Nose Knows!

The question that comes up most often at just about every seminar, workshop, or training is: “Should I breathe through my nose or my mouth?” The nose is meant to be breathed through. Nature designed it for that purpose It has hairs that filter dust and mucus membranes that trap microscopic particles. It conditions the air, warming or cooling it, depending on what is needed. When we breathe through our nose, we produce more nitrogen oxide, which has antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties. And like carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide is also a vasodilator. The nose also has turbinate structures that spiral the air on the way to the lungs. Hmmm . . . why do you think nature would do that? Breathing through the nose helps us to fine tune our awareness and our sense of subtle energies. And yet the mouth is more flexible: we can shape the stream of breath and play with sound when we breathe through the mouth. It allows more creative possibilities. And of course, you can’t laugh or cry or yawn through your nose. You can’t express or release powerful emotions through your nose. Many people cannot breathe through their mouth without triggering stress, without activating the sympathetic nervous system or the fight-or-flight response. If you get dizzy or feel uncomfortable when you breathe through your mouth, you may want to fix that. Learn to breathe through your mouth with comfort, pleasure and ease, and to relax and sense subtle energies while breathing through your mouth. With that ability, you can use breathwork for emotional clearing and spiritual purification. Imagine a house that has not been cleaned in years. Nose breathing would be like dusting the window sills or polishing the silverware. You wouldn’t start that way. First you’d sweep or even shovel out all the big, heavy garbage. That’s mouth breathing. We will explore when to use nose breathing and when to use mouth breathing in more detail in the Twenty-One-Day Breath Mastery Challenge.