How Does Breathing Cause Chronic Inflammation?

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Sopisi: If you struggle to do anything 20 thousand times a day, it's going to wear your body down. He says breathing is something that we've become very good at just getting by doing. Sopisi: We have these two enormous balloons inside of our lungs called our lungs. And if we take a very deep breath, what happens to the entire body? It gets upright and straightens up.

When author and journalist James Nestor began researching a piece on free diving, he was stunned. He found that free divers could hold their breath for up to 8 minutes at a time, and dive to depths of 350 feet on a single breath. As he dug into the history of breath, he discovered that our industrialized lives have led to improper and mindless breathing, with cascading consequences from sleep apnea to reduced mobility. He also discovered an entire world of extraordinary feats achieved through proper and mindful breathing — including healing scoliosis, rejuvenating organs, halting snoring, and even enabling greater sovereignty in our use of technology. What is the transformative potential of breath? And what is the relationship between proper breathing and humane technology?