How Am I Breathing Right Now?

We breathe an average of 22,000 times every single day, but rarely spare a moment to think – how am I breathing right now? It’s an important question with many far reaching implications.  No one really teaches us to breathe, it is just something we do from birth. However, spending just a few moments to focus on how we breathe can yield improvements in sleep, stress handling, anxiety, fatigue, dental disorders, blood pressure, posture and many other concerns.

When we breathe, we can breathe through our nose or our mouth and, surprisingly, there are huge differences between the two. Breathing through our nose is the most efficient way since it evolved for this function. The nose performs multiple tasks as we breathe - it filters particulates, warms and hydrates the air for our airway and lungs, releases nitric oxide to relax blood vessels and contributes to proper dental formation. In contrast, breathing through your mouth has concerning effects – it makes us more prone to infections, dry respiratory tissues, halitosis, poor postures, decreased lung capacity, sleep issues (notably sleep apnea) and causes overall lower tissue oxygen levels.

There are some occasions where breathing through the mouth occurs naturally. Some examples include when we are congested, have nasal obstructions, suffer from pulmonary conditions or when we exercise heavily. Apart from the presence of actual obstructions, the others should all be short term dependencies and nasal breathing should resume. However, it is estimated that upwards of 60% of adults and up to 25% of children suffer from prolonged or predominant use of the mouth to breathe.

There is a critical change in our physiology when we breathe through our nose - we increase the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our blood, which is a critical step for the efficient release of oxygen to our tissues. This is known as the Bohr Effect and it describes the inverse relationship of how tightly we hold oxygen at different concentrations of circulating CO2. Our CO2 level also affects our central nervous system (CNS); it can either turn on our sympathetic nervous system (the “fight or flight” response when mouth breathing and CO2 is low) or our parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest” when nose breathing and CO2 is high). This has a direct effect on our blood pressure, insulin levels, cortisol levels and neurotransmitter function.

Paying attention to how you breathe can help you understand how your body is functioning and give you the tools to modify it. Need to calm your nerves before a big presentation? Try some deep nasal breathing before you get started. Want to increase the oxygen carried in your blood before lifting weights? Take some deep breaths in the nose and out the mouth.

A simple way to check if you breathe through your nose or mouth - Take a small piece of medical tape which has very gentle adhesive and put it on your lips to close them. How long can you keep the tape there? How comfortable are you breathing only with your nose? Many people take that further and use mouth taping at night to combat snoring, sleep apnea, morning fatigue, mouth dryness and improve cycles of deep restorative sleep

So, how are you breathing right now?

 If you have any questions about this please do not hesitate to contact us.