Scientists say humans don't know how to breathe very well. We don't breathe deep enough, we breathe too much, and we breathe through our mouths instead of our noses. Our bad breathing can lead to conditions that we don't typically associate with the way we breathe, such as asthma.

We can't take all the blame. The tradeoff of humans evolving to have bigger brains hundreds of thousands of years ago, is that our brains squeezed our noses, sinuses, tongues, and jaws into smaller spaces. That's why humans are the only species of 5,400 mammals to have misaligned jaws, overbites, underbites, and crooked teeth.

We inhale and exhale about 25,000 breaths per day, but we don't think about how we're breathing or how it makes us feel until live-updates.html">COVID-19 and gasps-for-air.html">police brutality make it hard to breathe.

We're finally paying attention.

The science, art, and politics of breathing.

GUESTS:

• James Nestor - A journalist and author; his most recent book is Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
• Dahlia Lithwick - A senior editor for Slate and the host of Amicus

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Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.

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