Your Nose ~ A Sensory & Respiratory Organ
I have never appreciated my studies and practices as much as over the CoVid Quarantine. It has kept me focused, grounded, healthy and vibrant. While the current circumstances are still new to us, Yoga has been teaching us for thousands of years, how to properly breathe, eat and exercise to reduce our exposure and increase our vitality and longevity.
The term Pranayama is a Sanskrit word for ‘breath control’ and refers to breathing techniques, which clear the physical and emotional obstacles in our body to free the breath and so, the flow of prana, also known as life energy. Regular and sustained practice of Pranayama can supercharge every system with in and around your whole body.
While this article is not about Yoga, (but rather how and why to properly breathe), I wanted to share this interesting and important fact that we often discuss when teaching pranayama. ** Increased airflow through the right nostril is correlated to increased left brain activity and enhanced verbal performance; whereas increased airflow through the left nostril is associated with increased right brain activity and enhanced spatial performance. If nothing else, this makes a few minutes a day of mindful breathing an excellent investment of your time and energy.
For today, in light of the current pandemic, let’s take a deeper look at the intention and function of our nose and its relationship to our demeanor, our thoughts, our immunity and our respiratory health.
Think of all the aromas we enjoy with our nose and how our sense of smell influences behavior, mindset, memories, and many autonomic nervous system functions which are below the level of our conscious awareness. In fact, when you’re eating, much of what you are tasting is based on what you’re smelling. Pretty cool that you don’t have to try to to smell what your smelling; it just happens!
This is because the receptors in the nose, or olfactory bulbs, are direct extensions of a part of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Each of our nostrils is innervated by five cranial nerves from a different side of the brain. Each nostril functions independently and synergistically when filtering, warming, moisturizing, dehumidifying, and smelling the air.
When a foreign particle (smoke, mold, pollen, dander, etc…) enters your nose, it may interact with the tiny hairs and delicate skin that line your nasal passage, causing an electric signal to your brain that the nose needs to clear itself and that it’s time for a sneeze. Your body responds by preparing itself for the impending contraction; the eyes are forced shut, the tongue moves to the roof of the mouth, and the muscles brace for the sneeze. All of this happens in just a few seconds.
Sneezing, or sternutation, forces water, mucus, and air from your nose with an incredible force. The sneeze can carry with it many microbes, which can spread diseases like the flu and corona virus. A single sneeze makes 40,000 droplets, travels up to 20 miles per hour, and creates a 5’ spray radius.
Did you know that your nose and sinuses produce almost one liter of mucus a day, which you swallow? Mucus contains chemicals that keep you healthy. That’s why when you’re sick, mucus production nearly doubles.
But the nose does so much more than smell and sneeze and produce mucus! Isn’t that the most interesting thing you’ve heard all day? It is a sophisticated air filter, navigation tool and energy booster all in one, and is a distinctively designed organ and a neglected part of our respiratory system. There are very few things that people can do to improve their health as much as simply changing how they breathe.
Try it - take an inhalation through the nose. If your unable to draw air in through the nostrils, there might be an obstruction, and you might consider seeing a specialist. If you can breathe using your nose, but it feels awkward, you may have, accidentally, become a habitual mouth breather.
Mouth breathing causes you to skirt many essential phases of the breathing mechanism, which scientists and doctors have linked to a variety of medical issues, like jaw deformities, sleeping problems (staying asleep and snoring), and learning challenges. Mouth breathers have more difficulty focusing on one point, remembering information, finding motivation, sustaining energy, and completing tasks.
At first, keeping your lips closed <unless you’re talking or eating> will feel like you’re having to work harder, because the nasal route adds about 50 percent more resistance to airflow, which consequently benefits your lungs, your heart and even the biochemistry of your brain. If you snore, or wake up with a dry mouth or nasal congestion, you’re probably also mouth breathing at night.
Note these important points ~
Researchers have shown that mouth breathing, which is associated with hyperventilation, induces and provokes asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease and other medical problems.
The nose warms, moisturizes and conditions the the air as it enters the body and mixes with nitric oxide - which does two important functions- it kills deadly bacteria and works as a vasodilator on the airways, arteries, and capillaries.
Our body has a gene (T2R38), that stimulates nasal receptors when you breathe through your nose which reacts with the chemicals that bacteria in the air use to communicate. It stimulates nitric oxide that kills the bacteria so you breathe in a relatively less infectious air. (Scientific American Sept 2014 Page 28) Wow!
The vasodilation by nitric oxide increases the surface area of alveoli, where oxygen is absorbed in the very end of bronchial tubes, which means more oxygen is absorbed more efficiently when you breathe through your nose.
Chronic mouth breathing causes the muscles that open the sidewalls of the nose to weaken and the airways narrow.
The lungs are a primary source of our energy level. They siphon oxygen from the air we breathe, mostly on the exhale. Exhaling through the small nostrils (instead of your mouth), creates a back-pressure, which restrains and slows down the air escape, which allows more time for the lungs to extract/absorb more oxygen. Breathing through your nose helps in slowing down the breathing cycle to allow proper CO2 build-up and better O2 uptake. When the ratio of oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange is harmonious, the body fluids will maintain a balanced pH. If carbon dioxide is lost too quickly, (like when mouth breathing), oxygen absorption is decreased.
When you breathe in the mouth or over-breath, the lungs are overstimulated with oxygen and the airways become dried and vaso-constricted, so an inefficient amount of oxygen is actually absorbed through the alveoli in the lungs. By breathing through your mouth, you are failing your heart, brain, and all other organs by denying optimal oxygenation.
The hypothalamus, also called the brain’s brain, controls the nasal cycle, which is part of an overall body cycle, which is responsible for many automatic (and other) functions in our bodies like our heartbeat, blood pressure, thirst, appetite, sleep and wake cycles and generating chemicals that influence memory and emotion.
REDUCE YOUR EXPOSURE TO ALL KINDS OF THINGS by breathing through your nose.
The intelligent functionality of the nose properly prepares the air you breathe. As scary as it may sound, our nose is a hideaway to a host bacterial species – good and bad. While the bad bacteria win in numbers, the small number of good ones can battle off in the nose, which prohibits ingestion of the bad bacteria when you inhale. If you bypass your nose and breathe through your mouth, there is no stopping the bad guys from invading the more sensitive structures of the body.
The mucous (white blood cells that kill germs) membrane lining the nose extends all the way from the inner nostrils down the trachea to the bronchi the directly enters the lungs. Germs get caught and die in the mucus. Mouth breathing will make you more susceptible to the common cold and other infections.
The nostrils and sinuses filter and warm the air going into the lungs. An average mouth breather bypasses this. The sinuses produce nitric oxide (NO) which is a pollutant- but in small doses, it is harmful to bacteria.
More interesting news… Nitric (not nitrous) oxide is one of the very important chemical parts of sexual arousal. I’ll just leave that right here.
Our nasal passages have afferent stimuli- the nerves that regulate breathing. When inhaled air passes through the nose, nasal mucosa carries the stimuli to reflex nerves that control breathing. When you breathe through mouth you bypass nasal mucosa and it predisposes you to loud snoring and irregular breathing. Snoring is a precursor to sleep apnea and apnea a precursor to low cellular oxygen, almost any illness including heart attacks and death in one’s sleep. Think along the lines of sleep apnea, which is just a term used to describe Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome.
Mouth breathing can produce an anterior open bite, a longer face, and some suggest that because of poor sleep quality produces a baggy appearance under the eyes. Mouth breathing also accelerates water loss increasing possible dehydration.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “Well now what? Can I break the habit of mouth breathing and train myself to breathe through my nose? Is there hope? YES. YES. And YES!
Step 1: Be conscious of how you breathe when you are awake. Notice yourself breathing throughout the day and when you find yourself breathing in an unfavorable way, change it! Close your lips together and take slow, relaxed breathes through the nose.
Step 2: Cultivate change by practicing mindful breathing. Changing the way you breath when you’re awake models and carries over to how you will breathe when sleeping. Rather than just acknowledging your patterns during the day, you take 5 minutes, once or twice a day to do nothing but focus on your breathing, like a daily practice, best done in the morning before you start your day, and as a second time, before bed.
Step 3: Be consistent. It is a retraining of your mechanisms, your actions, your habitual self. Like any new technique, it will be difficult at first, but the benefits far out weigh your investment. You will boost your immunity, sleep better, think more clearly, be you’ll be much more relaxed and vibrant!
