A Dangerous Bend in the Road

The good news is: there is a sharp downward bend at the back of your throat. The bad news is: there is a sharp downward bend in the back of your throat.

Incoming air travels horizontally through the nose-maze and suddenly turns downward toward your lungs. Food and saliva travel horizontally through your mouth and suddenly turn downward toward your stomach.

There are a couple of really scary inches in there that resemble a major intersection in downtown Beijing at rush hour. Actually it is always rush hour in downtown Beijing.

Mother Nature wasn’t having a Stupid Day when she put this design together. The 90-degree bend causes the incoming air to drop some of its pollution-load so the mucus can grab and dump irritants before they sneak into your fragile lungs. The bend is like a sharp turn in a stream that causes the dropping of silt.

There is, however, a tricky crossover at that point. The food must be kept separate from the air or your liverwurst could end up in your lungs. There is even a tiny trap door that slams shut when you swallow to guard your airways.

Countless wonderful human beings die each year because they simultaneously eat and laugh, eat and talk, eat and lounge, drink and smoke. That little right angle bend is a tricky piece of road. It is a dangerous place to multitask.

Screen Doors and Saunas

Every incoming breath faces a treacherous ride before it arrives at the relatively peaceful area of your lungs. The fast and furious journey through your nasal cavities flings the breath around like a small boat shooting the rapids.

There is only a second or less to warm, moisten and capture every bit of grit and grime from a breath before it descends into your vulnerable lungs. Lung tissue has heavy responsibilities and is not built to defend itself. That security duty must be completed pretty much by the time the air leaves your head.

Both nostrils are lined with stiff hairs. Like screen doors, they keep out the big stuff like gnats and grit. Then the breath passes through adjacent “saunas” with warm moist walls. The sauna walls are lined with strategically placed floppy shelves (the turbinates) that bounce the air around, slamming it again and again against the surfaces of the inner nose.

The entire route is covered with really sticky mucus. Every time the air is tossed against the “fly paper” some of its garbage sticks. Remember that all mucus is constantly moving toward an exit where you periodically swallow, spit or blow out the contaminated mess.

Having been forced through the tumbling of the nasal cavities, the incoming air almost immediately encounters a sharp right turn just before the downward journey into the throat. More grit is dropped when the air hits that sudden bend, the same way silt is dropped when the stream makes a sharp turn.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

LINK: Snot Is Your Friend

Pluck Not

Not even once! Remember that the stiff tiny nose hairs that ring the inside of each nostril provide the initial barrier between the environment and your vulnerable deep lung tissue.

Nose hairs provide an important protective “screen door.” Since our species is oxygen-dependent, there is no choice but to inhale air that is a microscopic mess of pollens, bits of tires, bacteria, molds, soot, dust, pollens, and animal dander.

Breaking the skin in your nose is a very bad idea. Your nose serves as a filter and filters tend to get dirty. Pulling a hair breaks the skin and leaves you vulnerable to infection. Your nose is too close to the brain to take the risk.

After a certain age all the good hairs fly away and the wicked-witch hairs spring up like weeds! It is tempting to pluck. Don’t. Buy a pair of little round-tip scissors and prune if you must.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Diminished Sense of Smell

Your nose has a lot in common with the nose of your caveman ancestor. Your convoluted nasal passages filter out microscopic garbage. They warm and moisten the incoming air so it will be user-friendly by the time it reaches your delicate lung tissue.

It is probable that man’s sense of smell has diminished considerably over tens of thousands of years. It is difficult to know to what degree the nasal nerves (responsible for evaluating odors) have diminished in size and number over the ages. It’s a good guess that the brain “map” assigned to command your sense of smell is smaller now than it was in primitive times.

Once upon a time man’s survival depended heavily on a highly developed sense of smell. His nose told him the food was tainted, the water was polluted, the grass fire was dangerously close or that elephants were nearby. Members of the same tribe could probably recognize each other by their familiar smell.

Today we rely on the FDA to validate our food and water. We scrub off our individual odors (I’m not complaining) and trowel on the deodorant and aftershave. Energy gravitates to our busier parts and our eyes seem more important than noses these days.

EVEN A DIMINISHED SENSE OF SMELL CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE. You still automatically SNIFF when faced with an unknown odor. This tiny exploratory breath samples the air without actually filling your chest with potential toxic gases. You have a few seconds to back away safely.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Soft Palate Stretch

1. The Soft Palate Stretch builds on our Practice Yawn. Make a typical yawn (vertical oval). Remember that even thinking about a yawn may be enough to trigger the actual yawn. Once you have your oval in place, open it further into a circle.
   
   
2. While you are experiencing the widest part of the yawn, simply lift your upper jaw a bit further and flatten down the back of your tongue. These are small and subtle movements and should not be forced or prolonged. Once or twice is enough.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Your Nose: Guard at the Front Gate

Your mouth is a simple system designed to grind your breakfast into teensy bits that slide on down into the acid pit of your stomach. The combination of your nostrils and inner nose is an elaborate design that, in a fraction of a second, filters the grit out of the incoming air, adjusts the breath to body temperature, moistens and prepares the air for entry into your vulnerable lungs.

1. Tiny hairs just inside your nostrils act as a screen door that grabs flying gnats and the largest airborne grit.
2. Bumpy flaps and folds (turbinates) along the side walls of your inner nose force the incoming air to swirl around until the air is suitably warm and moist.
3. A traveling mucous blanket glides along over the nasal passages, protecting the underlying tissues and grabbing finer irritants (missed by the screen door).
4. A sharp right angle bend at the back of the throat (the back door of your inner nose) causes yet-finer irritants to be dropped so they can be easily swallowed or spit out. Cool.

When you breathe through your mouth, the air bypasses all this protection. The air descends directly into your delicate lungs, too dirty, too dry, too cold or too hot. The lungs themselves are built for oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange. They are not designed to defend themselves. That is a job for your nose. If you have difficulty breathing through your nose, seek help from an ear-nose-throat specialist.


Be well and breathe beautifully.

Nose Breathes. Mouth Eats.

The nasal cavities earn an “A+” for their efforts to filter, moisten, warm and otherwise prep the incoming air as it travels toward your lungs. All this processing occurs in a split-second (hour after hour, day after day, year after year). Your nose is an extraordinary design with at least half a dozen clever built-in systems to protect you from illness and even death.

Your mouth, on the other hand, provides pretty much an unprotected straight shot in and down. The mouth is built for eating and kissing, NOT BREATHING. When you inhale through your mouth, the air is not slowed down for processing the way it is in your nose. Your mouth warms and moistens the air a bit but gets an “F” for filtering out airborne garbage.

There is also a tendency to breathe high in the chest when you mouth-breathe because the air rushes in and isn’t slowed by passing through the wonderful furry, sticky, bumpy, twisted maze of your nasal cavities.

If you have a deviated septum, if your allergies obstruct your nasal passages, if you have a chronic sinus irritation, then it is time to see a specialist to diagnose, correct or at least improve the situation. Every breath you take through your mouth contributes to polluted lungs and a dried out respiratory system.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.