Breathing:
The Lost Art

By fourth period your voice is tired, the class is louder than it was at nine, and something in you is starting to tighten. You cannot change the timetable and you cannot change the class. You can change how you are breathing, and unlike almost everything else available to you, it is free, invisible, and works in about sixty seconds.

到第四節，你的聲音累了、班上比早上九點吵、而你身體裡有個東西開始繃緊。 你改不了課表，也改不了那個班。但你可以改變自己怎麼呼吸—— 而且跟你手上幾乎所有其他工具不同，它免費、別人看不出來，而且大約六十秒就有作用。

Section 01Where this comes from

This chapter draws on Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art (2020) by James Nestor, a book that sold in very large numbers and put a fairly obscure research area in front of a general audience. Nestor is a journalist, not a scientist. He read the medical literature, interviewed the people he calls pulmonauts — free divers, yoga teachers, breathing therapists, dentists, anatomists — and then used himself as the experimental subject.

本章取材自 James Nestor 2020 年的《Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art》 （中文版《呼吸：當代失落藝術的最新科學》）。這本書賣得極好，把一個相當冷門的研究領域推到了大眾面前。 Nestor 是記者，不是科學家。他讀了醫學文獻、訪談了他稱為 pulmonauts（呼吸狂人）的一群人—— 自由潛水者、瑜伽老師、呼吸治療師、牙醫、解剖學家——然後拿自己當實驗對象。

That is worth saying at the front, because it is the honest frame for everything below: this is a very good piece of science journalism, not a body of clinical evidence. Some of what is in it rests on solid research. Some of it is one determined man with tape over his mouth. This chapter tries to keep those two apart.

這件事要先講清楚，因為它是下面一切內容誠實的框架： 這是一本很好的科普報導，不是一套臨床證據。 書裡有些內容建立在紮實的研究上，有些內容是一個很執著的男人把嘴巴貼起來。這一章會盡量把兩者分開。

Section 02The experiment that made the book famous

At Stanford, in a lab run by the rhinologist Dr. Jayakar Nayak, Nestor and one other volunteer had their nostrils plugged for ten days and nights, so they could breathe only through the mouth. Then they spent ten days breathing only through the nose, taping their mouths at night. What was reported afterwards:

在史丹佛、由鼻科醫師 Jayakar Nayak 主持的實驗室裡，Nestor 和另一位志願者把鼻孔塞住十天十夜， 只能用嘴巴呼吸；接著再用十天只用鼻子呼吸，夜裡把嘴巴貼起來。事後報告的結果是：

Section 03The part that does rest on solid ground

Strip away the drama and two things in the book have a research base that stands on its own, independently of Nestor.

把戲劇性拿掉之後，書裡有兩件事的研究基礎是獨立成立的，不必倚賴 Nestor。

1. Your nose is not a tube

It filters, warms and humidifies air before it reaches your lungs — which matters if you talk for four periods a day. It also produces nitric oxide in the paranasal sinuses, a gas that widens blood vessels and airways and has antimicrobial activity. Air taken in through the nose carries that gas down with it; air taken in through the mouth does not. This is ordinary physiology, described in the research literature long before this book.

鼻子在空氣到達肺部之前先過濾、加溫、加濕——如果你一天要講四節課，這件事很重要。 鼻竇還會產生一氧化氮，這種氣體能擴張血管與呼吸道，並具有抗菌作用。 從鼻子吸進的空氣會把它一起帶下去，從嘴巴吸進的則不會。 這是普通的生理學，在這本書出現之前很久就寫在研究文獻裡了。

2. Slow breathing at about six breaths a minute does something measurable

Nestor's "perfect breath" — in for about 5.5 seconds, out for about 5.5 seconds, roughly 5.5 breaths a minute — is not a new discovery of his. In the research literature it is called resonance frequency breathing, and it sits at about 0.1 Hz, or six breaths a minute. At that rate your heart rate, your blood pressure waves and your breathing line up, the baroreflex is amplified, and heart rate variability rises. There are controlled studies of this, including randomized ones, and it is the basis of HRV biofeedback.

Nestor 說的「完美呼吸」——吸氣約 5.5 秒、呼氣約 5.5 秒，每分鐘約 5.5 次——不是他的新發現。 在研究文獻裡它叫做共振頻率呼吸，落在大約 0.1 赫茲，也就是每分鐘六次。 在這個頻率上，你的心率、血壓波動與呼吸會對齊，壓力反射被放大，心率變異度上升。 這方面有對照研究，包括隨機對照試驗，而且它正是 HRV 生理回饋的基礎。

What is fair to say: slow, even, nasal breathing at around six breaths a minute reliably shifts your autonomic balance in the direction of calm, within a minute or two. What is not fair to say: that it cures anything.

可以公允地說：緩慢、平均、用鼻子、每分鐘約六次的呼吸，會在一兩分鐘內把你的自律神經平衡穩定地推向「平靜」那一側。 不能公允地說的是：它能治好什麼。

Section 04Three things to do at school this week

Everything above is only worth reading if it changes a Tuesday. Three uses, in order of how often you will need them:

上面所有內容，只有在它改變了某個星期二的時候才值得讀。三種用法，依你會用到的頻率排序：

That third one is worth more than it looks. It is the rare classroom-management move that is also good for the children rather than merely convenient for you — and it connects directly to the Running the Room pack: a class that has a fixed way of arriving is a class you do not have to settle.

第三項的價值比看起來高。它是少見的一種班級經營手法：不只是對你方便，而且對孩子真的好—— 而且它直接接上教室現場那一包： 一個有固定「進場方式」的班級，是一個你不必再去安撫的班級。

Section 05The limits, stated plainly

• Snoring badly, or stopping breathing at night, is a medical matter. Obstructive sleep apnea is diagnosed and treated by doctors. If that is you, the useful step is an appointment, not a taping technique. 嚴重打鼾、或夜裡會停止呼吸，是醫療問題。阻塞型睡眠呼吸中止症由醫師診斷與治療。 如果你是這種情況，有用的下一步是掛號，不是某種貼嘴技巧。
• Mouth taping at night is popular and is not established as safe or effective for everyone. This chapter does not recommend it. If you are curious, ask a doctor first — particularly if you have any nasal obstruction, since the whole idea depends on being able to breathe through your nose. 夜間貼嘴很流行，但並未被確立為對所有人安全或有效。本章不建議這個做法。 真的好奇的話請先問醫師——尤其如果你有任何鼻塞，因為整個做法的前提就是鼻子通得過。
• Slow breathing is not a treatment for an anxiety disorder or depression. It can take the edge off a bad twenty minutes. If most of your days feel like that, please talk to a doctor or a counselor. 緩慢呼吸不是焦慮症或憂鬱症的治療。它能讓糟糕的二十分鐘沒那麼難熬。 如果你多數日子都是那種感覺，請去找醫師或諮商師談。
• Skip long breath-holds. Some of the more dramatic techniques in this space involve holding your breath or hyperventilating. Never do those in or near water, or while driving or standing at the top of stairs, and stop immediately if you feel dizzy. This chapter deliberately contains none of them. 不要做長時間閉氣。這個領域裡比較戲劇性的技巧涉及閉氣或過度換氣。 絕對不要在水中或水邊、開車時、或站在樓梯口做那些，覺得頭暈就立刻停止。本章刻意完全不收錄那類方法。
• If you are pregnant, or have a heart or lung condition, or panic attacks, check with your doctor before starting any breathing practice. 如果你懷孕、有心臟或肺部疾病、或有恐慌發作，開始任何呼吸練習之前請先詢問醫師。

Section 06Three sentences to take into next week

1. Nose, not mouth. The nose filters, warms and humidifies, and carries nitric oxide down with the air. That part is ordinary physiology. 用鼻子，不要用嘴巴。鼻子會過濾、加溫、加濕，並把一氧化氮隨空氣帶下去。這部分是普通的生理學。
2. About six breaths a minute, in and out evenly. That is resonance frequency breathing, and it is the piece with real controlled evidence behind it. 大約每分鐘六次，吸與吐一樣長。那就是共振頻率呼吸，也是這一整套裡真正有對照研究支持的那一塊。
3. Longer exhale when it is going wrong. In for four, out for six, three rounds, standing at the side of the room where nobody can see. 狀況不對的時候把吐氣拉長。吸四、吐六，三輪，站在教室邊上，沒有人看得見。