#1252 Exhale Through Your Nose

Increase Pressure → Increase Oxygenation

In our last couple +1s, I invited you to play a couple fun games: The 100,000 Game and The Heart Rate Game.

That last one was about Optimizing our Breathing and the one before that was all about Optimizing our Movement.

Today I want go back to our Breathing.

It’s a subtle point.

Here it is: Exhale through your nose.

Now…

By this stage, I HOPE we’re on the same page that mouthbreathing IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.

In his great book, Breath, James Nestor tells us about a crazy experiment he did with a friend in which they had a doctor at Stanford surgically plug up their noses so they HAD to breathe through their mouths exclusively for 10 days.

The results? Not good. At all.

As James puts it: “The major takeaway we already knew: mouthbreathing is terrible… The nagging fatigue, irritation, testiness, and anxiety. The horrid breath and constant bathroom breaks. The spaciness, stares, and stomachache. It was awful.”

The friend with whom he did that little experiment is a guy named Anders Olsson. He’s one of the world’s leading breathing experts. He wrote a book called The Power of Your Breath.

Given the fact that I’m obsessed about helping us all Master this essential Fundamental, I, of course, got it. Read it. Noted it up.

It’s PACKED with Big Ideas on how to breathe right.

Of course, Anders shares all the normal stuff we talk about. I’ll probably highlight a few other Ideas soon.

But…

Today I want to talk about a subtle thing on the exhale.

Anders tells us: “Compared to breathing out through your mouth, exhaling through your nose increases the pressure in your lungs, which provides better oxygenation.”

Boom.

There we go.

Want better oxygenation?

Fantastic.

Increase the pressure in your lungs by EXHALING THROUGH YOUR NOSE!

Now…

I know there are a lot of fancy reasons to choose to breathe in and/or out of your mouth if you’re doing a very specific breathing exercise.

BUT…

For our every day (and every breath) training, I’m going with Anders on this one and choosing to breathe both IN and OUT through my nose.

I actually already did that. But now we can point to this little gem to support our practice.

That’s Today’s +1.

Remember: “Compared to breathing out through your mouth, exhaling through your nose increases the pressure in your lungs, which provides better oxygenation.”

Let’s go from Theory to Practice to Mastery and take a nice, relaxing breath together.

In through the nose—gently, calmly, quietly.

Down into the belly—gently expanding your lower ribs.

Back out THROUGH YOUR NOSE—exhaling slightly longer than your inhale.

Repeat.

All day.

Every day.

Especially TODAY.

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