When a young Patrick McKeown had an important exam decades ago, he prepared as society had coached him: With big, deep breaths. He entered the testing room lightheaded and scatterbrained. “It was,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani, “the worst thing possible that I could have done. In fact, I should have done the opposite.” Long after his asthma and stress inflected youth, McKeown immersed himself in the ancient—but routinely overlooked—art of low, slow, nose breathing. That technique combined with others can achieve calm, better performance, and a simultaneous state of relaxation and alertness. In his writing and classes, McKeown draws on biochemistry, physiology, and other interconnected disciplines to demonstrate how healthy, day-to-day breathing can ground us in difficult moments.“There's not a day that I don't connect with my breathing, and it has given me a softer life.” Tune in to hear how to easily measure the quality of your own breathing, why proper breathing is the key to good sleep, and how breath can help you prepare for a big presentation or, yes, a looming exam.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://oxygenadvantage.com/

https://myotape.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/Oxyathlete

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