Breathing Protocols to Reboot Your Health

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The Science-Backed Guide to Better Sleep, Focus, and Performance

Most of us spend decades learning how to think, analyze, and perform, yet we graduate from formal education without understanding the single most fundamental skill for life: how to breathe properly. This isn’t just about survival, it’s about optimizing every system in your body, from sleep quality and cognitive performance to athletic endurance and mental clarity.

James Nestor, bestselling author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, has spent years investigating the profound connection between breathing patterns and human health. What he’s discovered challenges conventional medical thinking and offers remarkably simple, science-backed solutions to some of modern society’s most persistent health problems.

The Ancient Wisdom Hidden in Prayer

In the late 1990s, Italian researchers led by Dr. Luciano Bernardi made a fascinating discovery while studying different prayer traditions. They found that recitation of the Catholic rosary (Ave Maria) and Buddhist mantras (Om Mani Padme Hum) both naturally slowed breathing to approximately 5.5 to 6 breaths per minute, exactly half the normal resting rate.

The physiological effects were remarkable:

  • Dramatic increases in heart rate variability (HRV)
  • Enhanced baroreflex sensitivity (a marker of cardiovascular health)
  • Synchronized cardiovascular and respiratory rhythms
  • Rhythmic fluctuations in cerebral blood flow
  • Significant decreases in blood pressure

The researchers termed this pattern “coherent breathing,” a state where all major body systems enter synchronization and work at peak efficiency. What’s particularly striking is that these benefits occurred regardless of the spiritual beliefs of participants. The mechanism was purely physiological.

“What you’re seeing and feeling is your body working at the state it’s designed to work at, the state of coherence, the state of peak efficiency,” Nestor explains.

Research published in the British Medical Journal demonstrated that breathing at 5.5 breaths per minute with equal inhalation-to-exhalation ratios produces the highest increases in HRV compared to other breathing patterns. This rhythm appears to stimulate what’s called the “baroreflex,” optimizing the body’s blood pressure regulation system and enhancing parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) nervous system activity.

The Practical Application

You don’t need to practice any religion to access these benefits. Simply breathe in slowly for 5-6 seconds, then exhale slowly for 5-6 seconds. Continue this pattern for 5-10 minutes daily. If you have a heart rate monitor or HRV tracking device, you can watch the effects manifest in real-time within seconds.

The Pioneer You’ve Never Heard Of: Maurice Daubard

Long before Wim Hof became a household name, a French breathwork pioneer named Maurice Daubard was performing extraordinary feats using ancient breathing techniques. Daubard’s story exemplifies the healing power of breath.

As a child in the 1950s, Daubard suffered from severe lung infections and respiratory disorders. Doctors scheduled surgery to remove a large portion of his lungs. Just before the procedure, a missionary who had traveled through the Far East told him about yoga breathing techniques. Daubard asked for a few weeks to try healing himself naturally, a request everyone thought was crazy.

Not only did he rehabilitate himself completely, but he gained what seemed like superhuman abilities:

  • At age 71, he toured the Himalayas by bicycle at 5,000 meters elevation
  • He could sit in ice water for 55 minutes
  • He ran 150 miles beneath the Sahara Desert sun
  • He practiced these techniques daily until his death at age 93

Daubard was practicing Tummo breathing, an ancient Bon Buddhist technique for generating and storing body heat. This technology has been documented for thousands of years among Himalayan monks as both a survival technique and spiritual practice. Visual evidence exists of monks using Tummo to literally dry wet sheets on their bodies in freezing conditions, a process documented on YouTube.

Modern Variations: Wim Hof and Beyond

The Wim Hof Method represents what Nestor calls “Tummo Lite,” a commercialized, accessible version. The technique involves:

  1. Approximately 30 very deep breaths in quick succession
  2. A breath hold at neutral lung volume (after exhaling)
  3. One big breath in, held for 15-30 seconds
  4. Repeat the cycle 3-4 times

When combined with specific arm movements and internal pressure techniques during the breath holds, practitioners can rapidly increase body temperature, breaking into a sweat regardless of ambient temperature. “I’ll be damned if someone does this and doesn’t break out into a sweat,” Nestor confirms.

Wim Hof has been transparent that he didn’t invent these practices. He synthesized ancient techniques and made them accessible to modern audiences. Nonetheless, his contribution to bringing breathwork awareness into mainstream culture has been enormous.

Important safety note: Never practice breath holds in water, and be extremely cautious with cold exposure. There are documented cases of frostbite and digit loss from overzealous practitioners.

Nestor’s Personal Transformation

Twelve years ago, Nestor seemed to have everything dialed in: optimal diet, eight hours of sleep, regular exercise. Yet he suffered from chronic respiratory issues, constant pneumonia, and bronchitis requiring repeated antibiotic courses. His breathing had become so dysfunctional he could hear himself breathing at night and during workouts.

A doctor friend suggested breathwork, something Nestor had dismissed as San Francisco “woo-woo”. Reluctantly, he tried a technique called Sudarshan Kriya through an Art of Living weekend workshop.

The physiological response was immediate and profound. “I sweated through everything, my shirt, my socks were damp, there were sweat stains on my jeans, my hair was sopping wet from just sitting in a corner of a very dark and cold room just breathing at this rhythm,” he recalls.

Since adopting proper breathing practices, Nestor hasn’t had a single respiratory infection. This convinced him there was legitimate science behind breathwork, not just placebo effects.

The ADHD-Sleep Connection Nobody Talks About

One of Nestor’s most important discoveries post-publication has been the striking overlap between sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and ADHD in children.

“If you take the population of kids who have sleep-disordered breathing, snoring, sleep apnea, or dysfunction in their breathing at night, and if you take the population of kids who have ADHD, those two diagrams almost completely intersect,” Nestor explains.

The science backs this up powerfully. A 2024 systematic review published in Neuropsychopharmacology found that co-occurrence of SDB and ADHD may be as high as 50%, with frequent overlap of clinical symptoms like distractibility and inattention. The mechanisms linking these conditions include:

  • Hypoxia (low oxygen) during sleep
  • Sleep fragmentation
  • Activation of inflammatory pathways
  • Effects on brain structure and physiology that disturb attention

“What so many researchers are saying is that ADHD does not exist. What you’re looking at are sleep-deprived kids,” Nestor states.

The most frustrating aspect? Children presenting with ADHD are almost never assessed for breathing or sleep problems. They’re given medications and sent on their way, when the root cause may be correctable through breathing retraining.

Research confirms that children with untreated SDB often display behaviors mimicking ADHD, making it challenging for healthcare providers to distinguish between the conditions. Because symptoms overlap so significantly, children with SDB may be misdiagnosed and treated for ADHD when their issues stem from poor sleep quality.

Simple At-Home Assessment

Parents don’t need expensive sleep labs to get initial signals about their child’s breathing:

  1. Daytime observation: Does your child breathe through their mouth frequently during waking hours?
  2. Nighttime listening: After your child falls asleep, quietly observe their breathing. If you can hear them breathing, they’re struggling. If their mouth is open, they’re struggling.
  3. Use technology: Apps like SnoreLab or Snore Clock (both have free versions) can record breathing patterns throughout the night, creating graphs and scores to identify problems.

If a child is snoring or has sleep apnea, they’re not just affecting sleep quality, they’re inhibiting physical growth, causing neurological damage to the brain, and increasing chances of diabetes later in life. This isn’t scare-mongering; it’s well-documented, non-controversial science.

The Number One Solution: Nasal Breathing

“The number one thing you can do is become an obligate nasal breather,” Nestor emphasizes. This means breathing through your nose 24/7, both during the day and during sleep, and during moderate exercise.

For nighttime nasal breathing, mouth taping has become a game-changer for thousands of people. Contrary to what the name suggests, you don’t need elaborate setups. A small piece of micropore tape (available at any drugstore) or specialized products like “hostage tape” can gently close the lips.

For parents concerned about taping their children’s mouths, Myotape was developed as a gentler alternative. It goes around the mouth rather than over it, allowing children to open their mouths if needed but training them to keep lips closed during unconscious sleep.

Nestor himself has worn sleep tape almost every night for seven years. “It sucked for about two weeks. Then I got over the hump,” he admits. Now it’s so ingrained that he has difficulty sleeping without it, even when camping. The difference is immediately visible in his sleep scores.

Important: Start gradually. Wear tape for 10 minutes while answering emails, then 20 minutes, then an hour. After two weeks of acclimation, try it during a 15-minute nap before progressing to full nighttime use.

Parents report transformative results with their children who convert to nasal breathing:

  • Bedwetting stopped in 10-11-year-olds within weeks
  • ADHD symptoms disappeared in two weeks
  • Dramatic improvements in focus and behavior

The Indoor Air Quality Crisis

One of Nestor’s most alarming discoveries involves indoor CO₂ levels, something most people never consider.

After a researcher suggested he start measuring indoor air quality, Nestor began carrying a CO₂ monitor everywhere. What he found was shocking:

  • Outdoor baseline: ~425 parts per million (ppm)
  • ASHRAE acceptable indoor threshold: 1,000 ppm
  • Average airplane cabin during flight: 2,500 ppm
  • Many hotel rooms: 2,000-2,800 ppm

Research published in Environmental Health Perspectives by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found dramatic cognitive impacts at levels commonly found indoors:

  • At 945 ppm (moderate increase): cognitive function decreased 15%
  • At 1,400 ppm: cognitive function decreased 50%
  • Average effect: every 400 ppm increase in CO₂ was associated with a 21% decrease in cognitive scores across all domains

These levels are considered “acceptable” by current building codes, yet they significantly impair decision-making, strategy, information usage, crisis response, and planning abilities.

“If you wonder why you feel like crap after a 4-hour flight, I think it has a lot to do with the very low amount of oxygen and the very high amount of CO₂,” Nestor explains.

The Hotel Problem

Ironically, hotels with prestigious LEED certification and green building plaques often have the worst air quality. Why? They seal windows to reduce heating and cooling costs (which can account for 50% of maintenance expenses), then recirculate air from all rooms rather than bringing in fresh outdoor air.

“I’ve recorded 2,800 parts per million waking up in one of these hotels,” Nestor reports.

Nestor’s travel solution: Call ahead and specifically ask if hotel windows can open even just 6-7 inches. Stay at those hotels.

Recommended CO₂ monitor: After testing ten different devices against professional equipment, Nestor recommends the Aranet4 for accuracy and battery life (lasts 3-4 months).

Nestor is now working on creating a crowdsourced database where people can automatically upload air quality data for hotels and restaurants worldwide, publicly outing establishments with poor air quality.

Athletic Performance: The Breathing Advantage

Contrary to what most people assume, elite athletes are just as dysfunctional in their breathing patterns as the general population. Research published in Scientific Reports found that almost 45% of elite endurance athletes had dysfunctional breathing patterns.

“Athletes aren’t scared of a little inconvenience or discomfort; this is what they thrive in to get ahead,” Nestor notes. Elite trainers now identify breathing retraining as the number one performance intervention.

The Diaphragm Problem

Research published in Nature Scientific Reports examined 69 Polish elite endurance athletes and found that 44.92% had dysfunctional breathing patterns, characterized primarily by limited diaphragmatic movement.

The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle beneath the lungs that should move significantly with each breath. Most athletes breathe primarily into the chest, creating massive inefficiencies:

  • Requires more frequent breaths (40-100 per minute vs. 10-20)
  • Elevates heart rate unnecessarily
  • Wastes energy
  • Reduces oxygen efficiency

A 2023 systematic review in Sports confirmed that diaphragmatic breathing improves athletes’ lung capacity, breathing efficiency, endurance, and stamina. Moreover, it enhances heart rate variability, emotional regulation, stress resilience, attention, working memory, and cognitive flexibility.

Research published in Healthcare demonstrated that diaphragm thickness during inspiration correlates positively with anaerobic power, highlighting its importance for high-intensity performance. Athletes with diaphragmatic breathing patterns showed significantly higher spirometric and plethysmographic values compared to those with thoracic breathing patterns.

Nasal Breathing for Training

“I can count on one hand how many joggers I see running in the morning breathing in and out of their nose,” Nestor observes. Yet nasal breathing at lower training zones offers substantial advantages:

  • Increases oxygen delivery efficiency
  • Lowers heart rate at given intensities
  • Improves CO₂ tolerance
  • Enhances recovery
  • Reduces injury risk through better movement quality

The BOLT Score: Tracking Progress

The Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT) provides a simple metric for breathing efficiency:

  1. Sit comfortably and relax your body
  2. Take three normal breaths through your nose
  3. On the third exhale, allow breath to naturally leave (don’t force it out)
  4. Hold your breath and pinch your nostrils
  5. Time until you feel the first urge to breathe (diaphragm quiver, swallow, or clear urge)
  6. Stop immediately when you feel that urge. This isn’t a competition

This isn’t about seeing how long you can hold your breath. It measures your body’s tolerance to CO₂, which indicates breathing efficiency.

The more you practice proper breathing, fewer, deeper, slower breaths, the more your BOLT score will improve. Many people see scores double within 1-2 weeks, though this depends on starting fitness and honest self-assessment.

Advanced Training: Inspiratory Muscle Training

Breathing resistance devices work like adding a weight to a baseball bat. They create extra pressure that develops muscle memory and strengthens respiratory muscles.

A 2024 narrative review published in Research, Society and Development confirmed that Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) effectively improves respiratory function and athletic performance by increasing strength and resistance of inspiratory muscles, improving lung ventilation and respiratory efficiency.

Important warning: If you use these devices with a rounded back (breathing “through your back”), expect severe back soreness lasting days, it will feel like six hours of deadlifts. Start with lower resistance than you think you can handle.

Breathing During Focus Work

Nestor uses a device called the Relaxator (developed by Swedish breathing expert Anders Olsson) while writing for extended periods. This adult pacifier-like tool creates slight breathing resistance, reminding the body to maintain rhythmic breathing during intense focus.

This addresses “email apnea,” a phenomenon researched by the NIH for 20 years, where people unconsciously hold their breath when focusing or experiencing screen-induced stress. This raises blood pressure and causes headaches, potentially creating chronic health issues.

Optimizing Sleep Beyond Breathing

Beyond mouth taping and nasal breathing, Nestor offers additional sleep optimization strategies:

1. Assess Your Sleep Breathing

Use multiple wearable devices that track oxygen dips throughout the night. Record data for at least a week using SnoreLab or Snore Clock to establish patterns.

2. Sleep Position Matters

Breathing is more difficult when lying on your back. During COVID, hospitals discovered that “proning” (placing patients on stomachs and sides) saved lives because most lung expansion happens in the back, not the front.

The old-school solution: Tape a sock, ping-pong ball, or light object to the back of a t-shirt. When you unconsciously roll onto your back, discomfort will prompt you to return to side-sleeping.

3. Incline Bed Therapy

Raising the head of your bed approximately 6 inches can help reduce snoring and sleep apnea symptoms for many people.

4. Address Physiology Before Psychology

“Sometimes troubled sleep is caused by stress when your mind is racing,” Nestor acknowledges. However, he recommends checking all physiological boxes first (breathing, sleep position, air quality) before diving deeper into psychological interventions.

5. Manual Therapy

For people with frozen or restricted rib cages, finding a skilled physiotherapist or massage therapist who can work on thoracic mobility makes a dramatic difference. After an hour of proper soft tissue work, “everything just starts to open up,” allowing more effective breathing patterns.

Nestor’s Complete Travel Kit

For someone who travels 100+ days per year, Nestor has refined his optimization toolkit:

Breathing & Sleep:

  • Sleep tape (most critical item he’ll search for tape at midnight if he forgot it)
  • Myotape as backup
  • Aranet4 CO₂ monitor
  • Relaxator breathing device

Lighting:

  • Red night lights (pluggable, fade-adjustable)
  • Red LED bulbs (plastic, shatterproof)
  • Used exclusively in hotel bathrooms and rooms to avoid circadian disruption

Supplements (“Granny XL packs”):

  • Vitamin D, K2, E (heroic emergency doses for illness)
  • CoQ10
  • Nattokinase
  • All packed in daily pill organizers to save time

Other Tech:

  • PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) device a somewhat Soviet-looking device with ~40 preset programs for grounding, cardiovascular health, and respiratory support
  • Cold shower before bed when jet-lagged

The PEMF Device Rabbit Hole

Nestor has spent six years exploring bioelectric medicine, acknowledging that “the vast majority of paths have been complete BS”. However, legitimate research exists.

“PMEFs, which were considered quackery 30 years ago, are now becoming a staple of many offices,” he notes. The history traces back to 1950s-60s Soviet research.

His current device (he won’t name the brand) emits specific frequencies studied to reduce viral, bacterial, and fungal loads. “I know what a lot of you are thinking, this is completely based on zero. But I’m here to tell you there’s a lot of legit research,” he insists.

For those interested in bioelectric medicine, Nestor recommends:

  • Reading: The Body Electric by Dr. Robert O. Becker
  • Research: Studies by Dr. Michael Levin at Tufts University and Dr. Kevin Tracy on vagus nerve stimulation

“If you can grow two heads on a salamander and regrow limbs with specific frequencies, obviously we’re going to be affected by these frequencies as well,” Nestor argues.

The Writer’s Mindset: No Such Thing as Writer’s Block

Nestor’s stance on writer’s block is controversial but instructive: “I think the concept of writer’s block is a convenient out for people who want an excuse to not work”.

“Every professional writer I know that writes for a living, writing is the only source of income for these people, has never experienced writer’s block,” he states. “Every hobbyist who introduces themselves as a ‘writer’ at dinner parties has chronic writer’s block”.

His solution is brutally simple: financial necessity. “If you don’t hand the thing in, you’re not going to get paid and you’re in a precarious situation. You find a way out,” he explains.

The 290,000-Word Problem

Nestor’s breakthrough for Breath came after an extraordinary struggle. He had accumulated 290,000 words that needed to become an 85,000-word book.

His agent and editor identified that his 10-day breathing experiment at Stanford, originally planned as a two-paragraph sidebar, should become the through-line for the entire book. All the historical research, scientific findings, and personal stories would branch out from those 20 days.

“I said, ‘But it’s 20 days. I’ve been working on this thing for 5 years!’ They said, ‘Nope, that’s what it’s going to be,'” Nestor recalls.

The key was getting to a house in the woods with zero distractions. “Boredom is the most wonderful muse of all,” he discovered. By becoming completely absorbed in every thread of the story day and night, he eventually “started to see the matrix”.

Once the skeleton was clear, “fleshing it out was almost mechanical work because I already knew the story”.

The Breathwork Industry Critique

Despite championing breathing practices, Nestor has a nuanced critique of the modern “breathwork culture”.

“Breathwork’s a huge deal right now, there are retreats, different schools, classes all over the place, breathwork fashion, breathwork jewels,” he notes. “But what I think that culture is doing is a bit of a disservice to everybody else in that it’s complicating and creating a barrier around something that already belongs to everybody”.

He compares it to attending culinary school to learn only desserts while ignoring nutrition and fundamental cooking. “I watch people walk away from breathwork classes mouth breathing or complaining about their snoring and sleep apnea,” he observes.

His message: “Before you go into hardcore breathwork, get your breathing to a normal place and see the benefits from that”.

The foundations are simple, natural, and free:

  • Breathe through your nose 24/7
  • Breathe slowly and lightly
  • Practice coherent breathing (5.5 breaths per minute) for 5-10 minutes daily
  • Ensure proper sleep breathing with mouth taping

“It gets overlooked because people think it’s too simple to be effective until you do it and look at the science,” Nestor concludes.

The Bottom Line: 90% of People Have Breathing Dysfunction

Research confirms that 90% of people on planet Earth suffer from some form of breathing dysfunction. This isn’t about optimizing performance or achieving superhuman feats. It’s about returning to normal, natural breathing patterns that we’ve lost through modern lifestyles.

The science is unequivocal:

  • Coherent breathing at 5.5-6 breaths per minute optimizes cardiovascular health
  • Sleep-disordered breathing may account for up to 50% of ADHD diagnoses
  • Indoor CO₂ above 1,000 ppm impairs cognitive function by 15-50%
  • Nearly half of elite athletes have dysfunctional breathing patterns
  • Diaphragmatic breathing significantly improves respiratory efficiency and athletic performance
  • Nasal breathing provides systemic benefits mouth breathing cannot match

The interventions are remarkably accessible:

  • Free: Nasal breathing, coherent breathing practice, sleep position adjustment
  • Low-cost: Mouth tape, CO₂ monitor, breathing apps
  • Moderate-cost: Breathing resistance devices, red light bulbs, quality supplements

Unlike many health interventions requiring expensive equipment, specialized facilities, or professional supervision, breathing retraining belongs to everyone. Your breath is always with you, waiting to be harnessed as the powerful tool evolution designed it to be.

The real question isn’t whether breathing matters; it’s why we’ve ignored it for so long despite decades of peer-reviewed research. And more importantly, now that you know, what will you do about it?

Research Sources and References

Coherent Breathing and Prayer Studies

  1. Bernardi, L., et al. (2001). “Effect of rosary prayer and yoga mantras on autonomic cardiovascular rhythms: comparative study.” British Medical Journal, 323(7327):1446-1449. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC61046/
  2. Bernardi, L., et al. (2001). “Effect of rosary prayer and yoga mantras on autonomic cardiovascular rhythms.” PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11751348/
  3. “Reciting Ave Maria linked to a healthy heart” (2001). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/766123
  4. “Effect of rosary prayer and yoga mantras on autonomic cardiovascular rhythms” (2022). The Breathing Diabetic. https://www.thebreathingdiabetic.com/science-411s/bernardi-et-al-2001

Heart Rate Variability and Breathing Patterns

  1. Lin, I.M., et al. (2014). “Breathing at a rate of 5.5 breaths per minute with equal inhalation-to-exhalation ratio increases heart rate variability.” International Journal of Psychophysiology, 91(3):206-211. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167876013003346
  2. “Breathing at a rate of 5.5 breaths per minute” (2013). The Breathing Diabetic. https://www.thebreathingdiabetic.com/lin-et-al-2014

ADHD and Sleep-Disordered Breathing

  1. Sedky, K., et al. (2024). “Sleep Disordered Breathing and Risk for ADHD.” Current Psychiatry Reports. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38353411/
  2. “The Link Between Sleep-Disordered Breathing and Misdiagnosed ADHD in Children” (2025). Wisconsin Tongue Tie Institute. https://tonguetiewi.com/blog/the-link-between-sleep-disordered-breathing-and-misdiagnosed-adhd-in-children/

Indoor CO₂ and Cognitive Performance

  1. Allen, J.G., et al. (2015). “Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers.” Environmental Health Perspectives, 124(6):805-812. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4892924/
  2. “Impact of Rising Carbon Dioxide on Human Cognitive Performance” (2025). Ocean2Climate. https://ocean2climate.org/2025/12/24/impact-of-rising-carbon-dioxide-on-human-health-and-cognitive-performance/

Athletic Performance and Diaphragmatic Breathing

  1. Silverii, M.V., et al. (2023). “Sports Performance and Breathing Rate: What Is the Connection?” Sports, 11(5):103. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10224217/
  2. Drozd, M., et al. (2024). “Influence of the breathing pattern on the pulmonary function of endurance-trained athletes.” Scientific Reports, 14:1711. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-51758-5
  3. Damato, E.G., et al. (2024). “Diaphragmatic Ultrasonography in Sports Performance.” Healthcare, 12(19):1943. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11508651/
  4. Silva, J.P.L., et al. (2024). “The influence of respiratory techniques on sports performance.” Research, Society and Development, 13(9):e2313946759. https://rsdjournal.org/rsd/article/view/46759

Maurice Daubard and Historical Breathwork

  1. “Tummo Instructions and Info” (2024). Active-Solitude. https://activesolitude.substack.com/p/tummo-instructions-and-info
  2. “James Nestor: Breath, Nose Vs Mouth Breathing” (2024). Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. https://melanieavalon.com/breath/

Primary Source Material

  1. Nestor, J. (2026). “Breathing Protocols to Reboot Your Health, Fix Your Sleep, and Boost Performance” interview. Tim Ferriss Podcast. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nwuApcbI4

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as medical advice. Individuals with cardiovascular conditions, panic disorders, respiratory diseases, pregnancy, or other chronic health conditions should consult qualified healthcare providers before implementing breathing protocols, especially those involving breath holds or hyperventilation. Never practice breath-hold exercises in or near water.

For more information on breathing protocols and James Nestor’s work, visit his website at mrjamesnestor.com or read his bestselling book “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art.”