#33 Breath II

I have been breathing through my nose the entire day. It takes conscious effort but I am determined to reap its benefits. 

In James Nestor's Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, Dr John Douillard shared an experiment he conducted.

Dr Douillard was a trainer to elite athletes. He gathered a group of professional cyclists, rigged them up with sensors to record their heart rate and breathing rate, and put them on stationary bicycles. Over several minutes, he increased the resistance on the pedals, requiring the athletes to exert progressively more energy as the experiment went on. 

In the first trial, the athletes were told to breath through their mouths. As the intensity increased, so did the rate of breathing. By the time athletes reached the hardest stage of the test, peddling out 200 watts of power, they were panting and struggling to catch a breath. 

In the second trail, the athletes were told to breath through their noses. As the intensity of exercise increased during this phase, the rate of breathing decreased. At the final, 200-watt stage, one subject who has been mouth-breathing at a rate of 47 breaths per minute was nasal breathing at a rate of 14 breaths a minute. He maintained the same heart rate at which he had started the test, even though the intensity of the exercise has increased tenfold. 

 

"Simply training yourself to breathe through your nose could cut total exertion in half and offer huge gains in endurance. The athletes felt invigorated while nasal breathing rather than exhausted. They all swore off breathing through their mouths ever again." reported Douillard.

 

In an article written by Dr Douillard, he affirmed that nose-breathing exercise increased parasympathetic activity and endurance and decreased fight-or-flight stress and breath rate among other benefits. 

Nose breathing also boosts nitric oxide production. Nitric oxide has been found to be a powerful immune-boosting molecule produced in the sinuses during nose breathing.

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Does reading this pique your interest to find out more and perhaps start nose breathing?

Wishing you good health and happiness, see you tomorrow!