Most people I ask don’t know about the benefits of nose breathing. So I asked James Nestor, author of the bestselling book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, about this lost art of healing. When you go back to the beginning of human existence, the ancients recorded breath and nose breathing as a healing modality. It’s like the solution was given from the get-go, and yet we strayed far from this gift we were given. He explained to me that we are so divorced from nature, congested from air pollution, and we’ve adopted a diet that doesn’t allow for proper chewing, so the basic airway help has been disrupted. The disruption of our nitric oxide intake—breathing through your nose is the primary way your body utilizes inhaled nitric oxide—by bypassing the nose by mouth breathing means you miss out on these automated biological advantages. We need nitric oxide for cardiovascular health, athletic performance, and sexual and general health. These are all things that industrialization has compromised.
Then, something our cover star Annabelle Wallis said to me, “You attract what you feel inside,” sent me down a rabbit hole that circles right back to nasal breathing. This concept suggests that your dominant emotional state acts as a magnet, drawing matching circumstances, people and events into your life. For example, If you feel wealthy and abundant inside, you will attract financial opportunities. If you feel desperate or victimized, you will attract more situations that make you feel that way. While psychologists generally reject the idea that your feelings physically bend the laws of physics to move external objects or events, they do agree that feeling something deeply inside completely changes your perception and behavior, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Scientifically speaking, the reticular activating system (RAS), a network of neurons in your brain stem, acts as a filter. If you feel grateful and positive, your RAS actively looks for evidence of good things in your environment, making you notice opportunities you would have otherwise missed. When you feel confident and open, your body language, tone of voice and micro-expressions change. People respond to you more favorably, making it look like you “attracted” them, when you actually just invited them in through your behavior. If you feel miserable, your brain naturally highlights every minor inconvenience (like a red light or a spilled coffee) as proof that the world is against you, ignoring the good things.
If you perceive and react based on what you feel, how can one perceive and react better to the world to get the most positive outcome? You must train your brain to bridge the gap between an automatic feeling and your chosen responses. In psychology, this is known as cognitive reframing and emotional regulation. In order to rewire your perception and behavior to achieve the best positive outcomes, you must master “the gap,” or “pause before reacting.” We know this. Your brain naturally reacts to external events in milliseconds based on your current mood. To get a better outcome, you must interrupt this automation. So, when a negative event happens, count to three or take one deep nasal breath. This brief pause shifts your brain activity from the emotional center (amygdala) to the thinking center (prefrontal cortex).
Consider this blueprint for life: Cultivate a low baseline stress level and protect your physical baseline. Find the joy in your nature. Breathe it all in…through your nose. Check out the father of mindfulness, David Nichtern, and his story in this issue, “Mind Over Karma,” for a deeper perspective on reframing your narrative.
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