Why breathing through your nose calms you down

By Saguren Redyrs

Breathing through your nose puts you into a more relaxed state.

Nose breathing is a quick and easy way to calm yourself down if you are feeling anxious or frustrated. Doing so regularly will improve your body’s ability to rest – and this is crucial for mental and physical recovery.

Let’s start off by exploring why nose breathing is more relaxing than breathing through the mouth.

How nose breathing helps to calm you down

Have you ever wondered why we have two places to breathe from?

We are made to breathe through our noses during times of rest and recovery, and breathe through our mouths during times of stress and activity.

Breathing through the mouth

Breathing through the mouth has benefits of its own, although we should be breathing through our noses most of the time.

Mouth breathing indicates a period of stress, danger or opportunity. Mouth breathing increases oxygen levels and speeds up the heart rate.

This is great for times of stress – such as an intense workout.

Mouth breathing increases your metabolism and sets your body up for increased energy output.

When this happens, your brain spends less of its resources on restorative functions like recovery, digestion and healing. This is why too much stress can lead to digestive issues like constipation and stomach cramps.

Your entire body will prioritize other activity-based functions like preparing the muscles for exertion and increasing blood pressure.

Breathing through the nose

We are supposed to breathe out of our noses when we are in a safe, resting place.

There are numerous health benefits to breathing through our noses regularly. Here are some of them:

1. Removal of unwanted germs and particles

Your body spends more time improving the quality of the air you breathe when it comes from your nose.

This is because it is in a relaxed state and can focus on restoration instead of maximizing energy output for the sake of survival.

Special hairs are located in the nostrils (called vibrissae near the front and cilia near the back that line the nasal cavity). These hairs work to filter dust, germs and other bacteria that can negatively affect the lungs.

2. Better air humidity

Have you noticed that your throat gets dry if you breathe out of your mouth for too long?

We were meant to only breathe out of our mouths when we need short bursts of energy.

Our nasal, oral and respiratory cavities are coated with a thin layer of mucus to keep them working at their best. Air on its own can be quite drying to these passages.

Our noses help to humidify the air that we breathe so that it does not dry out our throat and lungs.

3. Other compounds are mixed with the air that we breathe

The sinuses in the nasal cavity mix the air that we breathe with different compounds to increase air quality and improve our health.

Nasal nitric oxide (nNo), for example, is released by the sinuses when we breathe through the nose – but not when we breathe through the mouth. This helps with the release of oxygen and boosts immunity.

When you are under intense pressure, your body is less concerned with immunity to disease and is more focused on surviving your current situation.

When you are in a relaxed state, your brain can focus more on self-healing and self-regulation.

The parasympathetic state and the sympathetic state

Your autonomic nervous system refers to the parts of the central nervous system that you can’t control consciously.

It controls involuntary actions like heart rate, blood pressure, hormone regulation, energy metabolism and muscle tension.

One part of this nervous system is called the parasympathetic nervous system. It is commonly referred to as ‘the rest and digest response’.

This is a process of events that govern rest, recovery, detoxification, memory consolidation, healing and cellular regeneration.

Another part of the nervous system is called the sympathetic nervous system.

This system is activated during times of stress, danger or increased physical activity. The sympathetic nervous system governs muscle exertion, energy release, inflammation, and performance.

The parasympathetic state and the sympathetic state are mutually exclusive.

You cannot activate both systems at the same time. Your body is either busy recovering or busy gearing up for intense physical activity.

Breathing through the nose activates the parasympathetic nervous system

Nose breathing is one of the brain’s indicators that you are not in a challenging situation and that it can focus on recovery.

The more time you spend in a parasympathetic state, the more time your body will have to heal itself.

If you spend too much time is a sympathetic state, elevated cortisol levels (cortisol release is one of the actions of the sympathetic response) can wire the brain more than what it can recover from.

Cortisol affects everything from mental stress to muscle health. The more often you breathe through your nose, the more often your body and mind will feel relaxed.

The amount of mental recovery that your brain initiates will also improve as you breathe through your nose more often.

Regular nose breathing can therefore lead to better sleep, reduced feelings of stress and tension, improved recovery from daily activities and a greater sense of tranquility. Breathing through your nose can have a relaxing effect in a matter of minutes.

How to incorporate nose breathing into your everyday routine

1. Take time practice nose breathing

Take a few moments to close your mouth and breathe through your nose. Take note of how calm you feel after the first few breaths.

The more you can associate nose breathing with enjoyment and relaxation, the more often you will do it naturally. If you do this at least once every day for a few weeks, you will begin to breathe through your nose automatically.

To make things easier, you can tie nose breathing to a specific activity so that you don’t forget to practice.

Perhaps you can use the time you spend on the road to appreciate the feel-good effects of breathing through your nose.

You can also practice this while typing on your computer, scrolling through social media or while watching your favorite TV series.

2. Use nose breathing as one of your coping techniques

Actions become habits very quickly when we use them as coping mechanisms.

If you use nose breathing as one of your first techniques to calm down, you will start doing it more and more often.

3. Take note of the times when you breathe from your mouth automatically

Changing the way that you breathe might take some time, so don’t get too frustrated with yourself if you don’t get it right 100% of the time.

Whenever you notice that you are breathing through your mouth, kindly remind yourself of why nose breathing would be better for you in that moment and make the switch.

After a while, you will catch yourself breathing through your nose almost all of the time.

Author Bio

Saguren Redyrs, author of SA Spotters, is known by his friends and family as the guy who can’t stop talking about living a healthy lifestyle. He is an exercise fanatic who would rather spend his Friday nights learning about the human body and his Saturdays at the gym. He works to inspire others to make choices that will empower them to live their healthiest lives yet.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect all or some of our beliefs and policy.  Any links on this page does not necessarily mean they have been endorsed by Defying Mental Illness.

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