A look at James Nestor’s excellent book Breath — and what it means for your body and your health.

We talk a lot at MMC about the body holding tension, about muscles tightening up, about stress living in the shoulders and the jaw. But there’s something even more fundamental we rarely discuss — something you’ve done about 25,000 times today already.

Breathing.

Turns out, most of us are doing it wrong. Not a little bit wrong. Quite spectacularly wrong. And science journalist James Nestor spent a decade travelling the world, sticking silicone plugs up his nose, and consulting everyone from free divers to Tibetan monks to tell us exactly how and why.

His book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art is one of those reads that quietly changes the way you move through the world. I know, because I checked my own Fitbit after the first chapter. My average breathing rate? 10 breaths per minute. The research says optimal is 5.5. That got my attention.

Here are the concepts that stuck with me most — and why they matter for your body.

1. Your Nose Is Not Optional

Here’s the one that hits hardest: roughly 50% of adults breathe primarily through their mouths. And according to Nestor, that’s a genuine health crisis hiding in plain sight.

When Nestor plugged his nostrils for just 10 days and breathed exclusively through his mouth, his blood pressure shot up, his sleep apnea episodes rocketed, and his snoring volume increased by nearly 5,000%. In ten days.

The nose isn’t just a passageway — it filters, warms, and humidifies air before it reaches your lungs. It produces nitric oxide, which helps dilate blood vessels and improve oxygen uptake. Mouth breathing bypasses all of that, and it’s associated with everything from poor sleep and anxiety to cavities and crooked teeth.

The fix? Breathe through your nose. During the day, during exercise, and ideally while you sleep (yes, mouth taping is a real thing people do — Nestor tried it).

2. The Perfect Breath Is Probably Slower Than You Think

How many breaths per minute do you think is optimal? Nestor’s research points to a surprisingly specific answer: 5.5 breaths per minute, taking in about 5.5 litres of air.

Most adults breathe somewhere between 12 and 20 times per minute. That’s a lot of extra breathing — and it’s not doing us any favours.

Slower breathing keeps more carbon dioxide in the blood, which sounds alarming until you understand that CO₂ isn’t just waste gas. It’s actually what triggers your red blood cells to release oxygen to your tissues. Breathe too fast, and paradoxically, your cells can end up oxygen-starved even as you’re gulping air.

Try this: Set a timer and breathe in for about 5.5 seconds, out for 5.5 seconds. It feels almost comically slow at first. Stick with it for a few minutes and notice what happens.

3. How You Breathe Out Matters Too

Most of us pay all our attention to the inhale and rush through the exhale. Big mistake.

A long, slow exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system — the “rest and digest” branch that counters the stress response. It improves heart rate variability (a key marker of cardiovascular health), calms the nervous system, and helps you actually process the oxygen you’ve just taken in.

Think of the exhale as the full stop at the end of each breath. Don’t rush it.

4. Your Breathing and Your Stress Are Deeply Connected

This is where it gets really interesting for anyone who’s ever come to us holding a week’s worth of tension in their neck and shoulders.

Nestor explains that breathing is one of the only autonomic functions we can consciously control — and through it, we can directly influence the nervous system. Fast, shallow breathing keeps the body in a low-level stress state. Slow, nasal breathing activates the vagus nerve and shifts the body toward calm.

In other words, breathing is the remote control for your nervous system. And most of us have lost the manual.

5. Our Faces — and Airways — Have Actually Changed

Here’s the wild evolutionary twist. Nestor traces much of our modern breathing crisis back to changes in diet over the last few centuries. Processed, soft foods mean we chew far less than our ancestors did. Less chewing means underdeveloped jaw muscles and narrower dental arches — which means smaller airways.

This is one reason so many children (Nestor estimates around 90%) show some degree of mouth and nasal deformity, and why sleep apnea and orthodontic issues are so widespread today.

The encouraging news: the face and jaw are more malleable than we think, and nasal breathing itself can help reshape airways over time.

6. Breathing Is Literally a Measure of How Long You’ll Live

This is the one that really stops you in your tracks.

In the 1980s, researchers from the landmark Framingham Study — a 70-year project tracking the health of over 5,000 people — set out to find the greatest predictor of lifespan. They expected it to be genetics, or diet, or exercise levels.

It was lung capacity.

People with smaller, less efficient lungs got sick sooner and died younger. People with larger lung capacity lived longer — regardless of other factors. The researchers described our ability to breathe full breaths as “literally a measure of living capacity.”

The encouraging part? Lung capacity isn’t fixed. Breathing exercises, yoga, and even moderate exercise like cycling have been shown to expand it. You can actively work on this. Every slow, full breath is, in a very real sense, an investment in your future self.

So What Does This Have to Do With Massage?

Quite a lot, actually.

When clients arrive at MMC, we often see the physical consequences of chronic stress and poor breathing in some very specific places:

  • The scalene group (sides of the neck) — these muscles help lift the upper ribs during breathing and become chronically overloaded in people who breathe shallowly from the chest rather than the diaphragm. Tight scalenes are one of the most common things we find in clinic.
  • Pec minor (deep chest) — when the chest dominates breathing, pec minor tightens and drags the shoulders forward into that rounded, hunched posture so many of us recognise in ourselves.
  • The masseter (jaw) — mouth breathers tend to hold significant tension here. The jaw clenches, the airway narrows, and the cycle reinforces itself, often without the person even realising.
  • The abdominal area — a restricted or underused diaphragm means the abs compensate, bracing and holding rather than allowing the natural rise and fall of a full breath.

These aren’t just muscular problems in isolation — they’re often breathing problems wearing a muscular disguise.

Massage and physical therapy can help release the physical tension that shallow breathing both causes and reinforces. And when you pair that bodywork with more conscious breathing habits — nasal breathing, slower exhales, a bit of daily breath awareness — the results compound quickly.

We often ask clients during treatment to breathe slowly and fully. There’s a reason for that. Deep, nasal breathing during massage helps your nervous system stay in parasympathetic mode, letting your muscles actually let go rather than staying guarded.

A Few Simple Things to Try

You don’t need to overhaul your life. Nestor’s point is that small shifts add up:

– Breathe through your nose, especially during light exercise
– Slow your exhale — make it slightly longer than your inhale
– Check in with your breath a few times a day and see if you’re holding tension in your chest or shoulders
– Try 5.5 breaths per minute for just five minutes when you wake up or wind down

And if your body is carrying the physical aftermath of months or years of stress breathing — tight muscles, restricted movement, persistent tension — come and see us. That’s what we’re here for.