Breathing Series: "Are You Good Enough At Nose Breathing?" with Dr. Sarah Petrich

Dr. Sarah Petrich will bring you through several signs and tests to assess whether you can breathe adequately through your nose.  She also walks you through easy ways to improve nasal breathing, and with whom you can consult with if the easy fixes don’t help.  And, Dr. Sarah demonstrates an easy exercise to open up your upper airway and release neck tension.

Watch the full episode on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/s-i2q80v6Yo

About Sarah Petrich, PT, DPT, PRC, NCPT: 

As a specialist in Postural Restoration, Pilates, & Dance Medicine, Dr. Sarah Petrich provides physical therapy and Pilates training focusing on re-balancing posture, alignment and breathing for patients and wellness clients.  When not in the clinic or on zoom, she's often traveling around the nation teaching educational courses to healthcare professionals, Pilates instructors and other movement specialists.  You can find her and her courses on her website www.sarahpetrich.com or on Instagram at @drsarahpetrich.

Catch Oxygen Plus at @oxygenplus on TikTok and Instagram

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Just be happy with the a .

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Dr. Sarah Petrich and uh , I am um ,
wondering if you really canbreathe through your nose
adequately 'cause it's reallyimportant and if you wanna know
why we have another video onthat. But first I have a few
questions for you. Can youbreathe with your mouth closed

(00:35):
through your nose for oneminute comfortably? Um, do you
ever wake up in the morningwith your mouth open, dry
mouth? I hate to say it, butsometimes drooling. Ugh uh ,
you're breathing through yourmouth when you sleep. Um, can
you even close your mouthcomfortably? 'cause some people

(00:58):
actually can't without creatingtension. So when you close your
mouth, some people because oftheir occlusion or some other
factors really can't do thatcomfortably. If not, you are
probably still a mouthbreather. Um , and then , uh,
can you breathe through bothnostrils but not at the same
time? Can you breathe througheach one? So you can do a

(01:21):
simple sniff test, close onenostril and breathe in and then
try the other one. And ifyou're like, oh , I can't
breathe through them the sameamount, that's okay, don't
panic, that's normal. Um, wehave a circadian rhythm that
switches your dominant nostril.

(01:41):
Yes, you have a dominantnostril, but it'll switch ever
so often. Um, so it's okay ifone is more open than the
other, but you still wanna beable to be , be able to breathe
through both nostrils. Now ifyou're like, Hey, I've got a
cold. No problem, that'stemporary. You know how to take
care of that. But some peoplehave chronic allergies all the

(02:03):
time and that impacts yourability to breathe your nose.
This is an issue. So if youhaven't already tried over the
counter , uh, help, which maysound obvious but you'd never
know, uh, try to dosomething for your allergies.
If that's not enough, go talkto an allergist. Your ability
to breathe through your nose isso important to your quality of

(02:25):
life. Uh, if you appreciate howimportant sleep is for the
quality of your life, then youshould value whether you can
breathe your nose. Now youmight also have difficulties
breathing through your nosebecause of inflammation and
there's some disorders. Um, onethat's more common is called
rhinitis. Uh, and that's aninflammatory issue of your nose

(02:48):
and you can get help from adoctor for that. So if that's
an issue, you should definitelylook into that. Now there are
some other factors that canimpact your ability to breathe
through your nose. You can havesome anatomical abnormalities
and that can become, that canthat can be created because you
had some trauma, so some facialtrauma or you had surgery. If

(03:11):
you've had your nose done, thatmight be an issue for you. Um,
there also can be just regularanatomical abnormalities that
happen like deviated symptoms.
Um, some people have reallyhigh palettes, so that's the
roof of your mouth and if it'shigh and narrow, that also will
impact your upper airway. Youmay wanna talk to an airway

(03:35):
focused dentist and that's thebig key. They need to be kind
of more airway focused andunderstand airflow people or
dentists that specialize insleep disorders are usually
good references for that. Um ,you also might need to talk to
an airway focused ENT . That'san ears, nose and throat doctor

(03:55):
'cause you might have issues inyour nose like terminates and
adenoids. I won't go into thedetails of those, but if you
have some of those issues, youmay need to have that checked
out. And people who reallystruggle with that, if they do
an appropriate um ,intervention to help with that,
it can greatly impact yourlife. Uh , and then there's one

(04:18):
other issue and that goes backto a dental issue as well.
There was the high palate issuefor uh , the mouth, but also if
your teeth don't line up nicelyand you've got some male
occlusions, that's the fancyterm for it, but your bottom
teeth and your top teeth don'tline up well and your jaw

(04:38):
doesn't line up with yourmandible. That's the top of
your mouth. Um, you also mighthave some airway issues that
are impacting your nose. Nowthat being said, those are all
like go to the doctor kind ofthings. However, there's also
some really simple things youcan do to make your life better
and make it easier to breatheyour nose if you just don't

(05:00):
breathe your nose when you'resleeping. Nasal strips are the
simplest thing you can do andsheep. So , um, there's all
sorts of different kinds, butthere's ones on over your nose.
There's even some that go onyour face and just pull , um,
the skin apart and open up yourairflow. Now there's also
people that just have a habitof breathing through their

(05:22):
mouth and if you just have ahabit of breathing through your
uh , mouth, you can even justtape your mouth shut. Sounds
extreme kind of crazy and alittle scary if you're a mouth
breather. And I can say that asa former mouth breather. When
I, when I used to sleep, Ididn't know until I was like 12
years old , years old at a ,um, at a sleepover that you're

(05:44):
supposed to breathe your nosewhen you sleep. 'cause I heard
some other girl talk aboutanother girl who sleeps with
her mouth open and wasdrooling. And I thought to
myself, oh no, I better figurethis out. So turns out I
learned when I was 12, you'resupposed to breathe your nose.
Not everybody knows. But , uh,I did try a little bit of
taping if you just put a littletape and I didn't tape my whole

(06:07):
mouth 'cause that was a littlescary to me. But I put a little
tape over the front. Gauze tapeworks great. Um, and after like
a good week, I breathe throughmy nose now when I sleep and I
sleep much, much better now.
Um, they're also , um, as Ialluded to earlier, if you
cannot close your mouthcomfortably, that can be an

(06:28):
issue. Um, and that can bebecause your lips are actually
tight, like the muscles aretight and your tissue's tight.
You can have some tongue issueswhere your tongue doesn't have
good mobility. Um, you can alsojust have general , um, lip
mobility issues or jaw mobilityissues. And a myofunctional
therapist , um, which is like aphysical therapist of the mouth

(06:51):
, um, can help with that. Nowlastly, there's one more thing
that I am a little more attunedto and that's helping with your
posture. And your postureactually can help you , um, get
more airflow through your nose.
And sometimes your airflow isimpacting your posture, which
is why I talked about all thoseother , um, disciplines that

(07:14):
can help you with your airflow.
But a lot of times if you justdo a few simple things, you can
actually open that up as well.
So I'm here to tell you alittle bit about that. So I ,
uh, I'm sitting in a lowerchair here today and I'm
sitting here lower because ifyou're sitting low, it's kind
of nice to have the knees atthe same height as your hips

(07:37):
and that helps you sit back onyour sits bones. And then what
we're gonna do is we're gonnatry to turn off some of these
anterior neck muscles. So those, there's , those are the front
neck muscles. They will tend tooverwork when you're not
breathing well and they will beoverworking to try to pull air
into your chest if you aren'tusing your diaphragm and your

(07:59):
abdomen well for breathing,which we're gonna talk about in
another video. So to get readyyou just need to be able to put
your hands on your sternum, siton your sits bones and relax
your shoulders and then take abreath of air into your nose if
you can. And then exhale allthe way out and let your hands

(08:19):
gently pull down your sternumand relax and hold your air out
for a little bit until you gethungry for air. And then take a
breath of air in and you'rebasically just lengthening the
front of your neck and openingup your decolletage. Then we
are gonna add another thing onthe next breath. So on your

(08:41):
next exhale you can roll yourhead back. So exhale, sternum
goes down as your head tilts upand now we're getting even more
of a lengthening and stretchthrough the front of your neck.
And then when you're ready foryour inhale, bring your nose
back center and breathe in. NowI can add onto that, but before

(09:04):
I do , um, just take note. Whenyou tilt your head back, it's
not actually tensing the backof these neck muscles, which is
great 'cause a lot of peopleget tension back there. As you
roll your head back, it'sactually allowing these muscles
to go on slack. So it's alsoreally beneficial for tension
back here. So win-win. Nowwe're gonna add one more layer

(09:27):
on top of that if you wanna addjust a little more stretch and
a little more benefit. So youtake a breath of Arian , exhale
out and you roll your headback. And then you can take
your bottom teeth and bring 'emin front of your top teeth like
you're doing an underbite. Andthat will also lengthen the

(09:49):
neck even more. When you areready for your inhale, bring
your neck back to center andbreathe in. And there you have
it. So E is E easy , a littleposture exercise to lengthen
the neck. It also brings yourcranium back a little bit more
in line with your shouldersafter you're done with it. So
as a therapist, I'm happierwith that 'cause you're gonna

(10:11):
have better po looking postureand it's gonna help open up
your nasopharynx so that youcan inhale through your nose a
little bit better. Thankseverybody for watching and I
wanna do an extra specialthanks to Oxygen Plus I hope
you learn something. And ifyou'd like to find me, you can
find [e-mail].

(10:34):
S-A-R-A-H-P-E-T-R-I-C h.com .
Or if you wanna learn moreabout Oxygen Plus you can find
[e-mail].