Health Viewpoints
The air we breathe makes its way to every cell in the body, yet few of us breathe well. The result is pain, stress, and illness.
Diaphragm Versus Chest
Breathing isn’t complicated, but as we age we tend to shift from deeper diaphragmatic breathing to shallower chest breathing.
The diaphragm is a muscle at the base of the lungs that expands the lungs as it contracts, drawing air in and releasing that air as it relaxes.
You can think of the difference between diaphragmatic breathing and chest breathing like eating calmly and chewing your food well versus gobbling it in a rush. The first gives you far more nutrition than the second, which can lead to digestive issues.
“Diaphragmatic breathing (or deep breathing) allows the body to trade more incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. This causes the heart rate to slow and can lower or stabilize blood pressure,” notes Johns Hopkins Medicine. “Using your diaphragm also activates your vagus nerve, which is the nerve in your body that triggers your body’s relaxation response (or parasympathetic nervous system) and lowers the body’s stress response,”
This isn’t the only way most of us breathe poorly; there is also a population of mouth breathers.
Mouth Versus Nose
Mouth breathing inclines us towards chest breathing, just as nose breathing makes it more likely we engage in diaphragmatic breathing. The narrower channels of the nostrils create a resistance that calls upon the diaphragm to draw air in. But the nose does more than just this, writes Epoch Times health reporter Sheramy Tsai.
The nose filters the air we breathe and traps pathogens and dust. It also warms and humidifies the air to better prepare it for our lungs. It even changes that air.
“The nasal passage produces nitric oxide, a gas that plays a crucial role in increasing blood flow and oxygen delivery to vital organs. This process is essential for maintaining efficient oxygen–carbon dioxide exchange and cardiovascular health,” reports Mrs. Tsai.
This combined with the added resistance increases oxygen uptake substantially.
Truly Nourishing Breath
All signs indicate the nose is made for breathing while the mouth is made for eating. It makes sense that we would suffer illness and anxiety from breathing with our eating orifice, or not breathing deeply enough to fully satisfy our cells. This simple reality has been clear to human beings for millennia and many spiritual traditions draw on the breath to achieve calm and concentration.
The great news is that most of us can make major improvements in our well-being and help resolve various conditions just by learning to breathe better. Slow, steady, nose breathing tends to be the best, but there are a variety of breathing techniques you can use in different circumstances. You can think of techniques like Buteyko breathing, coherent breathing, or the 4-7-8 technique as supplements to give your body and brain a boost while steady, deep, nose breathing is the nourishing food that sustains your long-term health.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.