Believe it or not, there is a right and wrong way to breathe.
Breathing through the mouth is associated with a myriad of health problems. Nose breathing, on the other hand, offers multiple benefits for the mind and body.
Before we dive into each one, let’s first uncoverwhy mouth breathing is so harmful.
In some situations, it’s absolutely necessary to breathe through the mouth. Severe nasal congestion, a deviated septum, or excessively small nostrils all lead to mouth breathing.
However, the more you breathe through your mouth, the worse your nasal congestion will become, thus enabling nasal breathing even further.
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Beyond that, mouth breathing is known for causing various health risks. Primarily breathing through your mouth increases your chances of developing the following:
That’s why it’s so important to make the switch from mouth breathing to nasal breathing.
The benefits of nose breathing are seemingly endless, but one of the most vital outcomes of nasal breathing is improved protection from allergens and germs.
The nose prevents dust, allergens, pollen, germs, bacteria, and other foreign particles from entering your airway.
How? Your nose is full of small hairs known as cilia that catch these particles before they end up in your body, making you sick.
Furthermore, your nose adds humidity to the air you breathe while warming or cooling your breath accordingly. Once the air is warmed or cooled to match your body’s temperature, it’s less stressful for the lungs to absorb.
Mouth breathing, however, doesn’t offer this added moisture, leaving your lungs and body unprotected from germs and bacteria.
Finally, the nose produces nitric oxide (NO), which is a molecule known for fighting bacteria while improving the immune system.
Therefore, your nose is great at lowering your overall exposure to germs while helping you fight off any bacteria you may end up exposed to.
Nitric oxide is also well known for boosting your heart health.
Our breathing patterns have strong connections to our blood pressure and cardiovascular system. That’s why breathing exercises can calm us down when we’re feeling stressed.
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death for both men and women. High blood pressure puts you at risk for developing cardiovascular disease or stroke.
A major benefit of nose breathing is that it helps dilate the blood vessels since nitric oxide is a vasodilator. In opposition, chronic mouth breathing is associated with high blood pressure and low oxygen levels in the blood.
As nitric oxide production increases and blood vessels expand, your body can transport oxygen more easily.
Therefore, the heart doesn’t have to work as hard and the blood becomes properly oxygenated.
Beyond improved heart health, nose breathing also supports superior oral health.
Saliva is directly related to cavity prevention.
Our saliva coats our teeth, creating a barrier between plaque and tooth enamel. It also washes away bacteria and neutralizes acid in the mouth from the food we eat.
Breathing through the mouth, however, dries out saliva and decreases saliva production overall. That means an increase in tooth decay, cavities, and gum diseases such as gingivitis.
In fact, there is a direct link between gum disease and chronic dry mouth.
Breathing through the nose keeps saliva from evaporating, allowing it to do its job to protect our teeth and overall oral health.
But that’s not all. Another added benefit of nose breathing (beyond cavity prevention) is reduced congestion.
Aside from illness, mouth breathing is the top cause of congestion. As you breathe through the mouth, you over-breathe by taking in a large volume of air with each breath.
This causes the body to release more mucus to help slow down your breathing rate in an effort to correct the amount of oxygen within your blood.
However, as you become congested, the more you’ll mouth breathe, which leads to more congestion, which causes (you guessed it) even more mouth breathing. It’s a tough cycle to break.
Decongesting initially with a technique such as the Buteyko method can help you get rid of the pesky congestion causing you to mouth breathe.
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Once you’re decongested, breathe through your nose regularly to ensure that you don’t become chronically congested again (unless you become ill).
The benefits of nose breathing don’t just help to improve our quality of life during waking hours. Nose breathing can also help us experience the quality sleep we’ve been dreaming about.
As you sleep, the tissues in your airway may fall backward and vibrate together as you breathe. The sound that occurs as a result of these vibrations is known as snoring.
Whether you snore or your partner snores, it’s notorious for interrupting and fragmenting our sleep.
Getting a solid night’s rest is vital to our well-being. During sleep, our bodies flush out toxins, process memories, and progress through each stage of the sleep cycle.
When you mouth breathe during sleep, however, this natural process is interrupted. This harms your health, causes snoring, and potentially increases your risk for sleep apnea.
If you already have sleep apnea, mouth breathing renders your CPAP therapy virtually useless.
On the contrary, nasal breathing with sealed lips keeps the mouth from falling open, which prevents tissues in the airway from falling backward.
Furthermore, nasal breathing places the body in a state of rest and relaxation by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and taking the body out of fight or flight mode.
This process protects the body and mind from chronic stress and sleeplessness so that we can wake up refreshed, renewed, and ready for whatever the day throws our way.
You might be asking yourself, “How can I prevent myself from mouth breathing while I’m asleep?” The answer lies in adding mouth tape to your nightly routine so that you can nasal breathe as you dream.
If you’ve been a mouth breather for a long time, switching to nasal breathing poses a challenge.
You may have to check in with yourself throughout the day, decongest regularly, and practice often until you breathe through your nose out of habit.
While you sleep, however, you can’t pay the same amount of attention to your breath. Mouth tape makes nasal breathing during sleep possible.
SomniFix Mouth Strips force you to maintain a proper lip seal, making it nearly impossible to breathe through your mouth or snore as you sleep.
Furthermore, if you suffer from sleep apnea, you can wear SomniFix in combination with your CPAP mask to prevent mouth leaks and improve the quality of your CPAP therapy.
Our strips are hypoallergenic, making them the perfect choice for even the most sensitive skin. Plus, our strips offer a gel-like adhesive that is so comfortable to wear, you’ll forget you have mouth tape on at all!
Add SomniFix to your bedtime routine and experience all of the benefits of nose breathing every day and night!
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