You are how you breathe!
Here's a friendly reminder! If the way you breathe in your daily life is the least of your concerns, or it is the one thing that you’re paying almost no attention to, just like practically anybody else, please take a nice little breath from your Nose with a capital N and think twice!
Because breathing through your mouth may not be a good idea to begin with!
Here, I am just going to scratch the surface of this complex subject matter and briefly talk about how properly breathing from your nose may positively change your life for the better.
Modern science gives us all the clues that breathing correctly makes a huge difference in every aspect of our lives, from our overall health to energy level, from our sleeping patterns to even our physical appearance.
Let me begin with a description of a facial expression which may not look very appealing: Imagine a face with narrow, long and flat physiognomy with sunken cheek bones, receded chins, narrow jaws, prominent and blocked nose, and most likely suffering from a crooked teeth…
In my experience, if this would be you, this typical adult face structure would be associated with the fact that you were a "mouth breather" since your childhood. Now, maybe you have not been breathing through your mouth in your adult life, but if you ever had the habit of keeping your mouth open and breathing through it for a certain period of time in the past, your facial development may have suffered from it and the above description could potentially be the end-result. However, should you were a "nose breather" during your childhood and teenager years, you would probably have well-defined cheekbones, lips and chin.
The latter scenario sounds better, right?
Then, what is the relationship between your breathing and your facial appearance? Let’s do some reverse engineering. The research shows us the fact that the normal growth direction of the jaws is forward. This occurs as a result of the forces exerted by the lips and tongue. The principal is the light forces move the teeth. When mouth is closed, tongue rests in the roof of the mouth naturally. The top jaw forms around tongue as the child grows. The shape of lower jaw follows that of the top jaw. However, when the mouth is open, the tongue cannot rest in the roof of the mouth and V-shaped top jaw is developed. This smaller top jaw leads to a narrow facial development and crooked teeth. The verdict: Yes, your breathing pattern shapes your natural facial beauty and health.
Now, if this subject matter is not interesting enough and most likely sending you to sleep, let’s talk a little about the “sleep” itself then. Please mark my words: Healthy sleeping directly affects your daily life and it is directly related to and affected by your breathing pattern. If you usually breathe through your mouth during your good night sleep, then it could typically turn into a nightmare with a blocked nose, dry mouth, snoring, sleep apnea and insomnia, low energy and concentration level throughout the day. In some cases, short-tempered disposition is also inevitable. And yes, your breathing pattern shapes your sleeping and your sleeping shapes how you perform in your daily life.
This cycle does not end here though. Because how you breathe during the day also affects how you breathe during the sleep. If you are suffering from the above poor sleeping patterns, you probably breathe through your mouth during the day as well.
Your blocked nose may lead you to breathe through your mouth, but this may end up creating a vicious circle: you breathe through your mouth chronically, your nose remains blocked forever. However, the good news is unblocking your nose isn’t that difficult.
Another interesting result of the mouth breathing is breathing more air than our body needs. Did you know that your body needs a certain amount of air per minute (which is 4 - 6 litres) and breathing more than that amount puts you in trouble?
Breathing through your nose lessens the air amount you breathe in but you probably still take more air than your needs. How? Because we all live in the same life conditions: strong emotions triggered by the sense of urgency, tension, anger, stress, anxiety, overeating, lack of exercise, high indoor temperatures, excessive talking. All these conditions are multiplied by the wrong belief that taking big breaths is good for your health.
In all of these situations, our breathing volume inevitably increases. In return, over breathing causes airway and blood vessels constriction and also prevents oxygen transfer into your cells, tissues and organs. This means that your body organs including heart and brain cannot get enough oxygen to keep your physical and mental health. Yes, your breathing pattern shapes your overall health…
When I am invited to talk about the benefits of the power of breathing, namely Buteyko Breathing which I am specialized in, significant amount of the questions I am getting happen to be sports and exercise related. And I generally start by saying that how you breathe during your daily life directly affects how you breathe during your physical exercise. If you are breathing excessively during the day for one reason or another, evidently you may feel breathlessness during your exercise regimen. You may think that taking big breathes through your mouth and feeling breathlessness during exercise is something ordinary or normal, yet that’s an urban myth. In reality, it will be quite difficult to send enough oxygen to your working mussels, heart and brain and this will naturally influence your health and performance. And yes, your breathing pattern shapes your sports performance at the end.
Well, if we are talking about breathing, how can we not talking about weight control, right? Now, I can totally imagine how most of you start paying more attention to the remainder of the paragraph. But, here I will just suffice to say that if you are having difficulty in losing weight, you may need to reduce your air intake just like your food intake. The good news is that when you regulate your breathing volume, your food consumption will also be positively affected by it. And yes, your breathing pattern will also shape your physical appearance.
Last but not least, our breathing is also an anchor for being in the present moment and helps stabilize our mind. I cannot think of better effective tool than breathing to create stillness and serenity in our lives. Next time you have your moment of silence, or your inarticulate hour, if you will, for your meditation, relaxation or calming your mind, please remind yourself that you are how you breath.
Hope you enjoy going beyond the ordinary patterns of, in our case, breathing. I am sure you have many questions waiting to be answered. If so, that is a very good thing. Your curiosity is aflame and I will be available to welcome your comments and answer any of your questions, slowly breathing in and breathing out…
Thank you!
Funda Askinoglu is a graduate of "Ireland Buteyko Clinic International" and “Buteyko Breathing Therapy and Mindfulness” Practitioner since 2014. She is the founder of Buteyko Breathing-Turkey, through which she’s been organizing educational workshops regarding Buteyko Breathing Method for the last four years and training certified Buteyko teachers with Patrick McKeown for the last 1 year. She is the author of “Hafif”, translated as "Light" as in "Lightness" in English, a guide to Buteyko Breathing Method, alongside six other children books. She periodically writes at "Yoga Journal" - Turkey. Married and lives in Istanbul with her husband, 15 year-old son and her adorable human companion kitty named “Ponchik”.
Funda can be reached at funda@buteykonefes.com via http://www.buteykonefes.com/en
Buteyko Clinic: http://buteykoclinic.com/
Photo Credit: http://ioegreer.tumblr.com/