3 Top Tips for Nose Breathing
If you know me as a coach, you’ll know by now that nose breathing is where it’s at when it comes to health performance. But just as a quick reminder, let’s find out why nose breathing is so great and then give you 3 top tips for nose breathing.
Your body loves nose breathing for so many reasons. The biggest and best reason why it loves nose breathing so much is because:
Nose Breathing is the natural way to breathe at rest.
Here’s some of the benefits you’ll feel when you nose breathe all day all night:
Nose breathing has more filters for air than instagram has for pictures
Nose breathing takes pressure off your heart and blood vessels
Nose breathing de-stresses you quicker than meditation
Nose breathing is a monitor for endurance capacity in sport better than any fitness wearable, HRV and heart rate monitoring.
These benefits all sound great, but have you ever tried to nose breathe all day, all night?
Switching from mouth breathing to nose breathing is a pretty hard cycle to break. Most people give up after a day or two because they find nose breathing 50% tougher to do than mouth breathing. People feel like they’re struggling to get air into their system and in a way that is what’s happening. But that’s what’s supposed to happen, it’s just a matter of getting a feel for breathing less air until your body adapts to its new breathing pattern.
Think of it the same as wanting to lose weight. To lose weight, you need to reduce your calories and you need to eat mindfully (ie. Chew your food). It’s the same with optimizing your respiratory system – you need to breathe less and prepare the air better for your body. You need to nose breathe.
So here are 3 top tips to help you convert from mouth breathing to nose breathing for optimal health performance:
1. Combine Breath Holds with Walking daily
Walking + Breath holding is an awesome exercise for building CO2 tolerance and converting to nose breathing permanently. It familiarises you with needing to breathe by performing a breath-hold as you walk.
Here’s the method:
Inhale through your nose
Exhale through your nose
Pinch your nose and hold it.
Walk as many paces or ‘steps’ as you can before you need to breathe.
Release the nose and breathe through it.
Calm your breathing rapidly.
Rest for 1 minute and repeat. (I like to do sets of 6-8 Walking + Breath holds, 3 times daily when starting).
2. Exercise with nose-only breathing
Allow your breathing to be your guide to stop exercising. This will help you to build up your own internal compass for the energy systems you use while training and your fatigue factor. Better than any fitness-wearable technology your breath will guide you to your training capacity when you get used to breathing through your nose whilst exercising.
When you need to open your mouth for any reason during exercise, stop exercising. Recover your breath and go again when you’re ready.
3. Check-in with your breath
This is perhaps the most simple tip but also the most powerful one.
Now that
you know nose breathing is awesome for your body,
you know why it is awesome and
you know how to make the transition to nose breathing easier for you
you need to give yourself a break. Often times when people notice they are mouth-breathing, they scold themselves and get down about the fact they are doing it.
I encourage you to do the opposite. Every time you notice you are mouth breathing – congratulate yourself that you have noticed it, then correct the breathing pattern to nose breathing.
Tagged as: Breathing
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