Book SummaryThe Oxygen Advantage, by Patrick McKeown

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Oxygen Advantage

Imagine there was a miracle cure that could help you feel less stressed, lose weight, sleep better, run farther without losing your breath, and live longer. According to author Patrick McKeown, not only does this cure exist, but it’s also free to anyone with a set of lungs—it’s practicing proper breathing. According to McKeown, modern living conditions cause the average person to breathe too much, but by training yourself to breathe less, you can greatly improve your physical fitness and overall health.

McKeown suffered from severe asthma until the age of 26. But after discovering the work of respiration expert Konstantin Buteyko, McKeown developed breathing exercises that eliminated his asthma symptoms...

The Oxygen Advantage Summary The Problem: You Breathe Too Much

McKeown asserts that breathing too much is a widespread habit degrading the health of almost everyone in modern society. Specifically, the average person inhales and exhales more frequently than they should and breathes habitually through the mouth, a larger airway than the nose. But why is taking in more air than you need so bad for you?

We’ll begin this section by breaking down what happens in your body when you breathe and how this changes when you breathe too much. Then, we’ll detail the adverse health effects of heavy breathing. Finally, we’ll use this information to explain why modern society causes so many people to breathe too much.

How Breathing Too Much Hurts You

How Breathing Works

McKeown explains that breathing serves two main functions: taking in oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. First, you inhale oxygen because the muscles and organs in your body need it to function. When you inhale, tiny air sacs inside your lungs called alveoli absorb oxygen and pass it into the bloodstream. Your circulatory system ensures that this oxygen travels to your muscles and organs.

(Shortform note: This biological information is necessary to understand...

The Oxygen Advantage Summary The Solution: Train Yourself to Breathe Less

Because modern society predisposes you to breathe too much, correcting this unhealthy habit requires you to deliberately train yourself to breathe less. The primary goal of this training is to build up your body’s tolerance to carbon dioxide, according to McKeown. As you breathe less, your body learns to live and move with greater levels of carbon dioxide in your blood without urging you to breathe more. This allows more oxygen to get to your muscles and organs both at rest and during exercise, greatly improving your physical fitness and overall health.

(Shortform note: Although the idea of carbon dioxide tolerance has only recently become popular, James Nestor describes in Breath how medical professionals well over a century ago were unknowingly helping patients increase their carbon dioxide tolerance. As early as the 1870s, British doctors were telling their patients to soak in carbon dioxide-rich mineral springs, which yielded long-term health benefits after just a few sessions. Since then, medical professionals using CO₂ to treat ailments as wide-ranging as pneumonia, epilepsy, and schizophrenia reported...

The Oxygen Advantage Summary The Benefits of Breathing Less for Athletes

McKeown puts particular emphasis on the benefits of breathing less for athletes—let’s take a look at the two main benefits athletes can claim by breathing lighter. After this, we’ll outline two advanced breathing exercises that athletes can use to enhance their performance.

Benefit #1: Increased Physical Performance

Breathing less results in vastly improved athletic performance, contends McKeown. The improved oxygenation of your muscles and organs caused by greater carbon dioxide tolerance is particularly impactful during exercise. In athletic training, the amount of oxygen your body can utilize in one minute during intense exertion is called VO₂ max. Carbon dioxide tolerance has been shown to sharply increase VO₂ max, resulting in vastly improved stamina.

(Shortform note: Aside from being a reflection of your physical stamina, VO₂ max is a remarkably accurate predictor of how long you’ll live, according to some researchers. A 23-year-long study of 122,000 adults who were 53 years old on average found that [every increase in VO2 max correlated with a statistically significant decrease in mortality from all...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Your Breathing Habits and Practice Breathing Better

Apply McKeown’s ideas by evaluating the way you breathe and practicing one of his breathing exercises.

Assess your current breathing habits. Describe your relationship to breathing—how conscious are you of your breath from moment to moment? What symptoms, if any, do you have that may be due to excessive breathing? (For example, you may feel out of breath frequently, have a consistently stuffed-up nose, or wake up feeling lethargic.)