The Forum with James Nestor: Breath

"Our breath is a beautiful, healing, mysterious gift, and so is this book. I already feel like it's going to change my life." —  Elizabeth Gilbert  There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.   James Nestor is an award-winning author and journalist who has written for Scientific American, Outside, The New York Times, and more. His latest book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, was an instant New York Times and London Sunday Times bestseller.  Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. 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 São Paulo. Join Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Nestor about his new book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly—and how to get it back.