Month: February 2025

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“Breathing is Life!”

Breathing exercises—like those practiced in yoga—can do us a world of good. Those who practice them know this well. But how does conscious, deep breathing impact the body? Insights from a pharmacist and naturopath.

“Take a deep breath.” “Breathe more!” … You’ve probably heard advice like this before. And if you’ve attended one of my therapeutic yoga classes, you know that I constantly remind you throughout the session to maintain abdominal breathing. That’s because yogis have understood for millennia that we can influence our physical, mental, and emotional health by modifying our breath. This is why every yoga practice includes breathing exercises (“Pranayama”).

While most people have an idea of the importance of deep breathing, few truly understand its impact on physiology. To explore this, I turned to Isabelle Bleuze, who has the rare distinction of being both a pharmacist and a naturopath. Based in the Greater Paris area (Lagny-sur-Marne), she passionately balances her work in a pharmacy with her private naturopathy practice, where she treats patients using dietary supplements, nutrition, and other natural remedies.

“Breathing is a source of energy”

To start, Isabelle reminds us: “Breathing is life!”

Put simply, breathing is a system that facilitates gas exchange. We inhale air. Air contains oxygen. And oxygen is essential for our bodies. She explains that inhaling air nourishes all our organs (heart, lungs, kidneys…) and helps eliminate toxins from our system, ensuring the body functions optimally. “Breathing is a source of energy. It’s fuel,” she emphasizes.

A passionate healer, Isabelle Bleuze has been a pharmacist and naturopath for the past 25 years.

But that’s not all. Breathing also affects the speed of cellular exchanges, the nervous system, and hormone regulation. Isabelle is clear: “Breathing has incredible power. By practicing deep, diaphragmatic breathing, we can help resolve many issues,” she assures us.

Okay, great news—but what kind of issues?

The “relaxation effect”

First, Isabelle highlights the relaxation effect of deep breathing. She explains, “Breathing affects the vagus nerve, the longest nerve in the body, running from the base of the brain to the abdomen. And it turns out that breathing’s influence on the vagus nerve has multiple benefits. Deep breathing clears our mind. It helps us stop overthinking. It impacts our mood, improves mental clarity, and makes it easier to connect with our intuition.”
She goes on: “We can also use breathwork to support addiction recovery, weight loss, and curb cravings.”

Breathing can even impact fertility

Another key aspect of breathing is the diaphragm—a dome-shaped muscle-tendon partition that separates the abdomen from the chest. “When we breathe using the diaphragm, we soothe both the brain and the gut. We support the microbiome,” Isabelle affirms before continuing her scan of the human body. “Deep breathing can also do a lot for back pain because it helps release tension.”

For Isabelle, breathing can even influence fertility: “Breathwork helps unlock hormonal secretions linked to the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, which impacts fertility.”

Things are changing

The Western world took much longer than yogis to acknowledge the influence of breath on health. That said, things are changing. For decades, numerous scientific studies have highlighted the benefits of breathing exercises. So much so that the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) in the U.S. now recommends breathing exercises (alongside other relaxation techniques) for conditions like high blood pressure, anxiety, pain, cancer treatment recovery, and insomnia.
So, convinced?

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“The Emperor of All Maladies”: A Biography of Cancer

The world needs to demystify cancer and destigmatize patients. One way we can achieve that is to educate ourselves on what cancer is. The 2011 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction is a must-read if you’ve ever been affected by the disease—whether personally or through a loved one. It tells the story of a four-thousand-year old (medical) war. Here’s a few themes the author, Siddhartha Mukherjee, covers in his book.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, a US oncologist and researcher, wrote The Emperor of All Maladies (2010) after a patient asked him a simple but profound question: What am I battling?

Mukherjee ended up writing a profoundly humane biography of cancer from the first innovative—and brutal—surgical treatments to the work on radiation of Pierre et Marie Curie to the risks taken by the first chemotherapists and their patients.

I’m sharing with you here some of the thoughts and themes Mukherjee covers in his book. Hopefully, they’ll give you an idea of its richness.

What Is Cancer, Really?

  • Cancer is, at its core, a disease of uncontrolled growth. Imagine each cell in your body as a tiny machine with instructions to grow and divide. Normally, cells follow orders. But in cancer, those instructions go haywire, and the cells keep growing and multiplying endlessly.
  • Every cancer is unique. No two cancers behave the same way, even in the same person.
  • While we think of cancer as a modern disease, it’s actually ancient. The reason it seems more common now? People are living longer, giving cancer more time to develop.

    The First Attempts to Treat Cancer
  • The earliest recorded mention of cancer dates back to ancient Egypt in 2500 BC.
  • Fast forward to the Middle Ages, there was no real understanding of the disease, and treatments were primitive—using fire, acid and leather bindings.
  • In the 1800s, a surgeon named William Halsted pioneered the radical mastectomy, removing not just tumors but entire sections of the body in hopes of stopping the disease.

    The Rise of Modern Treatments
  • In the early 1900s, science took a huge leap forward. The discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie led to the use of radiation therapy to kill cancer cells. But ironically, prolonged exposure to radiation caused cancer itself—Marie Curie eventually died from leukemia.
  • Chemotherapy has its roots in warfare. During World War II, mustard gas was found to destroy white blood cells. Scientists wondered: What if we could use a similar chemical to kill cancer cells? That idea led to the first chemotherapy drugs in the 1940s. In the early days, chemotherapy was incredibly toxic.

    The Fight for Progress and Awareness
  • In the 1960-70’s, cancer treatment wasn’t just a battle against the disease, it was a battle within the medical community. Surgeons, radiologists, and chemotherapists each had their own ideas about how to fight cancer, often clashing rather than working together.
  • Outside the labs and hospitals, a different kind of battle was happening. Activists like Mary Lasker, a socialite who lived in New York City, pushed for government funding and research, leading to the U.S. declaring a formal War on Cancer in the 1970s.

    Prevention: The Best Cure?
  • In 1775, a British surgeon noticed that young chimney sweeps were getting scrotal cancer at alarming rates, linking it to soot exposure. That was one of the first discoveries of an environmental cause of cancer.
  • In the 1950s, studies confirmed what we now take for granted: smoking causes lung cancer. But getting that message out wasn’t easy. Early cigarette warning labels in the 1960s didn’t even mention cancer! It took decades of activism to get the clear, direct warnings we have today.

    A More Compassionate Approach
  • For years, patients with terminal cancer were often ignored, left in pain, and given little dignity in their final days. That changed thanks to Cicely Saunders, a former nurse trained as a doctor who pioneered palliative care in London in the 1950’s—an approach focused on comfort, pain relief, and emotional support for the dying. Her work helped create palliative medicine, changing the way we care for patients for whom there is no cure.
  • Starting in the 1980’s, AIDS activists injected an urgency behind the notion of patient-centered care. The cancer community, too, has benefitted from their actions.

    The Future of Cancer Treatment
  • One of the biggest breakthroughs in understanding cancer came when scientists discovered that cancer isn’t just random—it’s genetic. In the 1970s, researchers found that certain genes in normal cells, when mutated, could turn into cancer-causing genes.
  • Scientists have sequenced the entire genomes of many cancer specimens (all 23,000 genes), making it possible to document every genetic change. Scientists realized that every patient’s cancer is unique because every cancer genome is unique.
  • It’s possible we’re fatally conjoined to cancer. But if the terrifying game of treatment, resistance, recurrence, and more treatment can be stretched out longer and longer, then it will transform the way we imagine this ancient illness.
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On My Way to Atlanta, I Found Essaouira

My adventure in Essaouira and what it means to me.

It’s a miracle. One of those that happen in life—if you’re paying attention.

Essaouira. Morocco.

For years, my cousin Céline, who has spent a week there every year for the past 20 years, kept inviting me to join her in this fortified town by the Atlantic. But, well… Planning a trip to North Africa wasn’t exactly easy while I was living in Atlanta.

The right time finally came in January 2025. My first time on a plane since I left Atlanta in June 2022 for a vacation in France—before my life was turned upside down after receiving my diagnosis. My first time setting foot on another continent again. And then, there was this little sign, hinting at how significant this trip would be: Essaouira sits almost on the same latitude as the state of Georgia. On the other side of the ocean: Atlanta.

A strong, special energy

From the very beginning, I could feel a strong, special energy. I wasn’t the only one. Surfers from all over Europe gather on Essaouira’s beach, lifting their kites to glide and soar over the waves.

Just three hundred meters away, inside the medina, it’s a completely different world. I’m overwhelmed by the colors, the scents, the aromas drifting from the spice stalls, dried fruit vendors, the bustling produce market, the fish souk, and so much more.

Here, yoga isn’t an option. Instead, my yoga is walking two or three hours a day along the beach, feet in the water, face to the wind, soaking up the sun. My head filled with sea spray.

Berbers, Arabs, Africans, Europeans…

Back in the medina, Céline—my guide—shares her deep knowledge and touching respect for this city and its people. The artisans of an older generation—since younger ones aren’t interested in trades that don’t pay—work in rhythm at their looms, carve and plane wood, bend iron to their will.

With my cousin Céline. So giving. She generously shared so many things she knows about Essaouira.

Centuries ago, different ethnicities converged within Essaouira’s walls—Berbers, Arabs, Africans, Europeans—along with a mix of faiths: Muslims, Christians, and Jews. You can feel it. I can feel it. Just like the rich melting pot of the United States. Tourists stop here for a week, sometimes a few months, especially those working remotely.

Essaouira. In a way, I’m halfway between Paris and Atlanta. A necessary stop. How does the saying go again? It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey.

A view from a rooftop above the fish market.