MM#245--Noses Are For Breathing & Mouths Are For Eating

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, i am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. In case you missed Tuesday's episode and you're just now picking up today's episode. Number one thank you for listening, we greatly appreciate you. And number two last week I told you that we're going to go back to diving into Philosophy 101 with Saints Augustine and Aquinas, but we are going to call an audible here and we are postponing that for just one week because that was some heavy stuff over the past two weeks and to keep everybody happy And, more importantly, to balance the theory side with the practical side, because, after all, this is the Theory to Action podcast. We are going to talk purely practical today, as we did on Tuesday. So, again, be sure to check out that episode And, as is our new custom and many people are liking it, let's go directly to our first poll quote. It's a long one, so hang in there with me. Scientific research, as well as the experience of thousands of people I've worked with, has shown me the vital importance of learning how to breathe correctly. The problem is that correct breathing should be everyone's birthright has become extremely challenging in our modern society. We assume that the body reflexively knows how much air it needs all times, but unfortunately this is not the case. Over the centuries, we have altered our environment so dramatically that many of us have forgotten are in eight way of breathing. The process of breathing has been warped by chronic stress, sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets, overheated homes and a lack of fitness. All of these contribute to poor breathing habits. These in turn contribute to lethargy, weight gain, sleeping problems, respiratory conditions and heart disease. Now just one, one more paragraph. I know it's a long quote. Modern living gradually increases the amount of air we breathe, and while getting more oxygen into our lungs might seem like a good idea, it is in fact light breathing that is a testament to good health and fitness. Think of an overweight tourist and Olympian, both arriving for the summer games. As they pick up their luggage and carry it up the flight of stairs, whom would you expect to be huffing and puffing? Certainly not the Olympian. The biggest obstacle to our health and fitness is a rarely identified problem, chronic over breathing. We breathe two to three times more air than required without knowing it. Whoa, now, that number one was a long quote, so thank you for hanging in there with me. But number two we breathe two to three times more air than required without knowing it Dang. Now all this comes to us from a very interesting and very intriguing book titled The Oxygen Advantage, with a subtitle that is a mouthful as well Simple, scientifically proven breathing techniques to help you become healthier, slimmer, faster and fitter. So it was a. It is a mouthful there. The author is Patrick McEwen. So, ok, the first thing we need to understand is did we actually hear Patrick right? Did he say that we are all breathing too much? Huh, now, this book gets super technical, but we will not be getting in the weeds on why we are breathing some suboptimally, or or we're getting into the deep scientific explanations behind those reasons. But but let me just say that he does make a very strong argument that we do over breathe. So what I thought was 50 times more interesting and that you would find interesting is OK. If we buy the premise that we are suboptimally breathing, then we have to ask the next logical question Well, what's the number one way to start and correct that? Yes? Well, let's go back to the book to find out. In order to address breathing volume and increase bolt score, don't worry about that right now. The first step is to go back to basics and learn to breathe through the nose both day and night. As any child is aware, our nose is made for breathing, the mouth for eating. You were born breathing through your nose and it has been our primary conduit for breathing for hundreds of thousands of years. It was only when our ancient ancestors were in dangerous situations that they reverted to mouth breathing to take in greater volumes of air and preparation for intense physical activity. It is for this reason that mouth breathing is synonymous with emergency, activating the same fight or flight response that our ancestors experienced, but these days, usually without the accompanying physical exercise to allow our breathing up, to allow our operating systems to revert to normal. Now that makes all the sense in the world. Mouth breathing is synonymous with emergency and activating the fight or flight response. Very, very interesting and very intriguing. In fact. Now all this comes to us from a chapter titled noses are for breathing, mouths are for eating. Pretty cool, it's a great little reminder to that little jingle. So in today's mojo minute, how do you breathe? through your nose or through your mouth all the time? If it's through the mouth, notice that and let's gently remind ourselves to breathe through our nose. Patrick actually says some of us do, in fact, breathe all the time through our mouths. So, if that is you, one way to get 1% better is to be aware of that, to have some self-awareness. Be aware of that and give your stress levels a little bit of a break and breathe through your nose. And that is a super nugget of wisdom that we can practice today And in fact we can practice right now. When we breathe through our nose, we will be thinking clear, we will lower our stress levels and will be calming our flight or flight, fight or flight responses, and that is putting us in a flourishing mindset, one breath at a time.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.