Mouth / nose breathing reteaching yourself

anyone successfully retrained their body from a mouth breather to a nose breather.  Having a bunch of medical issues at the moment, most likely caused by 18 months of chronic stress.  I have to try to breathing through my mouth and I’m finding it virtually impossible after a min or so of nose breathing I have to have a big yawn and gulp air in.  I also miss the satisfying coldness of mouth air

anyone with useful advice or just a nice tale of success to cheer me up?

I’m currently taking a course in Mindfulness, which has a lot of “breath in through your nose and out through your mouth” practices. Stress and Sertraline want my jaw to stay clamped shut, but practice and patience is winning, though it’s taken a few weeks, and I’m making progress. First video is the whole concept, second a three minute exercise.

Too late for edit. He rambles at the start of the first video, better to start at 20:50.

i was just talking about this with a colleague today, we both appear to have developed sleep apnea, he gave me some links to information, which are on my works pc so not available now.

One way seems to be to breath through your nose while walking, being upright and doing a mild activity like walking seems to just naturally open up both nostrils to aid breathing.

http://oxygenadvantage.com/

which seems to be sports focused, but probably useful in everyday life as well.

Thanks for the links, I’m going to try to get a gp referral for mindfulness, I saw a respiratory physio today (privately £££) she also recommended a hyperventilation clinic.  So far I’ve been offered anti depressants, which I’ve not taken up as I don’t feel depressed, I just can’t bloody breathe.

ive also tried “pushing through” (GP recommended to) the breathing issues when exercising which I think resulted in my chest pains with pulled muscles and causing more worry about potential heart issues.

And I seem to be getting every bug and illness, 2 weeks with conjunctivitis, than a urine tract infection (never had that before, the pain), and currently have some sickness bug so I haven’t manage to hold down a couple of bits of toast in the last 3 days.

Altogether really truly had enough of feeling terrible all the time

Bloody hell, the experts have even made breathing complicated.

I’m quite confident i’m doing it right because i’m still alive.

On a more serious note i do take breathing seriously when i’m squatting big kg’s.

tbh I never even thought twice about breathing until it went wrong….think yourself lucky!

While you are highly stressed it will be difficult. Treat the cause first.

I too have been breathing almost all my life. I’m currently trying to get out of shallow chest breathing and doing abdominal breaths. It’s really hard to change.

Ever since my Xmas 2013 RTA, my sinus airway always tends to feel partially blocked, even when it is not hayfever season. Consequently, I tend to breathe through my mouth a lot more now, to simply by-pass the strangeness of nasal breathing. However, for some reason, cycling moderate to hard tends make my nasal airway feel like it used to.

Google ‘buteyko breathing method,’ there are a bunch of free videos out there.  The method is designed by a Russian guy to teach precisely that!

On a more serious note i do take breathing seriously when i’m squatting big kg’s.

If by squatting big kgs you really mean having a massive donald, try shallow panting. It worked for my wife to push out well over half a stone of daughter, unless you’re on day 35 of an egg and codeine diet (or a determined drug dealer) you’ll soon be in the throes of a poogasm.

However, for some reason, cycling moderate to hard tends make my nasal airway feel like it used to

Exercise = anti-inflammatory innit

OP: why are you needing to change the way you breathe?

While you are highly stressed it will be difficult. Treat the cause first.

Actually, some feel that the effects of stress can be combated by dealing with the physiological actions as well, that all mindfulness or meditation realty achieves is to improve breathing patterns,but wrap it up an a nice fluffy blanket.

It is a downward spiral, breathing through your mouth doesn’t oxygenate the blood properly, and disturbs your sleep, leading to always feeling tired and unfocused, you don’t have the energy to do the things you like (ie mountain biking), you put on weight, small things become big problems, stress increases, breathing and especially nighttime breathing become worse and it all feeds into the spiral again.

The majority of the population breathe through their noses normally (and many will no doubt just dismiss the potential issues), but a sizable minority are not in that lucky situation and it can certainly have a contributing and accumulative affect on other health issues.

That is not that i am espousing alternative therapy instead of getting proper qualified assistance for stress. in the Steve jobs mould. But breathing patterns, and especially nighttime breathing patterns, are something that medical science is starting to take seriously and is worth exploring alongside.

So far I’ve been offered anti depressants, which I’ve not taken up as I don’t feel depressed

Try them.