Imagine a breathing technique that can increase oxygen uptake and delivery to the cells, improve blood circulation, and unblock the nose. Perhaps it can help open the airways of the lungs, enhance blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, improve sleep, and bring calmness to the mind. It might even restore bodily functions disturbed by stress, build greater resilience, and help you to live longer. You might think this description sounds farfetched. But it isn’t.

It has never been harder to focus than it is now. We live in a noisy, crowded, stressful world that changes so fast, we’re always running to catch up. Traditional education doesn’t give us the skills to manage. And if you live largely in your own head, techniques like mindfulness fall short. In extremes, we turn to external solutions like social media, alcohol, and recreational drugs, just to get some space from our own thoughts.

In The Oxygen Advantage, Patrick McKeown combines his successful breathing exercises with techniques designed to simulate high-altitude training in a highly successful programme that will significantly improve anyone's health but will also empower athletes to improve their sports performance. These scientifically validated exercises have the potential to drastically improve your overall fitness, whether you are a habitual couch potato or an Ironman triathlon champion. 

There is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 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.

Feeling anxious and disconnected are signs of a nervous system that's out of balance. Something as small as a curt message from our boss can be perceived by our bodies as a threat to life. By understanding our physiological stress response, we can override and heal our emotional response, and fix the behaviours sabotaging our health and happiness. In The Vagus Nerve Reset, Anna Ferguson offers somatic therapies alongside the science of Polyvagal Theory, to help us train our nervous system to stop overreacting, and start responding more calmly to day-to-day stressors and heal past experiences.