Alternate Nasal Breathing

You may wonder why alternate nasal breathing is considered let alone practiced.

It’s like most things in life you discover.  When you didn’t know about things, objects, processes, techniques etc. that can help you improve your relationship and communication you have with both yourself and your body, you didn’t miss them.

But once certain things, objects, processes, techniques etc. become familiar to you and you readily recognise the benefits or deficiencies that come with this familiarity, things change.

Alternating your nasal/nostril breathing is one of these things.  The reason being is more than just respiratory!

The nasal passages like all breathing passages housed within your body are designed to function in a certain way just as the body housing these passages is also designed to function in a certain way.  In this case, as the nasal passages are housed within the skull, imagine what could happen to the efficient transportation of air both in and out of the body if the bones around the nasal passages were compromised due to your jaw bone (temporomandibular (tem-puh-roe-man-dib-u-lur) joint (TMJ)) being dislocated.

As the TMJ acts like a sliding hinge, connecting your jawbone to your skull, the nasal passages would likewise be impacted due the the nasal passages positioning within the skull.

This is where familiarising yourself with the control to alternate your nasal intake of air from side-to-side can be very beneficial.  Even though this is an advanced technique that uses more mind control than physical application, just sensing the flow of air coming in from both sides independently using only neural (nerve) awareness is quite a buzz when you get good at it.

The tools are readily available

The tools we ALL have access to, tools to support, maintain and increase our livingness is to me, a blessing.

We can choose to embrace or choose not to embrace that which is offered. In this video i further expand on the TriBreath breathing rhythms and how to alternate your nostril breathing with your practice.

When i use this technique, when i’m either walking or running, i do two breathing cycles per nostril.

So if i was using the 3-Step breathing rhythm and practicing the alternating nostril technique, i would for example…

1. breathe IN, IN, OUT, IN, IN, OUT on the left hand side nostril
2. and then swap sides to do the IN, IN, OUT, IN, IN, OUT on the right hand side nostril.

Most importantly, stressing if you cannot get it straight away is of no benefit to anyone including yourself.

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