James Nestor

James Nestor is an American journalist and author. He grew up in Tustin, a suburb in Orange County, California, and played bass in a punk band as a teenager. He moved to northern California to study literature and art and earned a master's degree in English. For years he worked as a copywriter and wrote magazine stories at night. He then became a full-time freelance journalist for Outside, Dwell, Scientific American and other magazines.

In 2011 Outside sent him to Greece to report on a freediving contest. The divers' control of their breath led to his first book, Deep (2014), about the human body and the ocean. He also worked with the marine biologist David Gruber on research into whale communication that led to Project CETI.

Breath (2020) argues that most modern people breathe badly: too fast, too much and through the mouth. Nestor mixes history, research and experiments on himself, such as ten days with his nose plugged, to argue for slow breathing through the nose. Some researchers say the evidence for practices such as mouth taping is still thin. He lives in San Francisco.