Prānāyāma: Breath Control

Prana and the Eight Limbs of Yoga

What Is Prānāyāma?

What Is Optimal Breathing?

Achieving Steadiness in Breath and Movement

Chapter Four: Applying Oxygen Advantage®

Fundamentals to Yoga

The BOLT Score

Tailoring Your Practice According to the BOLT

Breathing Through the Nose if Your Nose Is Blocked

Oxygen Advantage® Breathing Exercises: The Foundation

Oxygen Advantage® Resources and Support

Chapter Five: Using Simple Breathing Techniques

in Your Asana Practice

SECTION TWO: CREATING A BREATHING PRACTICE

Chapter Six: Hyperventilation, Hypercapnia, and Hypoxia:

What You Need to Know to Create a Breathing Program

The Risks of Overbreathing: Hyperventilation

Breathing Volume: Preventing Hyperventilation During Practice

Resolving Hyperventilation: The Two Pillars of Breath Training

Chapter Seven: Breathing Exercises that Use Deliberate Hyperventilation

What Happens During Deliberate Hyperventilation

Anastasis’ Viewpoint on Voluntary Hyperventilation

Patrick’s Viewpoint on Voluntary Hyperventilation

Our Advice

Chapter Eight: Practical Applications of the Breath

Using the Breath to Prevent Fainting

Using Breath to Moderate Pain

Breath Training to Detoxify the Body

SECTION THREE: THE PHYSICAL STRUCTURES OF BREATHING

Chapter Nine: The Nervous System and Its Interconnection with the Breath

The Autonomic Nervous System

The Influence of the ANS on Cardiovascular and Respiratory Systems

How the Brain Controls the Breath

Chapter Ten: Breathing Biomechanics: A 3D Approach

1. Physical Systems: The Respiratory Tract

2. Physical Systems: The Supportive Muscles

3. Physical Systems: Posture

Structures of Breathing: The Rib Cage

Structures of Breathing: The Diaphragm—The Heart’s Twin Sister

Structures of Breathing: The Abdominals and Pelvic Floor

A Professional Opinion: Dr. Paul Sly on the Pelvic Floor

Chapter Eleven: The Diaphragm

Biochemical Benefits

Biomechanical Benefits

Nervous System

Wider Benefits of Diaphragm Breathing

How to Breathe Diaphragmatically

How to Train Your Diaphragm Through Asanas: Anastasis’ Perspective

Chapter Twelve: The Tongue

The Importance of the Tongue in Posture and Movement

The Tongue, Posture, Tongue-Tie, and Swallowing

The Tongue-Brain Connection

Jihva Bandha—Tongue Lock

How to Clean the Tongue

Paying Attention to Your Tongue

Chapter Thirteen: Breathing to Activate the Core

The Link Between Back Pain and Breathing

The Four Stages of Core Engagement

SECTION FOUR: BREATHING IN A YOGA PRACTICE

Chapter Fourteen: Breathing in Asanas

Breathing and Muscle Oxygenation

Working on Breathing Muscles and Posture for Better Breathing

Five Poses to Release the Diaphragm

Physical Limitations That Affect Breathing in Yoga

Breath-Focused Asana Practices

Chapter Fifteen: Introducing Traditional Breathing Practices—Prānāyāma

Prānāyāma and Kundalini

The Oxygen Advantage® Approach to PrāNāyāma

The Bandhas

Chapter Sixteen: Prānāyāmas to Alter the Length of the Breathing Cycle

1. Kumbhaka (Pausing after Inhaling or Exhaling)

2. Ujjayi Breathing (Throat Constriction)

3. Sama Vritti/Visama Vritti (Equal/Unequal)

4. Anuloma, Viloma, and Pratiloma

5. Kevali (I and II)

6. Bhastrika and Kapalabhati (Voluntary Hyperventilation)

Chapter Seventeen: Prānāyāmas With Specific Outcomes

1. Prānāyāmas That Activate One Side of the Body/Brain

2. Prānāyāmas That Generate Sound Greater Diaphragm Activation

3. Cooling the Body: Sitali and Sitakari

Chapter Eighteen: Comparing Prānāyāma to Oxygen Advantage® Exercises

Prānāyāma and Breathing Exercises in Real Life

SECTION FIVE: HOW THE BREATH AFFECTS DIFFERENT SITUATIONS

Chapter Nineteen: Breathing, the Brain, Identity, and Emotions

The Ego, Yoga, and Breathing

Where Is the Ego? Meditation, the Brain, and the Default Mode Network

Emotions, the Breath, and the Brain

Anastasis on the Breath and Mental State

Breathing in Various Emotional States

Chapter Twenty: Breath Training for Stress, Anxiety, Panic, and Pain

The Science Behind the Breath-Anxiety Connection

Deep, Slow Breathing, Pain Perception, and Mood

Breath Training for Dissolving Stress, Anxiety, and Panic

Chapter Twenty-One: The Nasal Cycle and

Uni-Nostril Breathing

Nasal Breathing and Brain Excitability

The Left/Right Nasal Cycle

Yogic Theory and the Breath

Altering Nasal Dominance

The Autonomic Nervous System and Uni-Nostril Breathing

The Brain and Uni-Nostril Breathing

Scientific Studies and Ancient Yogic Wisdom

Practicing Left Uni-Nostril Breathing

Chapter Twenty-Two: Breathing, Sleep, and Yoga

Poor Sleep and Sleep Disorders

Modern Day Technology and Overstimulated Minds

Chronic Stress and Mental Health Issues

Impact of Poor Sleep

Nasal Breathing

Patrick’s Thoughts on Sleep

Circadian Rhythms

Sleep Hygeine ++

Menopause and Sleep

Yoga and Sleep

Exercises to Improve Sleep

Chapter Twenty-Three: Yoga and the Female Breath

The Menstrual Cycle

Pregnancy

Paced Breathing for Menopause and Hot Flashes

Other Hormonal Considerations that May Affect Breathing

Conclusion

Some Final Words from Patrick

APPENDICES

Appendix One: Yoga and Breathing—A Historical Perspective

on the Synthesis of Oxygen Advantage® and Prānāyāma

Appendix Two: Breathing for Cold Exposure Practice

Oxygen Advantage® Resources and Support

Bonus Interviews with Patrick McKeown and Oxygen Advantage Instructors

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Preface

PREFACE to THE BREATHING CURE FOR YOGA: APPLY SCIENCE BEHIND ANCIENT WISDOM FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING by Patrick McKeown

ANASTASIS TZANIS’ JOURNEY TO YOGA AND BREATH TRAINING

My lifelong journey to better breathing began when I was 9 years old. Like many, I struggled with seasonal hay fever, insomnia, and difficulty concentrating, all symptoms associated with dysfunctional breathing. I vividly remember staying up late at night, awake in my bed, often with chest pain, performing breath holds to calm my racing mind and alleviate the pain! In the background, I could hear my parents and sister snoring loudly. Looking back, it is safe to say that breathing well didn’t come naturally to any of us.

To help me with stress and with a secret hope of improving my concentration, my parents encouraged me to play sports. That was helpful, but my breath still often let me down. After running or sparring, I quickly ran out of breath, which obviously affected my performance. I remember trying—my hands on my knees, legs shaking, lungs hurting, mouth wide open—to catch a breath.

My understanding of the importance of the breath really crystallized when I was 12 years old as I was pushed by a boy and landed flat on my back. I fell so hard my diaphragm collapsed. Decades later, my memory of being unable to breathe is still crushingly vivid.

Without much natural talent in concentration or physical skills but with a lot of stubbornness, I pushed through. By the age of 24, I was serving in the special forces as a paratrooper.

One of the scariest moments of my military career occurred when my unit was due to run another military exercise. Without warning, when we heard the siren, we were to load everything on vehicles and resettle in a

different location on red alert. The evacuation was to take no more than six hours. As one would expect, the siren went off at the least convenient time—3 a.m. Minutes after, a young corporal got into a panic attack

and began yelling at the top of his lungs. He was intimidating some new recruits who were unable to carry out their tasks. As his close friend, I tried unsuccessfully to help him relax and calm his breathing. Fortunately,

before his behavior was noticed by the seniors, he lost his voice.

After the military, I got my Masters in International Economics and Finance and began a career in finance, landing a currency derivatives trading job at a German investment bank in London. It was during my time in those highly competitive environments that I realized the cost that stress can have on the body! And stress always affects our breathing. While the army was physically competitive, the bank was mentally competitive. In the army, I was deprived of mental stimulation. At the trading desk, my brain was taxed, but it was hard not to slip into a sedentary lifestyle.

I was a junior at the trading desk trying to process as much work as possible—hoping I would keep my job for another week. The more senior members of the team were not particularly jolly either. Half the team had recently resigned and whoever was left was overworked, over-stressed, and probably questioning why they were there. In one of the rare moments when the trading floor was quiet, I heard a snoring noise. It was coming from a colleague sitting two to three meters away. He was fully absorbed in his computer screens, red in the face and breathing as loudly as a galloping racing horse. Another colleague, next to him, claimed that this audible breathing was the norm from the moment he’d come in.

Stress during my years in banking took its toll on my health and affected my weight and digestive system, but my journey into yoga really began in 2008 when laser eye surgery triggered a glandular fever. Instead of a week’s recovery, it took two months to get my eyesight back. My manager expected me to show up to work, but

my vision was constantly blurry. I spent nine hours a day exhausted, staring at screens I couldn’t see, and my stress levels went through the roof. At the same time, the glandular fever stopped me from exercising, and I piled on the kilos.

In my search for help, I adopted a fasting diet, dropped 13 kilos in three months, and got better mental clarity than ever before. After that, I decided it was time to take my health seriously. So, at the age of 30, I began studying nutritional therapy and attending yoga classes. For the next three years, I immersed myself in yoga. In August 2011, I went to a yoga festival in Barcelona, which was hosting some famous teachers from the States. There, I discovered more about the non-physical aspects of yoga and how asana practice could impact all aspects of my life. I then traveled to California to learn from more teachers. By then, it was clear to me that people working in competitive environments like banking get older a lot sooner than yoga teachers do!

My true path opened up to me when I was made redundant. At the time, it felt right to take a break from banking. I never found the desire to go back. Instead, I felt called to share with others the benefits

I had experienced. After traveling to Europe, USA, Canada, and Singapore to study with some of the best yoga instructors, I settled in London teaching yoga and offering nutritional consultations to individuals like myself.

Despite my active teaching, I avoided cueing the breath during asana practice. My students often commented that, in contrast to their other teachers, I rarely spoke about the breath. I even refused to integrate ujjayi breathing into a beginner class I was giving. I just didn’t think I knew enough about it. I didn’t want to teach what I didn’t fully understand. 

I knew that breathing was important in my practice, and I had learned that different prānāyāmas create different results, but prānāyāma was not covered in any real depth in my training. Since I was never told how these techniques worked, I didn’t pay much attention to them.

When I didn’t find the answers on breathing in yoga, in 2015, I decided to study with a Dutchman known for his Guinness-awarded achievements in extreme environments. The Wim Hof Method was just becoming popular, opening my eyes to different breathing techniques. What I found was a new passion for Breath Training and a new depth to my yoga teaching.

When a friend I’d met on a Wim Hof course came to London in 2017 to take the Oxygen Advantage® training with Patrick McKeown, I went along for the ride. By midday of the first day of Patrick’s workshop, I had learned more about breathing than I had in nine years of yoga practice.

I began applying these new ideas in my yoga teaching, and the emails started to come in from my students. Those who suffered with asthma would tell me that, if they had an attack and they didn’t have an inhaler to hand, they breathed the way I taught in class and would be able to stop the attack.

Along the way, I discovered that different breathing methods work for different people. I worked with a 47-year-old man with an arrhythmia that compromises his respiratory capacity. The only thing that would reduce his heart rate during an episode of arrhythmia is slow breathing. A 94-year-old lady who has high blood pressure and asthma is only able to practice breath holds.

These days, most of my work is with people in high-pressure jobs—lawyers and corporate high-flyers. Those who put effort into building their respiratory capacity report better concentration and a new ability to overcome panic attacks. They can confidently control their mental and physical state before public speaking and avoid performance nerves.

It’s never too late to begin. I didn’t practice yoga until I was 30 years old or breathwork until I was 37. The breath is incredibly powerful. Once you know how it works and really understand how to use it, its potential is limited only by how much work you’re prepared to put in—just like any other worthwhile practice.

Anastasis Tzanis

You can find out more about Anastasis’ work at www.atzanis.com/bfy/

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter by Patrick McKeown

“Patrick McKeown, breathing trainer and author of The Oxygen Advantage, recommends breathing through your nose…It’ll feel weird, but within a few weeks, you’ll notice you can exercise longer and don’t tire as quickly.” — Dr. Oz, bestselling author of YOU: THE OWNER'S MANUAL and THE GOOD LIFE

“The Oxygen Advantage is one of the best books that I have read this entire year... one of my favorite books in the world actually" — Ben Greenfield, author of New York Times bestseller Beyond Training

“McKeown introduces readers to The Oxygen Advantage, an innovative but complex breathing technique that purportedly improves overall health… McKeown’s confident attitude should help his book appeal to a wide audience.” — Publishers Weekly

“I’m an NFL wide receiver and my Bolt Score was 13. Three weeks later it’s 30 and improving; running has gotten so much easier. I’m in better shape for another opportunity because I’m so much better at the simple act of breathing. It really does add up!” — Jay Wisner, NFL Free Agent

"The Oxygen Advantage: the hottest book on the market for understanding breathing and breathwork.” — David Jackson, School of Calisthenics podcast

“The Oxygen Advantage has helped my Olympians become more aware of their breathing. We practice nasal breathing during foam rolling, warm ups, cool downs and during certain prescribed exercise. I would highly recommend The Oxygen Advantage to any coach looking to get any additional benefit for their athletes.” — Andrew Kacsor, Head Strength & Conditioning Coach for the KRS Vanke Rays

“Mastering one of the most powerful mechanism in our body can have a tremendous impact on both well being and performance. Because we breathe 24/7, breath training is potentially endless. I have been looking for a technique that could effortlessly trigger diaphragmatic breathing to improve the mind/ body connection. Moving towards the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, we have now integrated the Oxygen Advantage breathing techniques into our daily training and recovery.” — Julien Billaut, Australian Canoeing and the New South Wales Institute of Sport Canoe Slalom High Performance Coach

“I have taken the Oxygen Advantage Instructor course and can’t say enough good things about it! I have been taping my mouth for my strength training sessions as well as my Tactical training. I have been playing with the knowledge Patrick McKeown has so willingly shared and began experimenting with my team. The conditioning results have been exceptional but I expected that based on what I learned in the course. Using Oxygen Advantage for the reduction of stress in SWAT and other High Stress Law Enforcement activities is what I am most interested in now and I have a lot to work with thanks again to Patrick McKeown. For those out there who are considering taking the course do yourself a favor get off the fence and do it. Money well invested in your health!” — Joey Williams, Patrol Lieutenant, SWAT Commander Responsible for Training, Berkeley, CA

Praise for The Breathing Cure: Exercises to Develop New Breathing Habits for a Healthier, Happier, and Longer Life by Patrick McKeown

“My quest for correct breathing led me to Patrick McKeown and his clinical work with over 8,000 people, ranging from medical patients to elite athletes. I appreciate the value of ‘feeling’ things and learning through experiencing, but Patrick's scientific explanation of what is happening in the body when I nasal breathe as opposed to mouth breathing truly helped me understand how to use my breath as a tool to support my health and boost my performance. Patrick's passion for breathing education comes out of his own personal experience. Even though he himself was an extremely dysfunctional breather and an asthmatic — he was told by his doctors that he would be on medication and limited in activities for the rest of his life — he cured himself through breathing practices. I truly appreciate that Patrick's teaching empowers people to be proactive in supporting their own good health. Patrick simply explains the importance of nasal breathing and balancing respiratory gases to create better health and mitigate illness, chronic disease and injuries. If breathing and the breath is the essence of life, and it is meant to be intuitive, then how do we find our way back to the basics? Patrick makes this a comprehensive journey that anyone can use and share with their friends and family.”

—LAIRD HAMILTON, surfing icon, founder of Extreme Performance Training (XPT), and New York Times bestselling author of Liferider

From the Publisher