01 You’ll bring awareness to your breath

A rampant respiratory disease and mandatory mask-wearing will do that, true. But so will bookshop shelves and Amazon order-pickers wheezing under the expanding volume of pulmonology-heavy publications: The Wim Hof Method by the Iceman himself, Exhale by Richie “the Breath Guy” Bostock and Breath by journalist James Nestor. Controlled breathing techniques can confer “a number of positive health and performance benefits, from reducing anxiety to delaying fatigue”, says Equinox’s Matt Delaney. Even slight adjustments can be “transformative”, agrees the Global Wellness Institute’s Beth McGroarty. Promising science is adding weight to many of the claims – but some may yet prove to be hot air.