Tape Your Mouth Shut!

Yes, you heard that correctly. 

I happened upon a talk by Anders Olsson, founder of The Conscious Breathing Retraining Program a while back, where he discussed the importance of breathing through your nose. We are bombarded by yoga, meditation, and the exercise community to just breathe, but Anders claims what matters is HOW we breathe. Yoga has a ton of breathing techniques known as Pranayama which are all great, but not everyone wants to dedicate themselves to a formal breathing practice. 

In our modern society, many of us have poor breathing habits. Our lives affect the way we breathe, but the way we breathe affects our life as well. In this regard, we have the power to change our life through our breathing habits. 

Do you have poor breathing habits? Here are some examples: breathing through your mouth, frequent sighing, throat clearing when stressed, snoring, holding your breath, breathing fast and shallowly. 

The side effects of low quality breathing include a plethora of issues: sleep disturbances (sleep apnea, snoring, nightmares, night terrors), anxiety, sinus problems, throat infections. fatigue, weight issues, high blood pressure, and on and on. 

When we breath evenly through our nose (with the mouth shut), we activate the calming side of the nervous system that tells our body it can relax. On the other hand, when we breathe through our mouth, we over breathe (or hyperventilate), lowering CO2 levels in the body, causing the body to go into "fight or flight" mode. This tells our body, "Don't relax! We're preparing for battle!" 

So, you may then ask, how do we consciously breathe through the nose? One of the methods is to actually tape the mouth shut, especially when you sleep. Many of us breathe through the mouth during sleep, causing all sorts of sleep disturbances. I have had an ongoing issue with night terrors, so I decided to try taping my mouth shut during sleep. I was amazed to find that it almost completely stopped the night terrors immediately. By forcing myself to breathe through my nose, I was signaling my body to relax, preventing the night terror. 

If you have sleep apnea or any serious health issues, please consult your doctor or wellness professional before trying mouth tape during sleep. This is the tape that I use:

Micropore 1" tape. You can find at most drugstores or Amazon

If you have a clogged nose, there are methods to work on clearing nasal passages to make nose breathing easier, such as humming and using a neti pot. Anders Olsson discusses a few tips here: https://www.consciousbreathing.com/articles/how-to-unblock-a-stuffy-nose/

Ironically a chronically clogged nose is frequently caused by mouth breathing habits, leading to increased mouth breathing, allowing the nose to remain clogged. So, if you successfully retrain yourself to breathe through the nose, you will also be eliminating the chronically clogged nose.

If the idea of taping your mouth sounds less than appealing, you can try it during the day while awake to get used to it. Anders also offers a device called the Relaxator which can also help retrain breathing. I haven't tried it, but it looks like it could helpful for those learning to consciously breathe. 

My Secret for Dealing with Heat

Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't deal well with hot weather. To be fair, I live in Texas, where the temperatures can soar to 100+ and summers tend to start in May. 

When the body heats up, it tends to travel up to the head, giving us headaches, red eyes, itchiness, and dizziness. Sometimes heat will try to escape through the feet as well, causing our feet to heat up and swell. I get both problems at one time!

I have actually found that soaking my feet in cool water, helps encourage the heat that has travelled to my head to release through my feet. If you've been out in the heat or just on your feet all day long, soaking your feet can have profound results. It can even help ease aches and pains in the body. 

This is the amazing tub I bought on Amazon for soaking my feet. It has a handle so I can transport it anywhere I want to soak my feet. Also, it is super tall, so I don't splash water anywhere. 

To make it even better, add some essential oils to water. I recommend peppermint, lavender, and geranium. If you're dealing with foot odor or fungus, try adding tea tree oil to the mix. Another great addition is dead sea salt, epsom salt, or pink salt. Salt helps to detoxify the body. The minerals in the salt, such as magnesium, are also absorbed by the body. This helps boost circulation, reduce inflammation, and ease muscle tension. 

If you tend to have cold feet, live in a cold environment, or you're feeling cold and depleted, you can do the same foot soak, but use warm water instead. This also works great for headaches. By putting the feet into warm water, you are diverting blood flow downward, away from the head, toward the feet. You can also place a cool pack on your head to further assist the downward flow. Soaking feet in cool water, can help headaches as well (if your feet are hot). 

I can't tell you how amazingly therapeutic soaking your feet can be! Try it before bed or when you get home from work. You'll be glad you did!