What's the breath got to do with it? Part 1: Breath awareness and nasal breathing

This article is for information purposes and not to be considered medical advice. Please connect with your healthcare provider to address your own personal needs.

The way we breathe has a lot to do with the way we live. We all begin life with an inhale and just automatically know the best way to breathe. Then life gets its hands on us and that changes. Many of us begin to breathe through our mouths, the breath may become shallower and faster, and sometimes we end up holding it and just don't breathe. What's up with this?

There's no one perfect way to breathe all the time. That's why our breathing changes. It automatically shifts and adapts to the needs of the body at any given time. The challenge though is when we get stuck in stress states, activated or shut down, and don't return to our equilibrium, our personal balance point. This then leads to breathing patterns that are not supporting our overall wellbeing and instead are keeping us stuck - maybe anxious, stressed, and unable to calm down, or the other side of lethargic and disconnected.

Good news! We have the power to change this. Breathing is the one automatic body function that we also have conscious control over. Leading us to practices we can use to help shift and reset our breathing patterns.

Before we dive more into this, I invite you to pause and take a moment to notice your breath.

• Aim not to actively change it but know it's likely to change as you watch it
• Notice how it enters and leaves your body
• Notice the areas of your body that expand with the inhale, and contract with the exhale
• Notice the speed of your breath
• Notice if there's sound or if it's silent
• Notice if any sensations, thoughts, feelings, arise as you stay with the breathTake a moment to just be present with your breath as it is right now.

Okay, ready to dive into some details about the breath and a bit of the science behind it? Don't worry, I won't get too sciencey here but will provide some links throughout if you want to dive more into it.

So, first off, when you observed your breath, were you breathing through your nose or your mouth? Many of us end up breathing through our mouths in life despite knowing innately when we're born to breathe through our nose. The nose is made for this. Breathing through the nose allow for the following things to happen:

• filtering the air coming in so dust and other things in the air don't enter our lungs
• warms and humidifies the air
• creation of nitric oxide which sanitizes the air, removing bacteria and viruses
• creates a higher likelihood of the air coming all the way to the bottom of the lungs which in turn increases the efficiency of gas exchange between our lungs and the rest of our body
• helps connect with our parasympathetic/rest/digest state meaning that we can remain calm, focused, and maintain our attention

More on nose breathing vs mouth breathing here.

This means that one of the simplest things we can do for our health is aim to breathe through our nose as much as possible. Breathing through one's nose is also what helps keep our nasal passage open and breathing easy. Breathing through the mouth tends to lead to congestion leaving us stuck in a loop that keeps us breathing through our mouths. If you find that you are congested here's a technique you can use to help unblock your nose:

1. Normal inhale through the nose
2. Normal exhale through the nose
3. Hold your nose closed with your thumb and finger, holding the breath out
4. Gently nod your head up and down, or rock your upper body as long as you can relatively comfortably hold your breath out
5. Inhale through the nose when you need
6. Repeat until your nose is clear

Here's a video demo if you want to see it done: 

Now that we can ensure we're able to breathe through our noses, what's next? How do we keep the consistency of breathing through the nose, especially if we've created habits of breathing through the mouth?

The first step is to practice breath awareness throughout the day. This may be set times in the day, or with an action (eg. before you have a meal, anytime you're waiting in line, when you use the bathroom), or spontaneously as you bring awareness to your breath.

Simply, pause and notice your breath. If you're breathing through your nose, celebrate this, smile, and take a few conscious breaths to reinforce the nasal breath. If you're breathing through your mouth, close your mouth and take a few conscious breaths through your nose (use the nose unblocking technique described above if needed first) to remind your body how it feels and encourage re-patterning towards nasal breathing. Then continue on with your day. The more we bring our attention to how we're breathing the more opportunities we create to shift towards healthier patterns.

Try to notice your breathing at times when you often are completely unaware of it. What's your breath doing when you're stressed? When you're focused? When you're resting? When you're active? When you're bored? When you're happy? How is it supporting you? How is it creating challenges?

We're not aiming to judge anything with this practice, just to notice and be more aware of what's currently going on. We can't shift anything if we don't know where we're starting. So take some time, get present with your breath, get to know the patterns you have, how they support you, and how they challenge you.

You may have come across the idea of mouth taping at night to help encourage nasal breathing while you sleep. There are mixed opinions on this and I recommend reading this article for some more information to make a decision that's best for you if you're thinking about trying it. (Please note I am not familiar with the RISE app and have no opinion on its use.)

In the upcoming additional parts to this series we'll dive more into details of the various areas of functional breathing. We'll explore some more tools and practices to play with to help shift our breathing patterns to be more functional in supporting our day to day life experiences and our overall well being.

Happy breathing!