Patrick McKeown

Patrick McKeown is one of the world's foremost authorities on functional breathing — an Irish teacher whose work sits at the rare intersection of clinical science and transformative practice. His story begins with his own suffering: more than twenty years of chronic asthma, blocked nasal breathing, poor sleep, and the anxiety and exhaustion that follow them, managed with a lifetime of inhalers and medication. Then, at twenty-six, the Trinity College Dublin graduate discovered the Buteyko Breathing Method — and found relief so immediate and complete that it redirected his life. He travelled to Moscow to train at the source, becoming accredited by Dr. Konstantin Buteyko himself in 2002, and has remained asthma-free ever since. In the two decades since, McKeown has built that personal healing into a global body of work. His bestselling books — including The Oxygen Advantage, The Breathing Cure, Close Your Mouth, and Anxiety Free — have been published around the world, and his flagship Oxygen Advantage® method now trains certified instructors in more than sixty countries, making it one of the leading breathwork schools on earth. What distinguishes him is rigour: a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, he has co-authored research published in journals including the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and Clinical Otolaryngology — where a University of Limerick collaboration documented a seventy percent reduction in nasal symptoms using the Buteyko Method. His influence echoes through the modern breathing movement, including James Nestor's phenomenon Breath, which draws on his work. McKeown's teaching is disarmingly practical: breathe through your nose, breathe light, breathe slow, breathe low. From that foundation he addresses an extraordinary range of human struggles — asthma, anxiety, insomnia, snoring, sleep apnea, focus, even sports performance, where he has coached elite athletes across tennis, cycling, MMA, and American football. Based in Galway, Ireland, he continues to teach worldwide through online courses, certifications, and clinics, offering a message of profound simplicity: the way you breathe, moment to moment, day and night, is either building your health or quietly eroding it — and changing it is within everyone's reach.