Breathing through your nose is a good trick - Smelling the roses

Patrick McKeown is the oxygen man:-  The Oxygen Advantage is his program
He has devoted his career towards educating us all about the benefits of nose breathing -compared to mouth breathing.

There are around 30 tasks that nose breathing performs. You would know a few already. Nose breathing:-

• slows down the breath
• Warms the air
• Sterilizes the outside air before it enters the lungs against virus and bugs
• Transports nitric oxide into the lungs thus the bloodstream.
• slower breath goes to the lower parts of the lung, towards the diaphragm.
• allows for optimal exchange of gases with the blood vessels of the lungs
• The tongue can stay on the roof of the mouth, the correct position
• Therefore better body posture
• better sports performance
• much more efficient and so better sports performance

Mouth breathing on the other hand:-

• Speeds up the breath. 
• dries out the airways
• mainly goes to the upper part of the chest
• faster breath impairs the exchange of the gases oxygen and carbon dioxide
• the tongue is positioned incorrectly and not at the roof of the mouth
• This means Head-Forward posture.. oh no. 

I was a mouth breather when I was younger.  I had allergic rhinitis for years.  This could account for my own head forward posture. 

Nose breathing has big implications for exercise.  For vigorous exercise, nose breathing is a little more difficult.  However, because exchange is gentler and slower in the lungs, it becomes more efficient, it should pay an efficiency dividend and be worth the effort. 
I've tried to stick with nose breathing on my morning walk. Truthfully, I don't know if it is the placebo effect, but it actually feels easier and I recovered better  

This idea turns everything on its head.  How often have we been told to just take a deep breath?  According to Patrick, no no no.

We should seek to take a slow long breath through our nose, of course. When we breath incorrectly, and we take a big breath we send air to the chest, the upper part,  and  because the air is travelling so fast and forcefully, it cannot be exchanged properly, you know, oxygen into the blood stream, carbon dioxide out. We can actually train our management of the carbon dioxide levels. That is exciting. 

As well, during the proverbial big gasp inwards, with an open mouth, the all important nitric oxide  enters neither the lungs nor the blood vessels. Nitric Oxide has the capacity to relax and soften the blood vessels, therefore lowers our stress levels. It is an anti inflammatory. We miss out on this with mouth breathing

Patrick McGeown says that we should experience a breath hunger. We are still safe, there is plenty of oxygen in the blood stream. There is a breath "pacemaker" in the brain, which is governed by carbon dioxide levels in the blood.  We can train ourselves to slow down our breath rate - which is not only more efficient, but is a way of reducing stress - modern life is equal to faster breath. 

Talk about smelling the roses. He claims that to smell that rose, if we try a much gentler breath - our experience of the scent would be better.

This week's habit is try to breathe through the nose, breathe more gently and slow down.  You might be surprised at the difference.  I was surprised.

Here is the link to the benefits of nose breathing 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oftuk0FrlCo


and 
Here is a link to Patrick's Ted talk:-

 Ted Talk Patrick McKeown