Madeline Atwood’s Reviews > Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art > Status Update

5 Tibetan rites

A few mins of stretching a day can greatly increase your body’s capacity for breath/oxygen in your lungs

“A 2021 study from University of Colorado Boulder found that just five minutes of breathing exercises per day can lower blood pressure as much as drugs or exercise.”

“researchers at UC San Diego recorded the breathing patterns of a schizophrenic woman over the course of 3 consecutive years. They found that she had a significantly greater left nostril dominance. This breathing habit, they believed, was overstimulating the creative part of her brain, causing her imagination to run amok. They taught her to breathe through her right & she experienced far fewer hallucinations.”

Left nostril breathing: brake system, deeply connected to parasympathetic nervous system. Reduces anxiety, relaxation, lowers blood pressure, cools body.

- shifts blood flow to opposite side of brain to areas that influence creative thought, mental abstractions, and negative emotions.

Right nostril breathing: activates sympathetic nervous system/fight or flight mechanism that puts body in state of alertness.

- Feeds more blood to opposite side of brain (logic, computing, language)

Honeymoon rhinitis: the mere thought of sex, for some peeps, causes such severe bouts of nasal erections that they’ll have trouble breathing and start sneezing uncontrollably


I’m actually… wow. This is the craziest info I’ve read in a book

“The interior of the nose is blanketed with erectile tissue; this is the same flesh that covers the penis, clitoris, and nipple. Noses get erections. Within seconds, they too can engorge with blood and become large and stiff. This happens because the nose is more intimately connected to the genitals than any other organ. When one gets aroused, the other responds.”

I am actually SHOOK what the HELLLL

60% of Americans report sleeping with their mouth open/mouth breathing

- leads to dry mouth + 40% suffer from nighttime congestion

“Mouth breathing causes the body to lose 40% more water.”

Hence why some folks are so intensely thirsty throughout the night/wake up more dehydrated or thirsty