Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Nose Breathing

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Nose breathing > mouth breathing for many reasons. Listen and learn!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. This short stuff. So let's short it up. Yeah, this is about breathing, about the benefits of nose breathing,

but it could be the shortest short stuff ever if we just said the biggest benefit of nose breathing is that you're not a mouth breather. Yeah, for real. I do mouth breathe if I'm not paying attention to it sometimes. It's all right. I'm just going to say it. I do try to nose breathe, but I was recently diagnosed with a deviated septum and it makes sense to me. I'm like, yeah, it's hard for me to breathe through my nose and then after researching nose breathing, which by the way, I think you got this original article from House to Forge, right? That's right. I'm going to get my deviated septum fixed. I want to be able to breathe through my nose properly. Now, is that code for nose job still?

I don't think so. I'm fine with my nose. I mean, some big old 30s comic strip gangster, like hook nose, but I like it. No, it is. Is that a regular nose? No. Not to say other noses are irregular. I love wacky shaped noses. Well, then you got to love my nose because it's a honker. I never thought it was much of a honker, but that you sort of used to be code is like someone would come back to class from spring break with like a brand new nose. They're like, I had a deviated septum. I know what you're talking about. That is super 80s. They would be wearing like chunky socks and have like their sweater tied together over their shoulders and eating like a little cup of yogurt. So what's the big deal? Why should you breathe through your

nose? Well, there's a guy named James Nester. He is a nose breathing researcher who is also an author on nose breathing. He wrote breath, the new science of a lost art came out a couple of years ago during the pandemic. Isn't it nice Chuck to be able to say things like that in past tense? I just said that in past tense as if the pandemic is over. Yeah, not over, but things are certainly much, much better. So I'm with you. Wow, we. Anyway, James Nester says you want to nose breathe, mouth breathing bad, nose breathing good, like your body is basically equipped for breathing through your nose. He said he doesn't even know why God came up with breathing through the mouth. It's so stupid. That's right, because your lungs want moist, warm or moisture and warmer

air and breathing through your nose provides that it. It goes when it goes through the nose, it goes through passes by these turbinates, these bony structures and they're covered in soft tissue called mucosa and that stuff is going to warm up and moist up that air as it goes into your lungs and your lungs are going to be much happier. Plus, that's not even to mention the cilia, the little hairs that line your nasal airway in addition to the big old hairs, but you also have a little tiny microscopic here, cilia, that can catch smoke. I mean, that's just showing off if you're a cilia, you're like, watch this and you catch a piece of smoke. They can catch anything. If you can catch smoke, you can filter out basically anything and that's a big role that they play

and they hang on to it and when they're sure it's not going to go into your lungs, they kind of throw it down your gullet and you end up swallowing all that stuff. Dander, smoke, pollen, tiny little mites, all this stuff goes into your stomach where they go through the acid rinse cycle and are pulverized into nothingness, but it just kind of underlines like how well equipped for nose breathing we actually are. Yeah, it also encourages what's known as diaphragic breathing, a funny looking word that G always throws me off. This is that deep breathing when they talk about, like if you've ever taken voice lessons or anything like that, or even yoga, they talk about meditation, they talk about diaphragm breathing, that's activating

the lower part, the lower lobes of your lungs and that's where you want to be breathing from as opposed to chest breathing because down there you've got many more, well, there's just a bigger percentage of blood than in the upper levels and that's going to do a whole host of great things for you. Yeah, so you're oxygenating more blood, which is good because that means that you're going to get more oxygen all throughout your body because that's one of the roles that blood plays, but also it releases nitric oxide, nasal breathing does and I don't understand why just nasal breathing, but I could not figure it out, but let's just suffice to say that James Nestor knows what he's talking about and then nitric oxide is released in nasal breathing and nitric oxide actually has

a bunch of different effects, but a big one is that it's a vasodilator, which means that it opens up your blood vessels so that more blood can flow, your blood pressure is lower and you're actually calmer and healthier than you would be and apparently this happens through nasal breathing and not through mouth breathing. That's right, so let's take a break. If you weren't on board with nose breathing, I think you will be when we come back and give you a few more reasons. My favorite boy bands give me in this situation, if you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help, this I promise you. Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you and so my husband Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander

each week to guide you through life step by step. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy, you may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye-bye-bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars,

if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you an athlete? I exercise, but no, I would not say I'm an athlete.

I know. It would be shameful for me to say yes to that. If you were an athlete, you might want a nose breathe. There's a doctor named Dr. John Dulliard who did some studies in the 90s when he kind of put mouth breathers and nose breathers neck to neck and said, go exercise and let's talk about it. And let's hook you up to some machines and stuff like that. And interestingly, he found that there wasn't really a big difference in your heart rate depending on how you breathe, but a really pretty substantial difference between your breathing rate, a lot more mouth breathing going on. I think 48 breaths per minute compared to 14 nasal breaths per minute when you're exercising on that stationary bike. And that,

I guess that's just because your deeper breathing would be my guess? Yes. Supposedly because you'd be using those lower lobes if you're no nasal breathing over mouth breathing. That's a big difference, 14 to 48. Yeah. And it's a big difference in your perception of how hard and torturous the exercise is too. Because you'd be like, well, who cares if you're taking more breaths through your mouth? Well, that creates the perception of more exertion. So apparently athletes who were put through the study and basically reached their max capacity on a stationary bike, then the nose breathers said that they were hitting about a four in exertion while the mouth breathers said that they were hitting about a 10. And these are people who are

like equally fit, equally athletic. So when they max out, it's basically the same thing. The only difference, the only variable was whether they were mouth breathing or nose breathing. That is astounding. Remember when those, I don't remember the brand and I don't want to buzz market anyway, but the little strips that you put on your nose to open your nose up a little bit, remember when those made the rounds, especially with athletes? Yeah. Like you didn't see a football player that wouldn't wear in one of those. And now you never see those anymore. No. I think they turned everybody's nose green. I wonder if they were just like, I don't know. I wonder if they realized A, it maybe didn't have a benefit or just kind of went

through that fad cycle. My experience with them was that it worked too well. Like it opened up my nostrils so much, I got a toothache. Really? Yeah. I never used them again. They really worked. Is that a joke though? No, that was a real toothache. But how does that mechanism work? I don't know, but the two were definitely related. Okay. Yeah. You just said that as in like, don't ask any more questions. So back to whether or not I'm an athlete. No, I'm not. But I did try this actually, Chuck, just this very morning after doing some researching, I went and jogged and I tried breathing through my nose. My stupid deviated septum kept me from doing it, but I really want to be able to do this. I want to be able to nose breathe while

I'm exercising because I really like start panting like after a while because I'm mouth breathing and you end up taking these short, gulpy, shallow breaths when you're really exerting yourself toward the end of the run or whatever. Yeah. And it's not fun. Like everything else can be fun, but the breathing part can really kind of make it feel like you're suffering. Yeah. I mean, that's where I suffer the most with my cardio. Yeah. I can commiserate. Let me see. Oh, the other big thing is lung capacity. You can train yourself to increase your lung capacity because people that do like things like free diving or just whole breath for competition, I'm sure that exists. Yeah. Like at the swimming pool in the

summertime. Yeah. You can increase your lung capacity. And there was a study, I think it was a 29, almost 30 year study in the journal Chest. That's a great name. Great read. In 2000, that showed that you can increase your lung capacity by nose breathing and that that goes a long way toward being healthier. Like if you have bigger lungs capable of breathing more, you're literally going to live longer. Yeah. And it's no coincidence that breathing and especially like really paying attention to your breath and like creating like a slower, longer breathing pattern is a huge part of meditation. And James Nestor, the author and breathing researcher, he says there's a kind that's called coherent breathing. And he said a good way to work on

breathing is to try this coherent breathing where you breathe in slowly for about five to six seconds and then you exhale over about five to six seconds. And it's surprisingly hard, especially the exhaling part. And that makes sense because if you've ever trained your lungs on one of those little like breathing trainers, you know what I'm talking about? It's like a handheld piece of plastic with like a blue corrugated tube coming out of it that you blow into. You know what I'm talking about? I don't know about that. But you usually see them at the hospital. Oh, okay. Yeah. You me got them for us during the beginning of the pandemic because she was worried our lungs were going to collapse if we got COVID. So she was like, we need to practice on these.

Yeah. It's really hard. But it's not the breathing out part. That's the easy part. It's the breathing in part. That's the hardest part. But for me with the coherent breathing, the exhale is the hardest. It's weird. Interesting. Yeah. But it's fun to try, actually. And you definitely can see like huge improvements in a very short time if you actually do try to expand your lung capacity. Yeah. I'm going to work on this. They say if you have anxiety, too, to exhale for longer, if you'd like do that five or six second inhale, try and do like an eight to nine second out. Exhale. Exhale. Waiting to out hail. So yeah, this is all, you know, it's funny. Like exercise is great. And it's certainly something that people should do. But the more I learn about

stuff, like the more it seems like stretching and breathing and like these really fundamental things, if you really tackle that when you're younger, can really extend your life in like healthier years, you know? Definitely. But it's also never too late to start, too. Never too late. So Chuck, you said never too late. I think that's the end of the short stuff. I think so. So stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.