Fascinating Book on... Breathing!!

I don't know if I'd have been interested in reading about "breathing" if I hadn't felt congested since last November! First I had a cold... Then... allergies? The congestion has lessened but it hasn't disappeared... So when I started to read this book, I wanted to learn more...

The book is called Breath,  by James Nestor.

Before starting to read it, I had never given much thought to how I breathe... Through my mouth? Through my nose? Weren't equally valid?

Apparently not... There is a right way and a wrong way to breathe. Improper breathing can cause a host of medical problems...

I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book, but I've already learned that:

• Nose-breathing is much healthier than than mouth-breathing... 

• When we sleep on our right side, we breathe through our left nostril and vice-versa when we sleep on our left side, we breathe through our right nostril. (How was I never aware of that?!) 

• And there's more: Whether we are breathing through our left nostril or our right nostril feeds oxygen to a different part of the brain!

So interesting: "In a single breath, more molecules of air will pass through your nose than all the grains of sand on all the world's beaches - trillions and trillions of them... at a clip of about 5 miles per hour..." (Chapter 3)

I'm looking forward to learning more!