> Naturally we breath out of one nostril at a time
I don't understand how anyone can make that statement with a straight face. Unless one nostril is blocked, we use both simultaneously. There's no balance to be gamed.
That's not actually true. If you research it, you'll find that most people's nostrils alternately dilate and contract (the tissues reduce/swell). Most of us breathe primarily through only one nostril at a time, and it switches approximately every half hour. This is entirely unconscious and we're generally not aware of it.
There is a little bit of airflow in the constricted nostril, but nowhere near comparable to the other. You can test this by covering up your nostrils individually and comparing how easy it is to breathe through them. Then wait a half hour and try it again. (Note that a minority of people do not have this.)
However, this is not something you can consciously control or override, any more than you can override contractions in your intestine.
Came here to say the same. I was completely unaware of the nasal cycle until I got further into my meditation practice, but you totally can notice which nostril is taking in more air if you practice training your awareness on it. It was surprising to me when I first noticed it.
One of my yoga teachers has us find the one that is currently dominant in the cycle before we practice nadi shodhana pranayama, and then select the starting nostril based on that.
> This is entirely unconscious and we're generally not aware of it.
I wonder if I'm unusual in that I can consciously control which nostril is open or closed. Most of the time the switching from side to side is unconscious but if I concentrate, I can cause it to happen consciously. This is really useful when I have a cold and a blocked nostril and I want to get some relief when blowing my nose doesn't help - I just focus on allowing that side of my sinuses to open and after a few minutes it will happen.
It’s more like one nostril is high-velocity and the other is low-velocity, not that one is completely blocked. The evolutionary reason is thought to be that it aids the perception of low PPM volatile organic compounds (i.e. bad smells = rot, toxic chemicals) because the ‘blocked’ nostril is used as a sense chamber which lets the air spend more time within, thus increase the effective sensitivity of your sense of smell.
If you do not have this behaviour (which can disappear with certain neurological diseases or just idiopathically not exist) you also likely have a reduced sense of smell.
Can confirm that I "smell" through one nostril at a time. I can smell more sensitively than others (for example, realise that milk is rotten before others do). I have noticed that when I try blocking one of my nostrils, my sense of smell is considerably lower, and it is not always the left nostril or always the right nostril. It kind of alternates, and I don't know the pattern. It might be that both nostrils alternate doing the task of smelling at different times.
Yep, one of my nostrils always feels blocked but my fiancée’s nostrils are always wide open on both sides. I’m practically green with envy. Only being able to breathe using half of your nose is frustrating.
It's weird how much we take for granted without ever expecting it to be different for others. I thought you guys were just screwing with me re: having an alternating congested nostril. Like, I only experience that during severe nasal congestion, and it seems mostly to stick with one side or the other depending on which side I'm laying on.
It never even occurred to me that people would experience something like that _all the time_!
I literally spent most of the day after reading this yesterday testing, and they were identical (or near enough as made no difference). Today, same thing.
That's my point - you probably never thought it was any other way, and I never thought it was any other way, and we're both just like "wait, what? you LIVE like that?" That fascinates me! I think the last time I experienced this was the blue/black white/gold dress thing or when I first found out some people wipe standing up and some people wipe sitting down and everyone is shocked when they find this out for the first time.
My takeaway: The nervous system is super complicated and has various rhythms. For example the circadian rhythm makes you sleepy at night and alert during the day. There are a bunch of other rhythms that are not yet well studied. The nervous system alternates activity in left and right sides of the body on a rhythm of about 1.5 hours. The nasal cycle is part of this rhythm. One can influence this rhythm by forcing the body to breathe through one nostril.
"Klein, Pilon, Prosser, and Shannahoff-Khalsa (1986) assessed cognitive perfor- mance during different phases of the nasal cycle. They observed significant rela- tionships between the pattern of nasal airflow and spatial and verbal performance. Right nostril dominance correlated with enhanced verbal performance, or left brain activity, and left nostril dominance correlated with enhanced spatial performance, again indicating that the hemispheres alternate with the phases of the nasal cycle."
"Leconte and Lambert (1988) demonstrated that subjects who undergo a test of immediate memory every 25 min with two modalities (semantic and graphic) present a fluctuation in performance with a periodicity of about 100min. The two modalities were in opposite phase."
If breathing can reduce emotional problems for some people, then we could possibly predict this effect by measuring peoples' nasal cycles and hemisphere EEG rhythms. I imagine a typical doctors visit would start out with: 1) filling out the questionnaire, 2) measuring weight, temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure, and then 3) wearing the EEG helmet with nostril sensors for a minute.
I use knowledge of this to help me sleep: when I experience nasal breathing issues, I set up, adjust side I am sleeping on, and change my posture to affect the blood-flow to my head. The less constriction, the easier it is to breathe. (don’t need nose strips!)
So weird. My clear nostril just flipped a few minutes ago. I can't believe I never knew about this. Do you know how many times I dug around to clear obstructions out of my nose because I was only able to breathe from one nostril?
There are different degrees of congestion from light to fully blocked. When I was 14 I was 80% congested until i turned 20. I had to have some nose drops or I’d be lightheaded from poor breathing.
What solved it? A trick that an old doctor told
me to do. With one hand hold with thumb on the soft palate and another finger (index or ring) on the forehead where the nose meets the forehead in a grip. Then jiggle the grip. The skull is made out of bones that are not fully connected so a jiggle does move the bones around and releases differential pressure in sinuses. That fixed me
My partner has some sinus congestion issues and we’ e been trying to find a remedy since forever.
We want to try this thing but want to make sure we’re trying it correctly. Have you encountered a more thorough explanation of this technique, preferably in a video?
I need to clarify that i did not have a sinus infection though, i had a persisting rhinitis for which doctors could not provide anything else but prescribe over the nose drops or flonaise
Thanks for the tip, we’ll try it out. Yeah no doctor managed to find the cause of the inflammation yet, even after years of tests. Every doctor is like “yeah you should be fine” its kind of infuriating.
Watched a program on TV where a professor demonstrated stereoscopic olfactory ability. A person was blindfolded and knelt on a grassy area where an invisible smell trail was laid out. The person was able to track the trail because of this ability.
The key part is your sinus cavity slightly closes one nostril creating a differential air flow. This difference allows us to figure out the direction the smell via the difference in intensity between nostrils which our brain uses to sense direction.
Cover each nostril in turn and breathe in through your nose. One nostril will be easier to breathe in through. Now try it again a few times over a day.
I believe the reason your body does this is to allow your olfactory system to pick up a greater range of smells: Some chemicals are easier to pick up when the air is traveling slower.
I have always one nostril blocked (not completely thought) and according to "Kundalini Tantra" book that I read it's usual state for most people. In the book it was connected to the activity of brain laterals (one is dominant) and forcing yourself to breath equally through both nostrils will make both halves more balanced. Not sure if the explanations were correct, but the practice itself provided me with some really high states. Breathing is extremely powerful tool.
That is totally not correct. I thought I was an anomaly until I heard a podcast by the Breathe author. I've noticed it for years, but I always attributed it to allergies (I attribute everything anomalous to them, because they are such a huge influence in my life).
What is totally confusing is what causes the flip from one nostril to another. I have no idea what the mechanism is.
I’m not sure you are paying any attention to your body. That our air preparation apparatus (i.e. the nasal cavity) would run at reduced capacity when less air is needed makes perfect sense and is a well established medical fact. Just google “nasal cycle”.
One of my nostrils is almost always partially restricted. Yes, I have airflow through both of them, but it's almost never equal. Right now easy breathing through the left with some resistance in the right. It slowly shifts back and forth throughout the day.
It's very obvious when I have a cold. I often have one fully-plugged nostril and one not, which also shifts back and forth seemingly randomly.
I think what I'm describing is actually the norm but I haven't exactly surveyed the population.
I don't understand how anyone can make that statement with a straight face. Unless one nostril is blocked, we use both simultaneously. There's no balance to be gamed.