The Oxygen Advantage: The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques for a Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter You

by Patrick McKeown

it is not easy for most animals to breathe through their mouths. The same is true for humans at birth, but after a few months the windpipe drops down to just below the back of the tongue in order to allow the baby to breathe through both its mouth and nose. Charles Darwin was puzzled by this adaptation in humans: how, unlike most animals, the openings for carrying food to the stomach and air to the lungs are placed side by side. This parallel position seems fairly impractical, as it increases the risk of food going down the wrong way, requiring the development of a complicated swallowing mechanism. The cause for this is likely to do with our ability to speak and to enable us to swim, since both actions require voluntary control over breathing.