Mouth breathers, you’re limiting yourself
The only way you should breathe in through your nose, it is the reason we have it. We can breathe through our mouth only as an emergency backup. You should not breathe through your mouth unless you are at 95% of your capacity, such as sprinting, uphill, in the snow, away from a bear. Regular sprinting also falls into this category, but other than that you should breathe through your nose:
Primary (absolutely not an all inclusive listing) Benefits of nasal breathing:
Your nose is designed for breathing, it is responsible for over 30 life function in the body, the 4 easiest ones to explain are these:
Humidifies
Filters out environmental toxins, better than any other filter we are aware of
Heats and cools the air going into your lungs.
This creates feelings of ease and calmness in our lungs, and airway from your nose to your throat and your lungs. Everything you breathe through your nose your lungs are happier.. The air is more appropriately humidified, filtered (which it is not at all when breathing through your mouth), and more effectively temperature controlled higher up in your body. Doing this reduces lung irritation from all causes, Asthma, sinus congestion, allergies, sore throat, as well as many many other things as well.
It increases the amount of oxygen that is absorbed by your lungs and put into your blood stream because it requires more pressure to pull the air into your lungs because it is a smaller hole. So each nasal breath allows you to obtain 20-40% more oxygen than a breath taken from your mouth.
Facilitates deeper breathing, which allows you to breathe into the lowest parts of your lungs. When you breathe deep the air and the blood in your lungs mix more efficiently and allow you to have more gas exchange. This gas exchange increases the efficiency of oxygen pulled into your body and carbon dioxide pushed out. Deeper breathing also causes your body to relax. The top of your lungs where a lot of people breathe everyday has nerve endings that are looking for air movement and when they get it the body thinks there is an emergency stress, likewise the bottom of your lungs also have nerve endings looking for air movement and when they get it the body has a stress reduction response.
It is harder to do which slows your breathing rate down.
Most people hyperventilate all day everyday through their mouth. This causes the body to remain in fight or flight activity and prevents the body from going into rest and digest mode. Simply slowing your breathing rate is the easiest way to lower your stress and remain more in control of your emotional and physical health. If you’re interested in learning more check out this related article. (15 minutesof Carbonation/ Buteyko Breathing)
It increases your carbonation. Carbon dioxide is another miracle chemical that you need more of in your body, breathing through your nose helps reduce how much Carbon dioxide you exhale. Keeping higher levels of carbon dioxide in your blood causes all of your blood vessels to dilate (relax) by up to 50%. This means your blood pressure comes down and your blood flow is less restricted. Slowing your breathing rate down helps you lower your blood pressure and reduces your reliance on medications to artificially lower your blood pressure. Higher levels of Carbon Dioxide also makes more oxygen available in your body. This is because of Boyl’s Law (not important to fully explain) but when higher levels of carbon dioxide cause your red blood cells (the ones that carry oxygen around your body) to release oxygen more easily (up to 20%). So you can use more oxygen that your body has already in it but isn’t available. If you breathe fast (like most people do when they workout) you are actually choking yourself and making things worse.
It increases your circulation. This is because your nose hold vast amounts of Nitric Oxide (NO) in nasal tissues. This amazing gas is a bronchodilator and a vasodilator, simply meaning it causes your airways to open up and your blood vessels to open up as well. When you breathe through your mouth you do not get this and your circulation is restricted. Symptoms of mouth breathing include being cold all the time and trouble thinking. Which are both signs of poor circulation.
The easiest time to breathe through your nose is at night with a simple tool. Check out this article on sleep tape.
