The Nose is for Breathing, The Mouth is for Eating
I invite you now to close your eyes and check in with how you are breathing. As you read this notice if you're breathing is easy, if it's laboured, fast or slow? Are you breathing from your abdomen or high up in your chest? Through your nose or through your mouth? Just witness how you are breathing right now.
I want to talk to you now about one of the cornerstones of my practice and an element of The Growth House’s pedagogy; breath work. You can survive 6 weeks without food, 4 days without water but only minutes without air. Breathing is the most vital activity we do. People spend huge amounts of resources and energy making sure they have a healthy diet and a good exercise regime but what about healthy breathing? Be honest how often are you even conscious of your breath?
You might be thinking “Pete, what the heck are you talking about? I’ve been breathing my whole life, in and out, no problem.” Of course! and good!, you’ve kept alive so far. But what if you’ve been breathing in a way that causes chronic and subtle damage, that messes with your hormonal balance and keeps you in an acute and mild level of stress day in and day out? without realising.
What if you could begin to change that by two very simple things?
Breathing through your nose and breathing more consciously.
Let’s face it this is nothing new. Ancient Yogis, gurus and monks have had breathing practices for thousands of years. The Indian mystics of the Vedas and Upanishads didn’t measure life in years but in the number of breaths. We only have so many breaths to take from the first inhale when you are born to the last exhale when life leaves the body at death, so they thought we have to slow it down and preserve it. It’s only been in the past 50 years or so that science has been able to explain some of this ancient wisdom.
I suffered from debilitating childhood asthma attacks and as an adult exercise and allergy induced asthma. I hated running because my lungs would feel like they were on fire so I would never do cardio. Up until recently my whole life I pretty much breathed slack jawed and mouth agape, a real looker.
American author and investigative journalist, James Nestor, participated in a study where he and Swedish breath therapist Anders Olsson had their nasal cavities blocked with silicone and sealed, forced to be mouth breathers for 10 days.
The results? They went from snoring a few minutes per night to hours, they both developed sleep apnea (choking on your own throat throughout the night) stress hormones went through the roof, their nervous systems were shot, there blood pressure went from slightly elevated to hypertension levels, they felt lethargic and athletic performance suffered. This isn’t just James but many people, was myself included, day after day, all year round.
So what happened when they started to breathe through their noses?
In his own words “I was able to take these god-awful plugs out of my nose and breathe nasally again. And once I did that, snoring disappeared; sleep apnea disappeared; blood pressure lowered; nervous system came back into balance - I mean, completely transformed by just changing the pathway through which we breathed.”
But don’t just take my word for it, try it for yourself follow along to the recording of 4:4 balanced breathing and see how you feel. This is a practice that is adaptogenic; if you’re up it will bring you down, if you’re down it will bring you up. It has been found arising in prayer techniques in many cultures throughout the world- Japanese, African, Hawaiian, Native American, Buddhist, Taoist and Christian. It puts your physiology in a state of coherence, blood flow to the brain increases, alpha brain waves identical to those in meditation are produced and the functions of the heart, circulation and nervous system are co-ordinated to peak efficiency. In essence it puts you in balance. So close your mouth, relax and breathe!
Peter is a certified breath coach offering 1:1 coaching, 4 part workshops and 1 off events. Get in touch with him at Peteanjaliyoga@gmail.com or his FB page.
References
Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor, 2020
James Nestor, Float Conference 2018
36 minute interview James Nestor and Terry Gross for NPR, May 2020