The Life of Breath team, like our colleagues at Breathe Oxford, recently responded to the proposal that defining chronic breathlessness as a syndrome might raise awareness of its impact on people’s lives. We stress that more consultation with ‘experts-by-experience’ (patients who experience … Read more…
What do people with COPD think their lungs look like? Ideas about what is going on inside the body can influence how people present their symptoms and respond to medical treatment. In this study, anthropologist Megan Wainwright asked people with … Read more…
In his manifesto ‘Projective Verse’ (1950) the poet Charles Olson proposed a new view of poetic structure based on the breath. Olson’s ideas were taken up, developed and modified by other American poets, including William Carlos Williams and Denise Levertov. … Read more…
A cappella singing, a lone rower in the Pacific Ocean, fungal spores, clairvoyance and a baby’s cries…what could possibly tie these things together? The surprising answer is breath and poetry. ‘To Breathe Ourselves Into Some Other Lungs’ was an … Read more…
Life of Breath post-doctoral researcher Rebecca Oxley writes: ‘Breath Lab’ is designed as a living experiment to promote discussion around a central theme relating to breath, breathing and breathlessness. The aim is not to discuss key research findings, but rather … Read more…
Durham team members Rebecca Oxley and Jane Macnaughton argue that, in order to treat breathlessness more effectively, we need a greater understanding of how it feels to be breathless and how this experience may be communicated. In particular they explore the differences between the way … Read more…
In the second of a series of posts on cetaceans (see also ‘The cetaceans may give rise to some perplexity‘), Project Manager (Bristol) Jess Farr-Cox writes: Whaling abounds with breathing, breathlessness, air, death, myth and song. Factory whaling boats were … Read more…
In the first of a series of posts on cetaceans (see also ‘Out of his nostrils goeth smoke‘, Project Manager (Bristol) Jess Farr-Cox writes: As discussed in previous posts (see All his heart was cold), Aristotle was fascinated by creatures … Read more…
Jess Farr-Cox, Project Manager (Bristol) writes: The Merry-Go-Round is not as well-known as other works by W. Somerset Maugham, such as Of Human Bondage and his enormous output of short stories. Despite reading Maugham for many years, I had never … Read more…
Elsa Hammond is a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol, working on breath and death in the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson and Thomas Hardy. She writes: In accordance with Arthurian legend, Tennyson’s Arthur does not die absolutely … Read more…
Nicola Caroli, breath teacher, writes: “This is what my breath looks like and when you have no breath you can no longer live,” wrote Maya, 7 years old. I met Maya in a children’s recreational facility in Berlin where I … Read more…
In honour of the Glastonbury Festival, Jess Farr-Cox, Project Manager (Bristol) writes a post with an Arthurian flavour (see also ‘Arthur’s ‘labouring of the lungs’ in Tennyons’s Idylls of the King’): At our March meeting of the Life of Breath Bristol reading … Read more…
In the second of a series of posts about smoking (see also ‘A three-pipe problem’), Project Manager (Bristol) on the Life of Breath project Jess Farr-Cox writes: The overlap between breathing, smoking and singing is an interesting one, particularly as it bends … Read more…
Project Manager (Bristol) for Life of Breath Jess Farr-Cox writes: I have written elsewhere (see ‘Taking a deep breath’) about the strength of the link between heart and lungs, and others have touched on the strong association between the emotions, breathing … Read more…
In the first of a series of posts on smoking (see also ‘Sing sweetly for tobacco!‘), Jess Farr-Cox (Project Manager (Bristol) for Life of Breath) writes: The Life of Breath project has engagement with schoolchildren as one of its stated aims, encouraging them to … Read more…