Download or read book Breath written by James Nestor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.
Download or read book Caesar s Last Breath written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Guardian's Best Science Book of 2017: the fascinating science and history of the air we breathe. It's invisible. It's ever-present. Without it, you would die in minutes. And it has an epic story to tell. In Caesar's Last Breath, New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean takes us on a journey through the periodic table, around the globe, and across time to tell the story of the air we breathe, which, it turns out, is also the story of earth and our existence on it. With every breath, you literally inhale the history of the world. On the ides of March, 44 BC, Julius Caesar died of stab wounds on the Senate floor, but the story of his last breath is still unfolding; in fact, you're probably inhaling some of it now. Of the sextillions of molecules entering or leaving your lungs at this moment, some might well bear traces of Cleopatra's perfumes, German mustard gas, particles exhaled by dinosaurs or emitted by atomic bombs, even remnants of stardust from the universe's creation. Tracing the origins and ingredients of our atmosphere, Kean reveals how the alchemy of air reshaped our continents, steered human progress, powered revolutions, and continues to influence everything we do. Along the way, we'll swim with radioactive pigs, witness the most important chemical reactions humans have discovered, and join the crowd at the Moulin Rouge for some of the crudest performance art of all time. Lively, witty, and filled with the astounding science of ordinary life, Caesar's Last Breath illuminates the science stories swirling around us every second.
Download or read book Breath Eyes Memory written by Edwidge Danticat and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 20th anniversary edition of Edwidge Danticat's groundbreaking debut, now an established classic--revised and with a new introduction by the author, and including extensive bonus materials At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished Haitian village to New York to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti—to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence. In her stunning literary debut, Danticat evokes the wonder, terror, and heartache of her native Haiti—and the enduring strength of Haiti’s women—with vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bear witness to her people’s suffering and courage.
Download or read book Recognizing and Treating Breathing Disorders written by Christopher Gilbert and published by Elsevier Health Sciences. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative, research-based book, written by a team of clinical experts, offers an introduction to the symptoms and causes of disordered breathing as well as the strategies and protocols that can be used to correct and restore normal breathing. Multidisciplinary Approaches to Breathing Pattern Disorders guides readers through a discussion of the current research that links disordered breathing patterns with perceived pain levels, fatigue, stress and anxiety. Basic mechanics, physiology, and biochemistry of normal breathing are outlined to lay a foundation for understanding causes and mechanics of disordered breathing. Self-help strategies with charts and workbook pages that may be photocopied as handouts are designed to help patients overcome specific breathing problems. "...this second edition is particularly outstanding, providing a good basis of practical hands-on techniques, well supported by pictures and the website, and giving specific focus on sports, speech and chronic pain." Reviewed by Janet Rowley on behalf of the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy, January 2015 "..a fantastic resource which will help students, clinicians, and physiotherapists to carry out effective evaluation and treatment in an acute care setting." Reviewed by Poonam Mehta on behalf of the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy, January 2015 - Written by an international team of highly experienced clinicians in the field - Addresses all the most effective aspects of therapy - physiotherapy, psychotherapy, osteopathy - Includes an introduction to the understanding of the mechanics, physiology and biochemistry of normal breathing - Includes self-help measures with charts and workbook material which may be photocopied for using with the patients - Video clips on an associated website presents practical examples of the breathing techniques discussed in the book - Includes the latest protocols on breathing rehabilitation - Includes specialist chapters on breathing dysfunction associated with pain syndromes such as pain of pelvic origin and other unexplained medical conditions - Discusses the use of capnography in assessment and rehabilitation - Includes discussion of Vojta/Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization Therapy
Download or read book The Matter of Air written by Steven Connor and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a deep breath. Air—without it, life on Earth would cease to exist. Though not usually seen, its presence is relied upon. At once both ethereal and physical, air has been associated with flight and spirit, and yet it has progressively become a territory that can be claimed through communications, warfare, travel, and scientific exploration. At the same time, air is no longer a completely reliable part of our daily life: like water, it has become an environmental element that must be watched closely for quality and purity. A Matter of Air investigates the meanings of air over the last three centuries, including our modern concern over emissions and climate change. Steven Connor looks at the human relationship with air, both positive and negative. His explorations include the dangers posed by radio atmospherics, poison gas, and haze as well as our continued fascination with effervescence and explosives. Drawing ideas from religion, science, art, literature, and philosophy, A Matter of Air creates a comprehensive history of the human perception of air. Thoroughly researched and written with wit and quirky enthusiasm, the book will appeal to a wide range of general readers interested in the environment, human history, and our most essential aspects of life.
Download or read book Perfect Breathing written by Al Lee and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-07-22 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rediscover the Power of Perfect Breathing. The seemingly simple act of breathing often goes unnoticed and yet it is the most immediately essential process for sustaining life. This informative guide explores the central role of breath in all aspects of the body, mind, and spirit. Learn how it can help improve health, accelerate healing, enhance mental focus, cognitive and creative skills, sharpen athletic performance, heighten sexual enjoyment, and deepen the meditative experience. A variety of exercises for deep, intentional breathing are provided to get you started.
Download or read book Blackpentecostal Breath written by Ashon T. Crawley and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this profoundly innovative book, Ashon T. Crawley engages a wide range of critical paradigms from black studies, queer theory, and sound studies to theology, continental philosophy, and performance studies to theorize the ways in which alternative or “otherwise” modes of existence can serve as disruptions against the marginalization of and violence against minoritarian lifeworlds and possibilities for flourishing. Examining the whooping, shouting, noise-making, and speaking in tongues of Black Pentecostalism—a multi-racial, multi-class, multi-national Christian sect with one strand of its modern genesis in 1906 Los Angeles—Blackpentecostal Breath reveals how these aesthetic practices allow for the emergence of alternative modes of social organization. As Crawley deftly reveals, these choreographic, sonic, and visual practices and the sensual experiences they create are not only important for imagining what Crawley identifies as “otherwise worlds of possibility,” they also yield a general hermeneutics, a methodology for reading culture in an era when such expressions are increasingly under siege.
Download or read book When Breath Becomes Air written by Paul Kalanithi and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER** 'Rattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful,' Atul Gawande, bestselling author of Being Mortal What makes life worth living in the face of death? At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity - the brain - and finally into a patient and a new father. Paul Kalanithi died while working on this profoundly moving book, yet his words live on as a guide to us all. When Breath Becomes Air is a life-affirming reflection on facing our mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both. 'A vital book about dying. Awe-inspiring and exquisite. Obligatory reading for the living' Nigella Lawson
Download or read book Atmospheres of Breathing written by Lenart Škof and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a physiological or biological matter, breath is mostly considered to be mechanical and thoughtless. By expanding on the insights of many religions and therapeutic practices, which emphasize the cultivation of breath, the contributors argue that breath should be understood as fundamentally and comprehensively intertwined with human life and experience. Various dimensions of the respiratory world are referred to as "atmospheres" that encircle and connect human existence, coexistence, and the world. Drawing from a number of traditions of breathing, including from Indian and East Asian religion and philosophy, the book considers breath in relation to ontological, hermeneutical, phenomenological, ethical, and aesthetic concerns in philosophy. The wide-ranging topics include poetry, theater, environmental issues and health, feminism, and media studies.
Download or read book Breath written by Martha Mason and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After contracting polio as a young girl Martha Mason of tiny Lattimore, North Carolina, lived a record sixty-one of her seventy-one years in an iron lung until her death in 2009, but she never let the 800-pound cylinder define her. The subject of a documentary film, an NPR feature, an ABC News piece, and a widely syndicated New York Times obituary, Martha enjoyed life, and people. From within her iron lung, she graduated first in her class in high school and at Wake Forest University, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She was determined to be a writer and, with her devoted mother taking dictation, she became a journalist-but had to give up her career when her father became ill. Still, Martha created for herself a vast and radiant world-holding dinner parties with the table pushed right up to her iron lung, voraciously reading, running her own household, and caring for her mother when she became ill with Alzheimer's and increasingly abusive to Martha. When voice-activated computers became available, Martha wrote Breath, in part as a tribute to her mother. "This book is her story," writes Anne Rivers Siddons in her preface, "told in the rich words of a born writer. That she told it is a gift to everyone who will read it. That she told it is also as near to a miracle as most are likely to encounter."
Download or read book Breathing Matters written by Magdalena Górska and published by Magdalena Górska. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Breathing is not a common subject in feminist studies. Breathing Matters introduces this phenomenon as a forceful potentiality for feminist intersec-tional theories, politics, and social and environmental justice. By analyzing the material and discursive as well as the natural and cultural enactments of breath in black lung disease, phone sex work, and anxieties and panic attacks, Breathing Matters proposes a nonuniver salizing and politicized understanding of embodiment. In this approach, human bodies are conceptualized as agential actors of intersectional poli-tics. Magdalena Górska argues that struggles for breath and for breathable lives are matters of differential forms of political practices in which vulnera-ble and quotidian corpomaterial and corpo-affective actions are constitutive of politics. Set in the context of feminist poststructuralist and new materialist and postconstructionist debates, Breathing Matters offers a discussion of human embodiment and agency reconfigured in a posthumanist manner. Its interdisciplinary analytical practice demonstrates that breathing is a phenomenon that is important to study from scientific, medical, political, environmental and social perspectives.
Download or read book Feel Better No Matter What written by Michael James and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 4-week course offering new tools to deal with the challenging emotions that get in the way of enjoying life. These incredible self-soothing methods, created by a highly respected life coach and inspirational speaker, really do work. Do you feel your life could be a lot more successful and fun - but it's not happening? Do your overthinking and intense emotions keep getting in the way of enjoying life? Do you struggle following advice such as "let it go", "be positive" and "live in the moment"? Do you keep falling back - despite your best efforts - into the same old relationship problems, mood swings and self-esteem issues? This book has a radical message: You don't need self-improvement to enjoy your life. You don't need to be better. You are ok just as you are. Step-by-step, this innovative 4-week course teaches you to free yourself from intrusive thoughts and challenging emotions, so you can step out bravely into the world, not caring so much what others think. There are no complicated theories, rituals or practices here, only simple techniques that will enable you to step away from overthinking, self-criticism and fear to live as your already empowered Real Self. Living a good life doesn't need to be complicated. Amazing things happen when you know how to be yourself and love yourself, shining bright as who you are.
Download or read book Arcana Microcosmi written by Alexander Ross and published by . This book was released on 1652 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Second edition (the first edition appeared in 1651), but the first edition to contain Ross's refutation of Harvey's 1651 De generatione. This is the first published commentary on Harvey's work.
Download or read book Breathing Under Water written by Richard Rohr and published by Franciscan Media. This book was released on 2013-11-04 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is America's most significant and authentic contribution to the history of spirituality, says Richard Rohr. He makes a case that the Twelve Steps relate well to Christian teaching and can rescue people who are drowning in addiction and may not even realize it. To survive the tidal wave of compulsive behavior and addiction, Christians must learn to breathe under water and discover God's love and compassion. In this exploration of Twelve Step spirituality, Rohr identifies the Christian principles in the Twelve Steps, connecting The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous with the gospel. He draws on talks he has given for over twenty years to people in recovery and those who counsel and live with people with addictive behavior. Rohr offers encouragement for becoming interiorly alive and inspiration for making one's life manageable for dealing with the codependence and dysfunction (sin) rampant in our society.
Download or read book Zeami written by Motoyiko Zeami and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-12 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English. Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning over four decades, the texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater. Tom Hare, who has conducted extensive studies of no academically and on stage, begins with a comprehensive introduction that discusses Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and in the original Japanese.
Download or read book Breath to Breath written by Craig Lew and published by Relish Stories. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen-year-old William is uprooted from his home and sent to live with his estranged father. When he is confronted with a situation in which he must help an abused four-year-old boy, horrible memories come back to him, and William realizes that he and the boy are connected. He vows to hurt those responsible for hurting the child, but must find the love and compassion he needs to make the right choices.
