Rediscovering the Known: Breathing

I've held this one back for a long time, thinking it doesn't fit my typical writing style. But this is about rediscovering the known, things I learned late, after all.

So here's a wild one that dramatically changed a tiny part of my life: breathing.

This is not about some mindfulness mumbo jumbo or breathing exercises. It's a fact that I used to breathe through my mouth quite a lot and have completely changed that in the last five years.

Why is that such an achievement? Like with any habit, it’s hard to change.

In hindsight, diving down the rabbit hole and experimenting with myself on this has been quite an interesting journey.

My main symptom is that I sometimes can't breathe through my nose. I came up with all sorts of theories on why that might be. Dust allergy, hay fever, etc., have been top contenders.

I've read books such as Breathe, trying to figure out how to get my nose unblocked. I started eating less inflammatory food, but nothing helped.

To force myself to nose-breathe, I taped my mouth shut at night (check out Huberman on the topic). Some nights went well, some nights didn't.

I then discovered these nasal strips for people who snore. They lift your nostrils to improve airflow, which helps quite a bit. Not perfect, but better.

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The Nasal Cycle

One day, however, I learned about the nasal cycle.

This is a cool one, as even all you long-time nose breathers probably have never heard about it. It's an automatic mechanism that alternates breathing between your nostrils. I never knew and never noticed.

The nasal cycle is a natural physiological process where one nostril is typically more open and active for breathing than the other, and this dominance alternates between the nostrils. This cycling of congestion and decongestion occurs within the nasal turbinates, which are structures lining the nasal passages. The cycle is regulated by the autonomic nervous system and can be influenced by various factors such as age, posture, and sleep.

I realised that when my left nostril was active, I couldn't breathe well, but when my right nostril was active, no problem.

This had never been an issue during the day, but it was during the night. If my not-functioning nostril is active, I sleep terribly and mostly breathe through my mouth.

I’m not an expert, but the nasal cycle seems to switch every few hours. It stays the same for the whole night, though, if you sleep and don't move too much. Once I get up in the morning, I immediately notice it switching.

Hacking the system

My rhythm from then on was like so;

if left nostril open; use nasal strip; sleep.

else if right nostril open; sleep.

I cut my tape demand in half, but it wasn't perfect, even with tape.

If only I could switch to my "good" nostril before sleeping...

I googled, researched, and let loose all of the AI agents available to solve this problem, but I couldn't find a solution.

It kept telling me this wasn't possible, as this was part of the AUTONOMIC nervous system. The part of our body that is supposed to run on autopilot (like breathing).

Then I had another revelation. When lying in a particular posture on the couch, I noticed my nostril switched.

After much trying and tweaking, I have now figured out how to switch the nasal cycle 90% of the time.

You lie down on the side, with the nostril you want to open upwards. So before I go to bed, I lie down on my left side, extend my arm straight under my head, and put my hand under my head to lift it up (roughly a 45-degree angle). My hand is on the side of my head, cheekbone height.

After about 10 minutes max, I notice the switch.

Now my routine is this:

if left nostril open; switch nostril lying on the side; sleep.

else if right nostril open; sleep.

The Bigger Picture

Again, I have no clue about the science here, but I think a deviated septum causes this issue. It's a little wall in your house that separates your nasal pathways, and it can be bent to one side.

(source)

Don't ask me why we have these, but I'll tell you how they might relate to another fascinating topic: Jaws.

I first encountered this theory in a book by Bret Weinstein about us living in a 10,000-year-old body that is quite maladapted to modern times.

In short, our bodies are built for hunting and gathering, not for sitting at desks all day, not for staring at screens, or chewing soft food.

In Jaws, the authors argue that due to our change in diet (softer food than 10k years ago), our jaws don't properly develop. This is another topic that makes intuitive sense.

My teeth are crooked, even though I had braces when I was a kid, yet skulls found before soft food seem to always show straight teeth, molars, wisdom teeth, etc., all in place.

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The book concludes that chewing not only grows the chewing muscle but also the bone, especially in younger years. If the Jawbone is bigger, all our teeth fit in nicely. It makes sense.

Why would we have evolved jaws that can't fit all our teeth and need wisdom teeth removed to avoid pain?!

It even looks wrong!

Anyway, how does that relate to breathing through your nose?

Well, it looks like a not fully widened palate (top of mouth), can bend your palate upwards onto the nasal cavity, which can cause the deviated septum.

This is a wild theory, but it looks like an improperly developed jaw might cause a deviated septum due to soft food and lead to issues when breathing through the nose.

Why even bother and not breathe through the mouth? Well, there is a ton of evidence that having your mouth shut has benefits such as lower cavity rate, less crooked teeth, better airflow, filtering of air, warming up of air, etc., just better performance, using our body as it is supposed to be used.

It generally looks like it's too late for adults to grow their jaw bones to an impactful degree, but kids can.

My grandpa always told me to chew with my mouth shut and to stop complaining about the tough bread crust. He probably knew something here.

I make sure to give my kids chewy food; white bread is an absolute rarity in our house, and cutting the crust off is a sin.

Biltong, mastic chewing gum, and nuts are always available and are the preferred snacks.

I'll report back in 10 years to see if it has any impact.

In the meantime, I'd love to know if someone found my nasal cycle switch hack useful.

I'm still fascinated by the journey of figuring this out. What we can learn about ourselves with these little life experiments is amazing.