Nasal Breathing

It seems like for as long as I can recall I have been at war with my nose, dry, itchy, blocked sinuses and yucky stuff, to mention some symptoms. I would wake up in the morning and feel like someone had dropped cement glue into my nose and sinus cavities. No amount of nose blowing would seem to clear it. During the night, I would snore and wake up with a sore throat. It was relentless, and I assumed I confess just normal.

I tried various things and got a lot of relief through acupuncture and the sinus points. However, after a few days, I would be back to the cement glue symptoms. It was through one of these sessions that the concept of mouth taping came up and a recommendation to read “Breath” by James Nestor. If you have not read this book, I strongly encourage you to. In summary, the book takes you through the benefits of nose breathing over mouth breathing. Notable amongst the benefits that stood out to me were better sleep, reduced anxiety, and overall better health. Along with this, if you are working out, there are some enormous benefits in nose breathing. Adopting a more Tai Chi approach keeping your tongue on the roof of your mouth (if you are not sure where, try swallowing and that should be where your tongue rests) brings extra benefits from bringing the body into alignment, improves saliva buildup, etc. There are many recommendations for this practice, a lot of them stem from the Zen practice of meditation, Zazen. Again, the benefits to tongue placement are wide spread some seem a little farfetched. Others sort of make sense. I would encourage you to research the concept, but the actual placement is the same across all of them.

The nose is an often forgotten but critical part of the human anatomy. Using it appropriately by breathing through it allows the nerves in the brain to detect the air coming in, the volume of air allowing the body to make better use of the inhale and exhale. The act of breathing through the nose also warms and moistens the air, entering the lungs and pressurizes it. All of this contributes to better utilization of the oxygen.

Another fascinating feature of the nose that I have realized over the years but have never understood is that the nose contains erectile tissue. This effectively allows the nose to block of one nostril or another, allowing more air through one side or the other. The effects of this are pronounced. The left nostril promotes a calming effect and instills creativity while breathing through the right side increases circulation, body heat and heart rate. There are practices you can do to replicate this by blocking a nostril and breathing.

Over the last few months, I have found my tolerance for exercising, especially running in the zone 1-2 areas, has markedly increased. I find myself being able to run a solid zone 2 speed, which for me is around 5.4 mph, all while breathing through my nose. I found as James Nestor described a panic feeling once in a while, but knowing that was likely to come helped with the mental side of it.

If you have not read James Nestor’s book Breath, I strongly recommend it.

References

https://www.zen-buddhism.net/how-to-practice-zen-meditation/