It’s been a lot. Christmas, a birthday, everyone has had coughs and colds and sore throats. We’ve all been home for too long. We’ve done our best to get out in the fresh air every day, but the weather has been shite and it has been a chore.  

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when school rolled round again. Much as I like us all being home together, it was time to get back to it.  

I am reading a fascinating book by James Nestor called Breath – The New Science of a Lost Art. I say reading – I’m listening to it on Borrow Box. I usually reserve Borrow Box audio books for boring me to sleep, but this one is keeping me awake – it’s that good!  

According to Nestor, mouth breathing is killing us, literally killing us. It causes or exacerbates pretty much any illness you can think of – heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune conditions.  

There’s also a big correlation between mouth breathing and sleep apnoea. I have a child that doesn’t sleep. We can go for months on end without a full night’s sleep. I would argue that a lack of sleep is a bigger killer than mouth breathing.  

I’m not one for new year’s resolutions. There’s too much going on in January to take on new challenges, but I am taken with the idea of learning to breathe in a way that benefits my health.  I’ll just mouth-breathe my way through January first.