IMPROVE PERFORMANCE WITH NASAL BREATHING

You were born to breathe through your nose and your mouth is for eating! The nose is part of your airways, while your mouth is part of your digestive system. Mouth breathing activates the fight or flight response, is equivalent to distress, activates the upper chest and can cause decreased oxygen uptake. Nasal breathing results in belly breathing. It is therefore not surprising that ordinary mouth breathers (almost half of the people) often suffer from low energy, lack of concentration and moodiness. Breathing through your nose lowers blood pressure, helps you maintain a stable heart rate, and helps consolidate memory. In addition, it has many other functions such as killing bacteria, viruses and purifying and heating air.

Anxiety and shallow breathing 

Shallow breathing will limit diaphragm reach and lung capacity. This type of breathing results in poor posture and difficulty in breathing. In addition, it can overload your heart and keep you in a constant state of mild stress and anxiety. Anxiety can encourage shallow breathing and shallow breathing can fuel feelings of fear. To deal with stress, the advice to take deep breaths is good, but real deep breathing is through the nose, from the belly, soft and silent.

Breathe less for a longer life

If we breathe less per minute, the inhaled air has more time in our lungs to be absorbed into the bloodstream. It causes the CO2 level to rise before the CO2 is exhaled. The net result is that our bodies learn to do more with less. Higher levels of carbon dioxide in the body are associated with improved oxygen uptake. Oxygen molecules traveling in red blood cells want to go to parts of the body with a high concentration of carbon dioxide. When oxygen molecules leave a person's bloodstream to go to a tissue cell, a carbon dioxide molecule will leave the cell into the bloodstream.

The easiest way to build up carbon dioxide levels in the body is to breathe lighter and less often. The average breaths per minute are between 15 and 20 breaths. Studies have suggested that breathing just six times per minute can increase carbon dioxide levels by as much as 25%!

Breathing during sports

Patrick McKeown advises in his book 'The oxygen advantage' to do more with less to get the most out of your training. To achieve this, you will need to reduce your inhalation which will result in improved breathing economy and an increase in your performance, along with reduced shortness of breath and acidification. You don't have to push the body beyond its limits, which reduces the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory problems.

To achieve this reduction, nose breathing during physical training, among other things, ensures that you do not go further than the body can handle. In addition to nasal breathing, breath-holding techniques have been identified as very beneficial for athletes. When you deliberately expose the body to a reduction in oxygen uptake for a short period of time, the kidneys increase the production of EPO, a hormone that promotes red blood cell formation, and the spleen releases red blood cells into the bloodstream.

By prompting the body to release additional red blood cells and increasing the concentration of hemoglobin in the blood, the body's ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles improves during exercise, creating a benefit.

Try to improve your performance with the exercises from the book "The Oxygen Advantage" (Patrick McKeown):

Hold your breath while running

1. After running for 10 to 15 minutes, exhale gently and hold your breath until a strong air deficit is achieved. The length of the held breath can vary from 10 to 40 paces and depends on your walking speed

2. After holding the breath, continue to jog with nasal breathing for about 1 minute until your breathing is partially restored

3. Repeat the breath hold 8 to 10 times while running. Holding the breath should be challenging and at the same time breathing should return to normal within a few breaths 

Hold your breath while cycling 

A similar technique can be applied while cycling:

1. After your body has warmed up, exhale and hold for 5 to 15 pedal rotations

2. Resume nasal breathing while cycling for about 1 minute 

3. Repeat this exercise 8 to 10 times during the ride