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The importance of nasal breathing: 11 reasons to breathe through your nose

February 3, 2017 by info@breathingremedies.co.uk 6 Comments

Use the nose for breathing.

USE THE NOSE FOR BREATHING

The founder of the American Rhinological society, Dr Maurice Cottle, stated that the nose performs at least 30 functions, but at least 50% of modern children are permanent mouth breathers.

Why is the nose treated as an optional or redundant appendage?

Use it!

Here is a shorter list of reasons to convince you!

1) Air inhaled through the nose is warmed and moistened, so it does not irritate the sensitive airways.

2) Air exhaled through the nose reabsorbs moisture efficiently, reducing dehydration.

3) Air inhaled through the nose is filtered, (spun as it rushes round specially designed structures the concha or turbinates, so any particles – allergens, microbes – stick to the mucus lining of the airways where they are destroyed by enzymes and gases with anti- microbial properties).

4) Nasal breathing promotes good oral health. Mouth breathing causes a drying out of the gums, increases the acidity in the mouth encouraging both cavities and gum disease.

5) Breathing through the nose encourages good facial development in children, and straight teeth. A closed mouth, with the tongue where is should be, in the roof of the mouth for most of the time, can help the jaw grow enough to accommodate all the teeth.

6) Nasal breathing helps reduces snoring and sleep apnoea and ensure a good night’s sleep.

7) Nasal breathing is good for head and neck stability and strength. The tongue is a very strong muscle and when it is pressed into the roof of the closed mouth and the head stays balanced at the top of the neck.

8) Nasal breathing helps to set the breathing pattern or rhythm. Sensors in the nasal cavity that not only detect odours in the environment, but also the temperature of the air and the flow of the air coming in. The air is monitored, and breathing in cold air can reduce breathing rate, a good adaptation to keep warm and to keep blood circulating to the extremities.

9) Mouth breathers have lower CO2 in their systems, therefore lower oxygen in their cells. Low CO2 tightens the airways and the blood vessels, reducing blood flow to the tissues, and also reduces transfer of oxygen from the blood into the tissues.

10) The gas nitric oxide (or NO) is made in the nasal sinuses and during nasal breathing moves down into the lungs where it optimises oxygen transfer into the blood stream.

11) Nasal breathing encourages correct diaphragmatic breathing rather than upper chest breathing, and stimulates the parasympathetic “rest and restore” rather than “fight or flight” arm of the autonomic nervous system.

Pace yourself so you can breathe through the nose at all times…

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Comments

  1. Brenda Stafford says

    February 16, 2017 at 17:12

    Hi Janet. I find this very interesting and could the mouth breathing in children account for the rise in asthma and allergies? Kind regards Brenda

    Reply
    • info@breathingremedies.co.uk says

      February 16, 2017 at 17:58

      There certainly seems to be a connection Brenda, and one of the major parts of breathing retraining is to teach nasal breathing 24/7.

      Reply
  2. Lisa says

    March 16, 2017 at 19:59

    This is a revelation.. Ive had illness for fpur years. Beena mouth breather for as long as i can remember. Only now after needing pituitary. Surgery am i checked by and ENT whom says my sperum is so deviated. And polyps galore they have to operate. Before they can operate. I have had athsma since i was nine yet always been sporty and healthy. But now since ivebeen ill i wake every night because im mouhth bresthing. Ivebecome ill from lyme disease. But i feel it connected to hoemy immune system reacts etc and already weakened. I look fprward to getting it sorted and retraining to breathe. I am a yogi but obviously. Find it so hard breath through my nose…

    Reply
    • info@breathingremedies.co.uk says

      April 23, 2017 at 18:26

      Hi Lisa, you might be interested in my latest newsletter: http://mailchi.mp/2e0f8a1104d6/barefoot-shoes-and-harmful-yoga-breathing?e=b561e1b055

      Reply
  3. Barrie says

    March 1, 2020 at 09:25

    Hi, I have contacted you before but this might be of interest, I have disciplined myself to 24/7 nasal breathing, three months ago I had a fall on wet leaves and broke my elbow, had plates and screws put in, I went to the physiotherapist and they were surprised at how quickly I was recovering considering I am nearly 80, could my breathing be contributing to this?

    Sadly while I was in hospital at night some of the others patients were sleeping on their backs breathing with mouths wide open and snoring, not me!

    Reply
  4. JANET WINTER says

    March 1, 2020 at 10:56

    Sorry about the broken elbow Barrie, but great news about the rapid healing, and good breathing indeed might have played a part in it.

    Reply

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About me, Buteyko breathing educator

Janet Winter breathing and posture educator (Buteyko and Egoscue)

Dr Janet Winter (PhD)

Hello, I am Janet,  a  Breathing educator (Buteyko), and Posture specialist (Egoscue).

I help people recover from asthma, allergies, sinusitis, anxiety, sleep problems, headaches, IBS chronic fatigue (ME/CFS) and more, by improving their dysfunctional breathing.

Listen to a client’s (Suzy Glaskie, functional medicine health coach at Peppermint Wellness) 15 minute podcast on how Buteyko helped her.

I teach natural health control with no drugs, gadgets or manipulation. You can sign up to my newsletter here.

Phone me 01663 743055 (Dr Janet Winter) or contact me here.

What I do

Breathing education gently retrains a disordered breathing pattern and helps people naturally recover from breathing-related health problems.

The Buteyko Method relieves asthma symptoms, and has been listed in the UK Asthma Guideline since 2008.
I am a member of the Buteyko Breathing Educators Association and am fully insured.

I am also a qualified postural alignment specialist (PAS) Egoscue method. Good posture is essential for good breathing and proper function in general.

My background

I was involved in healthcare/biomedical research for 30 years although previously in a very different role: before training as a Breathing educator, I spent 20 years in drug discovery looking for new painkillers for a major pharmaceutical company based in a London Institute.
I worked as a neuroscientist and cell biologist, directing a team of bench scientists. (So I am not a medical doctor but I have a PhD in Neuroscience) I authored or co-authored more than 50 journal articles and reviews on my research.  My professional profile can be seen here on LINKEDIN.

Why I became a breathing educator

If you are reading this because you have CFS/ME, I know what you are going through. I know what it is like to hold onto a job by my fingernails, worried about how we would feed the family if I lost my job, come home and eat and sleep and spend my weekend recovering.

I had no social life. I was lucky to quickly get to a consultant who diagnosed me with candidiasis, and anti-fungals and a yeast and sugar-free diet helped a lot, but not enough.

I felt I had been “written off” and had nothing to offer. I was a mum, partner and employee with massively reduced physical and mental output compared with previously.
For me (after trying many different avenues, cranial osteopathy, chiropractic, mercury amalgam filling removal and more – I became a “fat-folder patient”).

How I got sick

I suspected my symptoms were “stress related” but they did not ease when I left my stressful job and moved out of London to the countryside.

Looking back on my history I can clearly see my own physical and emotional stresses accumulating, from a very traumatic bereavement, on-going work and family stresses, then a really bad summer respiratory infection and cough that was not shifted by two different antibiotics (but they probably contributed to unbalancing my gut flora, hence the fungal overgrowth/candidiasis).

A cough seems to be one of the best ways to mess up your breathing pattern, and many of my clients tell me “I was fine until I had that cough/chest infection, and I never really got my health back!!”

The breathing centre in the brain gets to think that big volume breathing is normal and unless you know about it, it is sometimes hard to recover. Luckily you CAN retrain your breathing by doing a series of gentle exercises and making some life style changes, and you CAN have hope of better health.

My recovery

Changing my breathing back to a more normal pattern really helped me. It was a big missing piece of my health puzzle, and one I had frankly never considered. One definition of stress is “anything that makes you breathe more”. And I know now that breathing too much can actually deplete the body of oxygen. And stress can be emotional or physical.

So that is why I do what I do and why I am passionate about it; I found a way to improve my chronic fatigue by better breathing and I trained as a breathing educator so I could help others with this devastating disease. There is so little help out there for them (you?).

Then chronic backache made good breathing impossible, and I discovered postural alignment therapy (Egoscue) to help with that. And I am still amazed at the progress I am making -it’s wonderful to have decreased pain and increased function when I had accepted decline at my age was inevitable. It’s not!


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