The nose knows, you know!

Let’s hear it for the nose, arguably one of the most ridiculed, surgically altered, digitally explored but underused parts of our anatomy.

I will be explaining why the mouth just doesn’t cut it where breathing (vigorous exercise aside) is concerned and how it can be detrimental to our physical and mental health and even our growth and posture.

Everything about the nose is highly specialised for the delivery of air into our lungs not unlike the mechanism of an air conditioner.

Here’s how the air-conditioner works

1. Warming - If you are a nose bleeder you will know we have a rich blood supply close to the surface helping warm the air.
   
2. Humidifying – Dry inhaled air is moistened by mucus lining the nose. Lungs like warm moist air, especially twitchy, irritable airways ( think asthma)
   
3. Millions of hairs or cilia which filter unwanted irritants in the air line the nasal passages
   
4. Bacteria fighting chemicals and white blood cells do their stuff, including a gas called nitric oxide which kills bacteria and helps with dilating our airways and blood vessels
   
5. The shape of the turbinates ( shelf- like bones)  provides the optimum speed of air flow for all this to take place.
   
6. The resistance we feel breathing out through the nose provides back pressure into our lungs keeping them open and helping with oxygen transfer
   
7. Smell! – Historically those of us with a good sense of smell had a natural selection advantage. Detecting danger, assessing safe foods and even choosing a mate! The nasovaramine organ sitting just in the septum (middle of the nose) is said to detect pheromones. Women chose partners partly on the basis of their smell ( PARTLY, I repeat!)  And the oral contraceptive interferes with this. Now there’s a research project waiting to happen.

THE MOUTH – WHY TAKING THE BYPASS IS NOT ALWAYS THE RIGHT CHOICE

The mouth is very nicely designed for eating, drinking, formation of words, smiling etc.

We use our mouths to breathe under stress where the nose is not providing enough volume and speed. Laughing, crying, vigorous exercise i.e. a handy short term option.

Breathing through the mouth is like travelling straight through on a city bypass. The faster easier
option, path of least resistance.

But if you do this, you will miss all the attractions and benefits offered in the city (nose) as we have already found out.

 Myth -  Mouth = more air = more oxygen   

1. Wrong – At rest, larger mouth breaths will huff out too much carbon dioxide from our bodies. Low carbon dioxide actually leads to less oxygen being delivered to everywhere we need it. Our brain is one area very greedy for oxygen. Brain fog, lack of concentration, difficulty focusing are all symptoms of breathing too much.
   
   
2. Low carbon dioxide also causes smooth muscles to contract – smooth muscle lines all our tubes – gut, airways ( particularly relevant with asthma), and circulatory system.  So our breathing, our digestion and our blood supply to all areas of our body are affected.
   
   
3. Do you remember going to your dentist, having fillings done, being told you will probably need braces when you are a teenager? Now your dentist is much more likely to tell you how being a mouth breather will lead to dry, inflamed gums, plaque, narrow jaw, overcrowded teeth, narrowed airway etc. etc. Nose breathing from birth is essential for normal healthy growth of the jaw. We have 22 bones in our skull, all of which are influenced by the forces of muscles such as our lips and tongue.
   
   

These muscles do not do their job if we mouth breathe. The tongue stays low in the mouth instead of widening the upper jaw, the lower jaw hangs down and back narrowing our upper airway and the roof of our mouth becomes a high arch narrowing our airway above, i.e. our nasal passages. 

Lastly breathing through our mouth affects our head posture. We tend to use muscles in our neck/shoulder/chest area to breathe instead of our main muscle the diaphragm.These upper chest muscles send signals to the brain saying ‘help! Action! We’re in trouble.

Anxiety or busy brain and mouth breathing go hand in hand.

Making the switch can be hard.

Often the resistance we feel when changing from mouth to nose makes us feel we are not getting enough air.

This is a very common reason for many adults and children persisting with mouth breathing, even following surgery to clear the airways (tonsils, adenoids, sinuses).

Guidance and reassurance that you are getting enough oxygen, as well as using the correct breathing muscles is part of breathing re- training.

The health benefits in changing breathing habits go beyond the scope of this blog but hopefully this will be enough to convince you to try!