Most people, including me, are bad at breathing

We seldom think about why that is, but we should, writes Nicholas Read.

The thing I think about most every day, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and — OK, you get it — is my breathing.

Not my finances or the state of the world or my relationships or even my cat. It's how I breathe. I dare say this makes me not just unusual, but a dyed in the wool freak.

But I have my reasons. Years ago, I developed a severe and disabling breathing problem as a result of a serious psychological breakdown suffered years before.

My exhales sounded like a dump truck grinding its gears or a smoker hacking his guts out. At its worst, it was also constant. Literally. So bad that hotels refused me accommodation (I would bother other guests), passersby mocked me on the street, and I had to retire early from my job.

It was only after I discovered a breathing coach — yes, such a creature does exist — in late 2022 that I was able to bring it under some control. My coach, Cian Dalton, is from Ireland where he used to box professionally under the moniker The Celtic Cyclone.

That probably sounds unusual, too, but it's not. Boxing well, Cian explains, is highly dependent on how well a fighter breathes. If he loses his breath, he'll lose his fight. Makes sense. So do a lot of other things he says.

Perhaps the most interesting is that most people — not just me — breathe badly. In fact, because of stress, hurry and the concomitant demands we continually place on ourselves, almost everyone does.

James Nestor, an American science journalist, made the same argument three years ago in his groundbreaking book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. Put simply, Nestor says we breathe through our mouths rather than our noses, and into our lungs and not our diaphragms. Consequently, our breaths are too short, too shallow and too many.

Correcting this has been my main goal for the past 16 months, and it should be yours, too.

Nestor puts it brilliantly, I think, when he compares your nose to the main parachute in your pack and your mouth to the spare. In other words, the only time you should breathe through your mouth is when your nose is plugged.

Athletes, however, may need to breathe through both to get adequate oxygen for their sport.

If you doubt this advice, consider this. If someone is upset, what's the first thing we suggest he or she do to relax? Take a deep breath. Why? Because a full breath is always restorative, especially if taken outside. So why do we take so few ourselves?

Thanks to Cian, my breathing isn't anywhere near the handicap it was. Talking and eating remain perpetually iffy (talking over a meal is probably the most difficult thing I can attempt). And exercising too vigorously is also something to avoid.

But on a good day — and there are many more now — providing I get regular rest and don't overdo it, I can go until 4 p.m. without any cursed croaks, coughs or other sound barrier breaks. No, it's not enough. I want a complete cure and a normal life. But the difference is startling.

Obsessing about my breathing does make me an odd duck, but having breathing difficulties does not.

According to research published in Britain's premier medical journal, The Lancet, chronic respiratory difficulties are among the most common non-communicable diseases in the world. And thanks to pollution, industrialization and all the other evils of modern life, the problem is getting worse.

The incidence of chronic respiratory difficulties worldwide rose 39.8 per cent between 1990 and 2017, and has continued to increase since.

But because breathing, like our heart rate and digestion, is autonomous, we, unlike me, rarely think about it. We should.

After all, breathing is the single most important thing we do every day of our lives.