On Breathing

The air we breathe is our oxygen, the flavor of our food, our sense of place and memory. There is no more immersive medium to life than our air.  We breathe around 14,000 liters of air per day. By contrast we drink a few liters of water. Our air needs to enter our lungs clean and wet. Cleaning and hydrating happens in our upper airways so long as they stay hydrated. Keeping our airways hydrated used to be easy when we lived near the sea in humid and clean-air conditions as we did for most of human evolution. Today, as a consequence of global warming our airways are drying out. There is no greater respiratory health challenge facing us today. All of my breathing ideas have led to my work to tackle this challenge.