4 Reasons to Breath Through Your Nose More

In stressful situations, it’s always helpful to remind yourself to just breath. That being said, we can breath in many different ways; through the mouth, the nose, deep breaths, shallow breaths, fast, slow, techniques such as physiological sighs!

Some methods of breathing are superior to others and more valuable in specific situations than others. However, one thing’s for sure, more of us should be breathing through our noses more. It may sound silly, but many of us mouth breath much of the time and would benefit much more from transitioning to more of a nasal dominant breather.

Let’s delve deeper into why nasal breathing is great for our health and cover a few ways you can cut down your mouth breathing.

IMPROVING YOUR SLEEP QUALITY

Breathing primarily through your nose during the night decreases snoring, reduces the development of sleep apnea and increases oxygen levels in the blood, helping to improve the quantity of restful deep sleep. If you snore in your sleep and/or usually wake up with a very dry mouth, chances are you’re a mouth breather during the night. If this is you, try placing a small piece of surgical tape over your lips during the night.

Many people find success with this tape method, after a few weeks or months, try sleeping without the tape and reassess how you feel. If the snoring has stopped, you no longer wake up with a dry mouth, you feel more refreshed and your sleep stats on your smart watch have improved, you’ve successfully become more nasal dominant during sleep.

DECREASED STRESS, ANXIETY AND BLOOD PRESSURE.

Nasal breathing leads to higher 'rest and digest' parasympathetic nervous system activity, due to a naturally slower respiration rate and higher oxygen uptake. Therefore, playing an important role in slowing our heart rate, lowering stress and improving blood pressure.

A common method used to help overcome severe anxiety or a high stress situation is to take deep breaths. Although great advice, it’s more effective if those breaths are inhaled through the nose rather than the mouth. Not only will the nasal inhale favour a parasympathetic state but deep breaths through the mouth can easily result in rapid shallow breaths that lead to hyperventilating.

A highly recommended breathing technique to help manage stress, lower heart rate and promote recovery is commonly know as box breathing. 3 second nasal inhale - 3 second breath hold - 3 second mouth exhale - 3 second breath hold - repeat.

OXYGEN UPTAKE

Breathing through your nose better pressurises, filters and humidifies the air in comparison to mouth breathing. This not only enables us to take in cleaner air and limit exposure to toxins and pollution, but also allows the lungs to absorb more oxygen... in fact, up to 20% more oxygen.

LONGEVITY

More regular nasal breathing throughout the day, during exercise and during sleep has been shown over time to increase lung size, leading to greater lung capacity. Why is this important? Lung capacity is the greatest indicator of life span! Meaning not only can nasal breathing improve your health, performance and how you feel, but can also help you live longer!

I hope you found this article useful! I’d love to know whether you’re consciously aware of your breathing, perhaps you do breathing exercises or tape at night? Let me know @olliethompsonhealth