Breathe Your Way To Better Health
By: Michael Lim
Tags: Books, Life Hacking, Self Improvement, Reading, Breathing

Breathe Your Way To Better Health

Just Make Sure It Is Through Your Nose, Not Your Mouth

We all breathe.

To be exact, we take around 25,000 breathes a day.

It is what sustains our life and all our metabolic functions.

Without it, we would die.

Despite its importance, very few of us do it well and this is to our own detriment.

Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash

Breathing is the most fundamental component of health. It is more important than exercise, diet and lifestyle choices and yet we don’t give it the attention it seems to deserve.

I am not stating anything new.

We’ve known about the benefits of breathing for hundreds maybe even thousands of years. It is one of the most ancient and overlooked practices we have to get sleep better, exercising longer and helping to prevent many lifestyle diseases acquired through modernity.

You can even see this for yourself. You’ll often notice that those with the worst breathing, often have the worst health.

Many ancient texts, rituals and religions are strong proponents of some form of breathing technique. Meditation, yoga and religious prayer are practices formed around controlling the breath to control the body and mind.

But unlike religion, the benefits of breathing are not based on some mystical ancient text with unknown sources and difficult verifiability. Through documented scientific studies, you don’t need to rely on faith to understand that breathing has real benefits and consequences for the human body.

I am not going to go into all the nuances of breathing and its benefits. But if I could leave you with one thing is that there is a proper way to breathe and that’s through the nose, not the mouth.

Breathe Through The Nose, Not the Mouth

You might be thinking: what’s the difference? Doesn’t it all go through the same internal pipes and end up in the same place anyway? Does it really matter how we breathe?

The short answer is: Yes. It matters a lot how you breathe.

The long answer, according to James Nestor in his book Breath, is:

‘Mouth breathing, it turns out, changes the physical body and transforms airways, all for the worse. Inhaling air through the mouth decreases pressure, which causes the soft tissues in the back of the mouth to become loose and flex inward, creating less space and making breathing more difficult. Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing.’

When I first read this, I was really shocked.

I did not understand how bad long-term unconscious mouth breathing can be for my health. I was never really educated on the difference.

What recent research has found is that through the nose, evolution has given humans a specialized breathing weapon that can filter bacteria, regulate temperature and change the internal pressure of our body. It is pretty amazing when you think about it. It is how freedivers can hold their breath for minutes at a time and dive to deeps previously thought impossible.

What we also know is that nature is parsimonious. Meaning that evolution never intended the mouth to be used as the primary mechanism for breathing. The body is simply not designed to process raw air from the mouth for hours at a time, day or night. There is nothing normal about it.

Where we see mouth breathing impact on our health the most is through sleep.

Breathing and Sleep

Snoring and sleep apnea are worsened due to mouth breathing.

Teaching yourself to breathe through your nose during the night and developing breathing techniques can radically reduce the impact of snoring and sleep apnea. As a consequence, your sleep will drastically improve.

Thanks to research by Matthew Walker, we now know how fundamental sleep is to health. People who are suffering from sleep apnea and chronic snoring are getting themselves in double trouble. Their sleep quality and quantity are less and at the same time, they are breathing incorrectly, often through their mouth. This is a recipe for poor sleep and even poorer long-term health.

Since reading the book by James Nestor, I’ve developed some tips that I’ve been using to breathe and sleep better.

Be warned, some of them are really weird.

1. Tape your mouth shut when you sleep.

Using regular tape, I put a small amount on my lips to prevent my mouth from opening while I sleep. This prevents me from unconsciously breathing through my mouth when sleeping as well as significantly lessens my snoring and sleep apnea symptoms.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of months now and I can honestly feel my sleep quality improve. I hardly wake up during the middle of the night, my mouth doesn’t feel like a barren desert in the morning and I hardly snore anymore. Taping my mouth has been quite the value add for my sleep given its low cost and effort.

2. Breathing Exercises

I’ve been experimenting with basic Tummo and Resonant breathing:

Tummo:

Take 30 deep breathes with full exhalation. Do this sitting or laying down. After about 20 deep breathes you might feel your lips tingle, feet or hands go a bit numb and a bit lightheaded. Don’t stress. This is all normal.

I’ll usually do Tummo breathing techniques in the morning to give me energy before I take a cold shower. I’ve noticed that I have been able to withstand the cold for much longer periods of time than before. You could call it the placebo effect, but I find that I feel mentally and physically sharper. No harm no foul I say.

Resonant Breathing:

Take a 6-second inhalation through your nose and 6-second exhalation. Repeat for 10 rounds. This is great before a big meeting, speaking event or bed. It really helps to relax and calm my nerves.

Summary:

In short, improving how you breathe is free and accessible to everyone.

I am not asking you to become a perfect breather but what I am saying is that everyone can at least improve their breathing technique. Most of the techniques can be taught via YouTube tutorials and have an abundance of research to back them up.

What have you got to lose?

There is a minimal downside but unbounded upside if these techniques work for you. You might find that your sleep improves, your performance at the gym is enhanced and you now have an outlet for achieving a calm and relaxed state. That’s a pretty good bargain for something you already do every day.

Learn to breathe better. Your health and the quality of your life depend on it.