Erin O'Hara: Naturopath and wellness expert on the importance of breathing through your nose

Breathing through your nose is widely regarded as a healthy move - and the trend on social media of utilising tape seems to prove that.

Research shows nose breathing is more natural and helps your body effectively use the air you inhale.

Naturopath and wellness expert Erin O'Hara explains why breathing through your nose filters out bugs and other nasties.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Edb Erin is with us now Erin O'Har a, good morning,
Good morning. You've got a really interesting topic today, nose
versus mouth breathing. It's a little something we talk about
in our house. It is really hard if you've been
a mouth breather to become a nose breather. What what
kind of breather should we be? What's been for our health?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well, if you look back look at little tiny babies,
they always are breathing through their nose, even when they're feeding,
they're breathing through their nose. So innately, breathing through our
nose is actually our normal way of breathing. And I
think as things sort of pop up in our house
were quite often, well we get more stress, we'll start
breathing more through our mouths. And it can be not

(00:52):
just for the reason of you forgetting to breathe through
your nose, but actually sometimes it actually can beat it
of the structure of the nose. Or maybe you've had
a cold or get really severe allergies and then that
has meant you've started breathing through your mouth, and then
that becomes more your new way of breathing, or maybe
you're doing a mixture of breathing through your nose and

(01:12):
breathing through your mouth. But the benefits of breathing through
your nose is the nose has the benefit of filtering
the air. It also humidifies, it warms the air before
it actually ends up in your lungs. So it has
a really amazing effect of getting the air into the lungs.
And so when we breathe through our nose, it is

(01:34):
better for our health. It's going to help a lot
by filtering through all those bugs that could possibly end
up in our lungs and actually keep us healthier. So
if we can breathe through our nose, that is where
we want to breathe.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
You hear a lot about mouth tape these days. People
taping their mouth stup when they go to sleep for
a couple of reasons, one about nose breathing and two
to stop snoring.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Was what I've heard.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, is that a fad or is it?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
I would call it a fad. It's something that when
it came out, I was like, Oh, I don't know
if I'd like sleeping with my mouth taped up, even
though I probably do breathe through my nose when I sleep.
But it is something that is incredibly popular at the moment,
trending on social media, and there's actually very limited research
to back this one up, so just know if you're

(02:19):
going to give it a go. It's a bit of
an experiment really rather than research back and maybe one
day there will be some research.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
To back it up.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
But people claim that it actually hearts with easing snoring,
reducing fatigue, concentration, improves less bad breath, and maybe less
thirst at night, So it's something that maybe could be
a good option. I think even just bringing more awareness
to breathing through the nose can be incredibly beneficial, and

(02:48):
that might be starting with even just being aware of
how you breathe. And I think so many people don't
actually bring any awareness to how they breathe, whether they
breathe shallow, whether they're breathing deep into the lungs, whether
you breathe through your mouth or not your nose, do
actually know that? And I think even just being aware
throughout your day of how you breathe as a good

(03:08):
starting point.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
I'm a dysfunctional breathing I had to go and learn
how to breathe again. Last year. Amazing breathing physio got
me back on track to learn how to actually breathe
properly through my diaphragm. Do you know what I noticed?
It really did make a huge difference just to my
day to day life and strengths and things like that.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
It can have.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Our breathing can have quite an impact on our nervous system.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Conduct huge, huge effect on your nervous system, on how
you're breathing, the pace of your breath, whether you're breathing shallow,
whether you're breathing rapidly, and if we want to feel calm,
we want to be able to breathe nice, long, deep
breaths that makes our whole nervous system calm and balanced.
And ways to kind of teach yourself to do that
is bring in some breathing techniques. And it's not woo woo,

(03:51):
it's actually something that anyone can do. Is breathing techniques
is starting with some basics of like bringing more awareness
to the breathing, maybe learning how to do di framatic breathing.
If you don't know what that is, you can always
google it and find out how to do die fromatic breathing.
There's lots of other breath patterns that in yogic teachings
we also use as well as different breath patterns, breathing

(04:13):
through alternate nostril, maybe switching between mouth breath and nose breath,
and that can actually learn to sort of ways to
regulate your breathing.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Thank you so much, erin appreciate your time this morning.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio