Shaft Is A Bad Mother... Shut Your Mouth!

Shut Your Mouth! Why Nose Breathing is Best

I instruct my clients to breathe through their nose during exercise, but, really, you should always breathe through your nose. Here's why:

1. The lungs are a primary source of our energy level. They extract oxygen from the air we breathe primarily on the exhale. Because the nostrils are smaller then the mouth, air exhaled through the nose creates back pressure when one exhales. It slows the air escape so the lungs have more time to extract oxygen from them. When there is proper oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange, the blood will maintain a balanced pH. If carbon dioxide is lost too quickly, as in mouth breathing, oxygen absorption is decreased.

2. Afferent stimuli from the nerves that regulate breathing are in the nasal passages. The inhaled air passing through the nasal mucosa carries the stimuli to the reflex nerves that control breathing. Mouth breathing bypasses the nasal mucosa and makes regular breathing difficult.

3. Also, when mouth breathing, the brain thinks carbon dioxide is being lost too quickly and sensing this, will stimulate the goblet cells to produce mucous, slow the breathing and cause constriction of blood vessels. Breathing through the nose also limits air intake and forces one to SLOW down. Proper nose breathing reduces hypertension and stress for most people. Kind of like a speed control (governor) on a car engine.

4. The nostrils and sinuses filter and warm the air going into the lungs. The mouth breather bypasses this. The sinuses produce nitric oxide (NO) which is a pollutant but harmful to bacteria in small doses. Mouth breathing also accelerates water loss increasing possible dehydration.

5. Each nostril is innervated by five cranial nerves from a different side of the brain. Each nostril functions independently and synergistically in filtering, warming, moisturizing, dehumidifying, and smelling the

6. Nose breathing imposes approximately 50 percent more resistance to the air stream in normal individuals than does mouth breathing, resulting in 10-20 percent more O2 uptake. There must be adequate nasal resistance to maintain adequate elasticity of the lungs.

7. Breathing through the mouth with the nose obstructed usually imposes too little resistance and can lead to micro-areas of poor ventilation in the lungs (atelactasis). Many years of breathing against excessive resistance as with nasal obstruction, may cause micro areas of poor ventilation (emphysema).

8. Work of lung movement doubled when nose breathing creating mild resistance training.


A Bit More About Mouth Breathing vs. Nose Breathing

If you are a mouth breather, you need to know these medical facts. Published western clinical evidence clearly proved that mouth breathing, apart from factors discussed here, is one of 2 immediate leading causes of death in sick people.The relevant medical research is considered on web page "Sleep Heavy Breathing Effect".

In adults, mouth breathing causes advance of many chronic diseases, including sleep apnea, snoring at night, morning fatigue, dry mouth syndrome, headache, morning fatigue (or morning headache fatigue) and other symptoms.

The nasal breathing route provides more resistance for respiratory muscles as compared to oral breathing (the route for mouth breathing is shorter and it has a greater cross sectional area).

In their study "An assessment of nasal functions in control of breathing" (Tanaka et al, 1988), Japanese researchers discovered that end-tidal CO2 concentrations were higher during nose breathing than mouth breathing. Hence, mouth breathing reduces oxygenation of the whole body.

Each mouth breather needs to know this short summary of immediate negative biochemical effects of mouth breathing related to CO2:
- Reduced CO2 content in alveoli of the lungs (hypocapnia)
- Hypocapnic vasoconstriction (constrictions of blood vessels due to CO2 deficiency)
- Suppressed Bohr effect
- Reduced oxygenation of cells and tissues of all vital organs
- Slouching and muscular tension
- Biochemical stress due to cold, dry air entering into the lungs
- Biochemical stress due to dirty air (viruses, bacteria, toxic and harmful chemicals) entering into the lungs
- Possible infections due to absence of the autoimmunization effect
- Pathological effects due to suppressed nitric oxide utilization, including vasoconstriction, decreased destruction of parasitic organisms, viruses, and malignant cells (by inactivating their respiratory chain enzymes) in alveoli of the lungs, inflammation in blood vessels, disruption of normal neurotransmission, hormonal effects.

Nose breathing delivers nitric oxide to lungs, blood and cells
Normal nose breathing helps us to use our own nitric oxide generated in sinuses. The main roles of NO and its effects have been discovered quite recently (last 20 years). Three scientists even received a Nobel Prize for their discovery that a common drug nitroglycerin (used by heart patients for almost a century) is transformed into nitric oxide. NO dilates blood vessels of heart patients reducing their blood pressure and heart rate. Hence, they can survive a heart attack.

This substance or gas is produced in various body tissues, including nasal passages. As a gas, it is routinely measured in exhaled air coming from nasal passages. Therefore, we can't utilize own nitric oxide, an important hormone, when we start mouth breathing.

The confirmed functions of the nitric oxide are:

1.Destruction of viruses, parasitic organisms, and malignant cells in the airways and lungs by inactivating their respiratory chain enzymes.

2. Regulation of binding - release of O2 to hemoglobin. This effect is similar to the CO2 function (the Bohr effect).

3.Vasodilation of arteries and arterioles (regulation of blood flow or perfusion of tissues).

4. Inhibitory effects of inflammation in blood vessels.

5.Hormonal effects. NO influences secretion of hormones from several glands (adrenaline, pancreatic enzymes, and gonadotropin-releasing hormone)

6.Neurotransmission. Memory, sleeping, learning, feeling pain, and many other processes are possible only with NO present (for transmission of neuronal signals).

Our nasal passages are created to humidify, clean and warm the incoming flow of air due to the layers of protective mucus. This thin layer of mucus can trap about 98-99 percent of bacteria, viruses, dust particles, and other airborne objects.

When the mouth is used for breathing, this route is wider, shorter and almost straight. Then these airborne objects can get into the lungs alveoli and the blood, creating biochemical stress for the immune system (detection of these intruders, their marking, isolation, and, finally, destruction or deactivation). More stress is also created for organs of elimination (liver, skin, kidneys and GI patches).

Sport training is useful due to its aerobic training effect. This is achievable while breathing only through the nose, as one Australian study confirmed (Morton et al, 1995.)

Mouth breathing effects on the autoimmunization effect
This is another advantage of nasal breathing over mouth breathing. The thin layer of mucus moves as a long carpet from sinuses, bronchi and other internal surfaces towards the stomach. Therefore, these objects, trapped by the mucus, are discharged into the stomach where GI enzymes and hydrochloric acid make bacteria, viruses and fungi either dead or weak. Later, along the digestive conveyor, some of these pathogens (dead or weak) can penetrate from the small intestine into the blood (the intestinal permeability effect). Since these pathogens are either dead or weakened, they could not do much harm (no infections). Therefore, nasal breathing creates conditions for natural immunization.

Theme from Shaft, Isaac Hayes- Shaft is a bad mother... Shut your mouth!... John Shaft