James Nestor

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About James Nestor

James Nestor is an author and journalist who has written for Outside Magazine, The Atlantic, National Public Radio, The New York Times, Scientific American, Dwell Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more.

Nestor's book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, was released through Riverhead/Penguin Random House on May 26, 2020 and was an instant bestseller in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times, and Sunday London Times. Breath will be translated into more than 30 languages in 2021.

Breath explores how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly over the past several hundred thousand years and is now suffering from a laundry list of maladies -- snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, autoimmune disease -- because of it. 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 Sao Paulo.

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.

Nestor's first narrative nonfiction book, DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What The Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was released in the United States and UK in June 2014. DEEP was a BBC Book of the Week, a Finalist for the PEN American Center Best Sports Book of the Year, an Amazon Best Science Book of 2014, BuzzFeed 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2014, ArtForum Top 10 Book of 2014, New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, Scientific American Recommended Read, and more. The book has been translated into German, Chinese, Italian, Polish, and more; the audiobook, read by Nestor, was released by Audible in June 2016.

Nestor has presented his research at Stanford Medical School, the United Nations, UBS, Global Classroom (World Health Organization+UNICEF), as well as more than 40 radio and television shows, including Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Joe Rogan Show, BulletProof, ABC's Nightline, CBS Morning News, and dozens of NPR programs.

More at mrjamesnestor.com.

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Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art May 26, 2020

by James Nestor

( 10,038 )

$12.99

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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves Jun 24, 2014

by James Nestor

( 886 )

$9.99

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • An Amazon Best Science Book of 2014 • Scientific American Recommended Read

“Fascinating, informative, exhilarating.” —Wall Street Journal

Deep is a voyage from the ocean’s surface to its darkest trenches, the most mysterious places on Earth. Fascinated by the sport of freediving—in which competitors descend great depths on a single breath—James Nestor embeds with a gang of oceangoing extreme athletes and renegade researchers. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and other strange phenomena. Most illuminating of all, he learns that these abilities are reflected in our own remarkable, and often hidden, potential—including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound bodily changes humans undergo when underwater. Along the way, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves.

“A journey well worth taking.” —David Epstein, New York Times Book Review

“Nestor pulls us below the surface into a world far beyond imagining and opens our eyes to these unseen places.” —Dallas Morning News

“This is popular science writing at its best.” —Christian Science Monitor

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , MP3 CD

Half-Safe: A Story of Love, Obsession, and History's Most Insane Around-the-world Adventure (Kindle Single) Dec 21, 2012

by James Nestor , The Atavist

( 112 )

$1.99

In 1948, a young Australian mining engineer named Ben Carlin set out to do the impossible: circumnavigate the globe, by land and sea, in a single vehicle. The vehicle in question was an amphibious jeep developed by the U.S. Army, which Carlin christened Half-Safe, after a deodorant slogan. It was a mechanical mongrel that was supposed to move with equal ease across land and water but in practice wasn't much good for either one. Undaunted, Carlin and his wife Elinore set off across the Atlantic Ocean with dreams of fame and fortune, and of carving a small notch in history. What happened next is one of the most bizarre, remarkable, and forgotten adventure stories of the 20th century. In Half-Safe, author James Nestor endeavors to uncover Ben Carlin's fate and finds a gripping story of love, danger, and extraordinary perseverance that spans three oceans and five continents. Half-Safe takes us from the eye of an Atlantic Ocean hurricane to the sweltering Sahara to the impenetrable jungles of Southeast Asia—and into the mind of a man who could overcome everything but his own demons.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

Breath - Atem: Neues Wissen über die vergessene Kunst des Atmens | Der New York Times-Bestseller (German Edition) Jan 4, 2021

by James Nestor , Martin Bayer

( 91 )

$22.60

Unsere Atmung kann uns helfen abzunehmen, unseren allgemeinen Gesundheitszustand positiv beeinflussen und sogar unser Leben verlängern. Wer richtig atmet, ist selbstbewusster und kann sich besser fokussieren. Egal, was wir essen, wie viel Sport wir machen, wie gut unsere Gene sind, wie schlank oder jung wir sind - nichts davon spielt eine Rolle, wenn wir falsch atmen. Dieses Buch will uns die verlorene Kunst des guten Atmens wieder näherbringen. James Nestor trifft Spitzenwissenschaftler in Harvard und studiert die Auswirkungen von Atembeschwerden. Er bringt uns das Wissen von Schwimmtrainern ebenso nahe wie das von indischen Mystikern und strengen russischen Kardiologen, um zu zeigen, was die Atmung in unserem Körper auslösen kann.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover

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