So recently I have been reading a book by an author and teacher Patrick McKeown, called “the oxygen advantage”. In the book he posits that by using some simple techniques we can improve our metal clarity, our lethargy that we maybe feel when we wake up, our aerobic exercise tolerance Along with quite a few other benefits. How? Just breath through your nose. Simple right?!
1st night mouth taped
well I have been practicing this simple idea for a little while now while I practice my yoga and my exercise (I know, I have started actual exercise now). I found that not stressing the shit out of my self and feeling like I am suffercating while exercising and still breathing through my nose was much harder than I thought it would have been. Walking up hills with mouth firmly closed?!? Definitely makes the body feel as if there is something wrong.
So what is it?!? Why is it so hard?!? Basically it comes down to carbon dioxide in our body. Our bodies dont tell us when there isn’t enough oxygen in our bodies, it tells us when the levels of Co2 are rising. In our modern lives we pretty much ALL chronically hyperventilate and blow off all our Co2 (which is key to help with the usage of the O2 that is in our bloody stream) due to the fact that we are unable to relax, unable to switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system. This create a viscous cycle as the carbon dioxide play a part in switching our nervous systems.
So last night I decided to try out what Patrick Mckeown suggests to ensure you nose breath throughout the night and don’t snore and mouth breath (causing a dry mouth and feelings of lethargy/feeling of sleeping badly) which was to tape your mouth shut.
1st thing - having a tache meant that I had some real issues getting the tape to stick and the. When I woke up it was PROPER stuck and I was scared I wouldn’t have a moustache left after wards haha.
2nd thing - there are a couple of effects that come from learning to nose breath and relax, one of these is that you will feel warmer...now it’s about 25 degrees here or something and there wasn’t much air moving last night so I felt as if my body was on fire hahaha. Should have tried this pre heat wave me thinks haha.
So this is post 1 nights sleep with tape, I am going to re-blog in a few days after I have done it a bit longer. I had no worries at all with doing it for the 1st night and my only real downside was the sticky moustache so I am pretty excited to re-teach myself to sleep just through my nose and see if it can help with my something foggy/forgetful head.