Perspectives: On Breathing ('Shut your mouth & save your life')

The quip "shut your mouth & save your life" is essentially the practice of a more general perspective: minimal breathing. Or, more accurately, the management & reduction of habitual OVERbreathing. Overbreathing is symptomatic of modern cultures affected deeply by environmental, cultural, & social stressors which can affect negative biochemical & physiological "adaptation". It simply refers to the habit of breathing a greater volume of air than what the body requires. Breathing too much for a short period of time does not pose significant problems if it is short-lived and non-habitual, but when is does become repeated over an extended period adverse biomechanical (and ultimately physiological) changes do take place, principally increased sensitivity/lower tolerance to levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the body, and hyper-tonic breathing organs/muscles.

The easy fact to remember is that haemoglobin disassociates from oxygen (O2) when in the presence of carbon dioxide. Overbreathing, then, "washes" CO2 from the lungs, blood, tissues and cells, causing haemoglobin to maintain its bond with O2 and reducing its delivery to bodily tissues and organs. This condition is called 'hypocapnia', which, as well as affecting O2 delivery, leads to a narrowing of the airways and 'vasoconstriction', reduced blood-flow to the heart and other organs and muscles ultimately limiting your body's ability to oxygenate. Increased arterial CO2, on the other hand, has been described as a 'potent vasodilator' which facilitates the movement of blood to bodily tissues.

Overbreathing, like any autonomic/habitual act, is something you won't be aware of unless you bring awareness to it. This applies strongly to the signs & symptoms of overbreathing - you may not (as I was not) be aware of how they negatively affect you in your daily life and physical performance.

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[cikiloppo]

In Yoga, it's said that the total amounts of the breaths a person will take throughout their life is determined, the slower you spend it, the longer you live

[chrisplayz]

Interesting perspective as always thanks for sharing 👍

[ymmm-yogamovementmeditatio]

Really good advice here Jason. MAny people overbreathe. Thanks

[matthewe]

Correct me if I'm wrong but you didn't really explain why it's better to breathe through the nose and why we shouldn't breathe through the mouth

[nuki]

Very informative Jason !
The concept of minimal breaths is something i heard about too. But then, there is this Wim Hof Method where they do a lot of big breaths followed by long holds. Do you think that both could be implemented in one's practice?
Thank you already💪

[matthewe]

Breathing through the nose is very difficult for me... I should say that I had asthma when I was a child..
and breathing through the nose while speaking feels like suffocating for me, I ran out of breath even when I stay calm and try to speak slowly.
I remember my doctor telling me that I need to get a nosejob when I'm older but I was always scared of that. I hope that there's an alternative without surgery

[finnsoeben]

Hi jason
I play a lot of football and as soon as I run out of breath I breath through my mouth.
Breathing through my nose seems impossible while doing something like playing football etc

[friskedmooo]

Wow it’s really fascinating to me how you imply things in your practice that I never really paid attention to. I’ll definitely give this a try although I’m struggling with nose breathing, it’s really challenging for me.
May I ask what brought you to this? How did you become interested in being more consciousness about your breathing? What were your resources or how did you start your research? I’m really interested in that because unfortunately there are many things on the internet that are not necessarily wrong but as you said are limited in terms of perspective and so for someone who hasn’t much knowledge of these things it can be difficult to separate the “good stuff” from the “bad stuff”. So any recommendations of people /books you learned from ?

[Nortrin]

Hey mate. I am due for appendictis surgery in the next few days. Can you give me some general guideline on how long should I wait before I continue with my (light) training? Thanks in advance!

[melchoraslez]

Very interesting thoughts..
I really like taking cold showers especially in the summer. I always breath through my mouth because otherwise I can not stay calm because of the coldness. Do you think it can be useful to practice nose breathing especially in this scenario?

[mr.broccoliwarrior]

Yes very interesting and so simple. That's cool in my opinion. I have one question:
How would you breathe in swimming? Because i find nose-breathing in swimming very hard. Is there value to train that or to have the intention to do so?