the benefits of nose breathing

The benefits of nose breathing:
Chronic mouth breathing can lead to a dysfunction where we tend to over breathe. Here are some great reasons to switch to nose breathing...

• Nose breathing protects us from various harmful particles like viruses, bacteria, dust and microbes.
  
•  Tiny hairs in the nose called cilia clean, warm and humidify the incoming air.
• Nose breathing also helps us to engage our diaphragm more efficiently.
• Exhaling through the nose creates more air pressure and slows the exhalation down - helping your lungs to absorb 10-20% more oxygen than mouth breathing.

And most relevant right now is that nostril inhalation increases nitric oxide intake, which helps to ensure transportation of more oxygen through the whole body. As mentioned in an earlier video post, nitric oxide has antiviral properties and has been shown to be protective against the SARS virus (a coronavirus). So there is good reason to believe that nitric oxide is also protective against the current pandemic Covid-19 virus. How cool is that!

How can you increase the amount of nose breathing you do?

Great places to start are during exercise (even if this means temporarily cutting back your intensity for a while, it can actually give you greater fitness gains in the long run!), during yoga, while chewing food, when you sleep...

​Try it out, it is more challenging than you might think!