Well I know it may be cognitive bias as someone pointed out but I think it also had to do with the book Breath by James Nestor. Got pretty heavy press as it came out early in the pandemic. But mindfulness and meditation are being pushed pretty hard lately.

For those interested, James Nestor’s book, “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art” [0] is absolutely fantastic on this subject.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48890486

Disappointed to not see Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity on this list. The de facto prequel to Breath of the Wild (which will become a proper trilogy when BOTW 2 comes out in 2021), its an incredibly immersive hack-n-slash.

Somebody suggested "Breath: The new science of a lost art" by James Nestor. I'm reading it now. Perhaps you might want to read it too.

Link to the past was my first Zelda, played them all, and Breath of the Wild is unquestionably the best. Really it's the best open world game yet made, even if it's a silly Nintendo game

Breath of the Wild is the best game I've ever played. I'd recommend getting a switch just for Zelda alone.

> Breath of the Wild is the best game I've ever played. I'd recommend getting a switch just for Zelda alone.

I wonder, what other games are you comparing it to / which have you played?

How does it stack for example against The Witcher 3 which won a landslide of awards?

I've been reading this book "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art" by James Nestor. He attributes this sort of thing to, effectively, "mouth breathing", and suggests it can be fixed by learning to breath correctly (through the nose).

I have no idea if it's bullshit or not, but it's compelling. Would love to hear from anyone that has insight into this.

For those interested in going deeper into the incredible world of breathing techniques I recommend "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art" [0]. Part personal account, part research summary, the book covers a lot of the world's ancient breathing traditions (including Wim Hof and his antecedents), as well as what modern science has to say about them.

As with many other aspects of holistic health, it's incredible how Western medicine has ignored verifiable scientific evidence about the wide range of health benefits one can derive from these breathing techniques.

A smattering of advice from the book:

* Breathe through your nose, NOT your mouth (except when talking).

* Breathe slowly, softly, not (necessarily) deeply. Optimal breath rate is roughly 5.5s inhale, 5.5s exhale, 5.5 breaths per minute, 5.5 L of air inhaled.

* * Many people tend to over-breathe, which has a number of detriments, including stimulating anxiety.

* As with most aspects of health, the body does best with most-of-the-time low stress (see above "Breath slowly") punctuated by short intense intervals of high stress. Wim Hof breathing is the high stress workout that exercises your breathing system and builds breath flexibility.

* Chew tough stuff, exercise your jaw. This can help build wider mouths (new bone growth!) and open up your airways.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/073521...

Breath of the Wild is getting fantastic reviews from critics right now. It currently has a 98/100 on Metacritic [1], an aggregator for video game reviews. This makes is the #4 highest rated game of all time on their site [2]

[1] http://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/the-legend-of-zelda-br...

[2] http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/a...

I've been interested in it for the last 2 or 3 years, and pleasantly surprised that it's showing up on HN a lot.

Here's a surprising claim that has scientific concensus: Basically ALL humans have problems breathing. That is, apes and other mammals don't have these problems.

The two main reasons are the anatomical changes due to the evolution of speech, and the advent of agriculture, which completely changed our diets and thus the structure of our jaw.

Previous comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435964

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24247066

More comments about nestor's recent book Breath:

https://www.google.com/search?q=nestor+site%3Anews.ycombinat...

The book is very good, but it's not "conclusive". It's a good exploration of many facets of breathing. It is a big subject and everyone is a little different.

However it's been eye opening to me how many "minor" unexplained chronic health problems are ultimately caused by bad breathing. (And these turn into major problems over 10 or 20 years.) If you go to the doctor, you'll get treatment for the symptoms and not the cause (this has happened to many people in my family, and many people I know)

I would have loved Skyward Sword if I could have skipped all the dialog, and if it didn't have that shitty linked chest mechanic. That game has some amazing moments, but the pacing really drags. It took over an hour for me to get into the first dungeon and feel like I was actually playing a game.

Breath of the Wild is interesting to me in that it has elements from all of my least favorite Zelda games but somehow makes it work. It's like Wind Waker except there's actually interesting stuff filling up all that empty ocean. It's like Skyward Sword without the rails. It's like Ocarina of Time if you didn't have to wait forever to get an opening to attack. It also feels a bit like Dark Souls but with a much more palatable aesthetic, and it's kinda like an Elder Scrolls game without the experience points.

I started reading his book Breath, and he made the starting claim that, in essence, you could choose to be either energetic or restful by picking one nostril to breathe out of for awhile. (Naturally we breath out of one nostril at a time, and the body goes back and forth, but "it's a balance that can also be gamed").

I found this claim a bit... suspicious, and Googled, and didn't find much scientific evidence for this claim. I found a bunch of blog posts by yoga-affiliated people, and the like.

I asked about this on Biology Stack Exchange, unfortunately with no answer.

https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/94651/

I would be very curious if any HN reader knows more about this. That said, my impression of Nestor (who is a journalist, and not a scientist) was that he was perhaps a bit too eager to jump to conclusions.

Apparently yes, nasal breathing is hugely beneficial. This book was a life changer for me — James Nestor’s Breath:

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art: Nestor, James: 9780735213616: Amazon.com: Books
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art: Nestor, James: 9780735213616: Amazon.com: Books https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735213615

Yes, yes, we all know Pranayama and other ancient sciences already “covered” it, but at least for me, I was totally unaware of the importance and wide ranging benefits of nasal breathing, until I read this book.

For me the key take away was: when running, follow 2 simple rules: always breath through your nose, And make your out breath last (much) longer than your in breaths. I started with 2 steps for out, 3 for in, then 2/5, And now i can do 2/7. I use the nasal breathing rule as a guideline to know when I’m running too fast - if you can’t just breath through your nose then you’re running too fast. Over a few weeks of running 3 times/week I was able to increase my distance from 2 to 5 miles.

See my comment below, and the book "Breath" by Nestor:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24247066

And this one about the book "Jaws" by Kahn:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435964

The short answer is that two big changes in human history led to this problem:

1. Agriculture. Our diets drastically changed when we started growing food, and that had enormous impact on our jaw, breathing, and facial structure.

If you've read Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel) or more recently Sapiens, you'll understand this. They describe agriculture as an advance for the human race, but a setback for individual humans!

2. The industrial revolution. There was a huge population explosion, and we fed all those mouths with even more monotonous diets (more bread, rice, corn, factory farms, etc.) This is taking agriculture to the next level. We replaced animal power with machines in many cases.

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If you want a visual, the book "Jaws" tells about Europeans who came to the Americas in ~1600. The Europeans had the benefits of technology that let them travel across the sea, but were closer to 5 feet tall, and they had terrible teeth, and malnutrition.

There was a dentist by the name of Price who observed the Native Americans. Basically he was like "WOW they are 6 feet tall and they have beautiful jaws! They breathe through their nose and not their mouth. They don't sleep with their mouths wide open, and they don't snore."

Mouth breathing is a sign of poor breathing. Just like a boxer knows to breathe through his nose, but when he gets hit too much and tired, he starts breathing through his mouth.

When you're sleeping, you're supposed to breathe through your nose as well (because the organ is made for it), but many people breathe through their mouths due to having obstructed airways. Which are result of diet, weight, and lifestyle.

From James Nestor’s book Breath, breathing through one’s nose isn’t new. He notes that humming increases nitric oxide, which helps oxygen uptake and inhibits harmful biota. Might be nice to have the extra filter, and to push for culture shift back towards nasal breathing. Personal anecdata from movies: few actors breathe through their noses while on screen.

This is a really informative, well thought out answer and I appreciate how much time you put into it. A lot of good info here.

I just finished reading Breath by James Nestor and have started only nasal breathing when running, which has necessitated slowing down like you say. I’ve also recently (2 months) transitioned to barefoot shoes, and so cadence has become my focus. I’ve increased from 130ish to 174 spm when I ran the half last weekend. I cannot believe the difference in my recovery as the cadence increased despite dramatically increasing my distance.

Anyways, thanks for everything and congrats on the ultras!