Book Review: Science of Breath A Practical Guide
We’re back with another book review! In my last post, I mentioned that the book I’d just finished prompted me to start reviewing books. Specifically, the conversation about breath in that book was intriguing enough that I wanted to dive deeper. So I went to my boyfriend and asked him what book I should read next if I wanted to learn more about Pranayama, specifically, and he went to his library, emerging with my next two reviews.
I can already sense your eye roll: "Mia, it’s breath. It’s an automatic function—wtf are you on about?" But breath is foundational to many practices, like singing, yoga, meditation, and many other various sports and hobbies. This is something I’ve been vaguely aware of for quite some time, especially from my years in choir and band, where we were taught basics like standing up straight and breathing with the diaphragm and again later when I started to get into Hatha yoga and meditation. Fun Mia fact: diaphragmatic breathing was also a topic of heated debate with a particularly contentious ex of mine. So if you don’t believe in anatomy or science, feel free to skip this post. But if you're curious, let’s dive into Science of Breath: A Practical Guide by Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentine, M.D., and Alan Hymes, M.D. (Copyright 1979, 1998)
Before we do that though, let’s meet our authors. I intentionally did not look up these people before reading the book so as to remain impartial to the information it held but I did look them up afterwards. The book tells us of Swami Rama’s credentials, which, among the authors, is the hardest to prove to our Western Standards. So, let’s first understand that Swami is a title given to yogis that have attained a certain level of mastery, specifically in the Hindu faith system. Even that is an overly simplistic explanation of Swami Rama, even though it isn’t intuitively understood by many of us here in the US, it is in fact, a high honor. Swami also opened the Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy. We will have to discuss his and other spiritual leaders' misdeeds another time, as that is a more nuanced discussion but one absolutely worth having. The M.D.s in question are Ballentine, specialty area psychiatry, and Hymes, a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon that is apparently still practicing today. Their credentials are of course a lot more straightforward. Together they take us through a technical and in-depth journey that is almost reminiscent of a Magic School Bus episode, sadly, sans most of the magic.
Ballentine and Swami work together to bring us ideas and supporting evidence on how breath affects one’s psyche. For many of us with C-PTSD and other dysregulatory conditions, we are familiar with this concept on a surface level at least. Take deep breaths and count to 10, focus on your breathing. You hear it in labor classes too, they teach specific techniques to breathe through what is commonly considered one of the most painful things we can experience. So the connections that Ballentine and Swami make here are not hard to digest for many of us. The more mechanical and technical aspects of these connections are explained expertly by Alan Hymes. Hymes in my opinion is the backbone of the book. Without him, a lot of this would be Eastern practice and psychology which is valid but also harder to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The authors start by acknowledging that breathing is an automatic, involuntary process. Sort of. As they take us deeper into the topic, they introduce us to yogis—traditional practitioners of yoga. This is a more loaded term than what most of us, who have only been exposed to Hatha yoga, might think. Yogis have made claims since ancient times about being able to do great and unthinkable things, including healing themselves.
"Okay, great, what’s this got to do with breath?" I hear you. Yogis believe that their ability to control breath is foundational to all other parts of their practice. The authors also point out why Western science hasn’t studied breath as much as other bodily functions—we’re more interested in matter, things that can be easily observed and quantified, like the heart.
If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know that the heart has an electromagnetic field that extends beyond our body (an aura). Western science only recently discovered this, while yogis have known about this energy long before we even understood electricity. Swami explains that yogis recognize three distinct bodies: the Subtle body, the Vital body, and the Energy body (or aura). Prana, or energy, travels through the breath, and the nasal cavities play a far more complex role in this process than I expected. Did you know our noses have erectile tissue?! I, unfortunately, am at 33 years old, a 12 year old boy, I laughed a little too long.
Hymes does an excellent job explaining why the lungs often get overlooked compared to other organs. He makes a solid case for why they deserve more attention, as they help carry oxygen to all the organs in the body. This information is essential for understanding the gap between Western and Eastern knowledge. He also describes how emotions and breath are scientifically linked and touches on other systems that interact with breathing and emotions. One surprising fact I learned from Hymes is that sleep apnea and heart disease are connected. So, make sure you’re breathing well at night!
But, also, like, maybe learn to breathe properly. Many people that decide to read this book will be unnerved to know that they have forgotten how to breathe somewhere in the transition between infancy and adolescence. I know for myself, even being aware of the differences in diaphragmatic breath and a more “normal” shallow breath, it is hard to remember what once came so naturally. Apparently proper breath, (and diet, and exercise but those are other topics to dive into later) helps our body dump toxins. You’ll have to read the book to understand how the nose gets so worked up over waste in the body that it puts us in danger by changing its mucus viscosity, thus making us vulnerable to viruses and infection. I did not realize that this is why Indians use the neti pot.
Neti refers, perhaps obviously, to the nasal passages, which is one of the areas yogis are instructed to keep clean. I did take a little issue with Swami throughout the book for offering instruction on advanced techniques, both for the neti pot and later for asana, and breath work, while only offering a small disclaimer about the advanced forms needing to be done with an advanced practitioner. (Even before I learned about his misconduct it gave me the ick.) He of course did this because he wants us to all go to HIS school to learn these things. It would have been more responsible to explain there are several other techniques that one can do and given instruction on how to find a teacher. I don’t love hidden motives, even if I understand them.
Outside of what I would dub the sales tactics of Swami, this book has a lot of technical information about both Eastern and Western studies and it does a good job of linking them. I recommend reading Science if Breath to just about anyone, again as long as you believe in science and anatomy. This book would be excellent for yoga instructors, practitioners and anyone looking to bring the mind and body back into balance through breathwork. I will say that I was familiar with a lot of the Eastern concepts due to the yoga teacher training that I started but having such a balanced perspective offered in this book was more beneficial than I expected. It has also made me draw more awareness throughout my day about where my breath is going, and I am excited to dig deeper into Pranayama.
8/10 Do recommend. Book lost points because of Swami’s marketing techniques and because even with having a working grasp of many of the concepts it is still a complex read.
With Love,
Mia Marie
