Mouth breathers - #24

They're already here.

There were maybe 80 people in the room, all with their eyes closed. It was another bluebird day in Santa Monica, and at 10am, the southeastern facing windows some 20 feet high flooded the room with light. We sat on the wooden tiers that wrapped around an open space filled with additional seating, the company’s mission statement looming over us on a wall painted robin egg blue: 

Improve the health and happiness of the world.

For now, we were just practicing meditation. Every morning at Headspace, the employees were encouraged to come together for a 10-minute meditation, Andy Puddicombe’s voice coming over the speakers from the product we’d collectively built. But that day, Andy was there in person. 

After over four years at Headspace, I could recite many of Andy’s meditations verbatim and did so somewhat frequently as a party trick, accent included. Like making coffee or commuting, I could play the scripts in my head with little regard for what they actually meant. 

But Andy in person was different. When he could escape from the trappings of “co-founder” and just be a meditation teacher, he was intuitive and at ease. Whatever he felt in the room, he could begin a meditation that would ease it, renew it, or in that day’s case, test it. He had already eased us into the strange practice of sitting vulnerable, eyes shut, in a room full of people you barely knew. 

“For the next few minutes,” he continued, “try, if you can, to breathe in through your nose and out through your nose. Now I know some of us have colds and allergies,” he said with his cordial laugh, “but give it a shot.” 

I took three nostril-only breaths before gasping as quietly as possible, like I was hiding under the bed from an intruder, afraid someone might discover me. I opened my eyes, scanning my coworkers sitting serenely around me, breathing evenly with their lips softly sealed. 

I was alone in my desperation for breath. I was a mouth breather. 

I can’t tell you how long I’ve been a mouth breather because I don’t know. Structurally speaking, my face is not great. I grew up with an overbite and the kind of chin that burrows back into your neck like it’s afraid someone might eat it if it sticks out any further. Eight years of orthodontics goes a long way in hiding the truth. 

A year after I was released from the prison of braces, I broke my nose. I was making out with some football player from a different school whose neck was wider than his face at the bottom of a sledding hill at night, when my friends at the top of the hill thought, “how fun would it be if we tried to kill them?” So all four of them got on their iron-runnered sled and aimed it directly at us. And wouldn’t you know, this worked. At the moment when they realized it was a bad idea, Nick and I also realized what was happening and attempted to scramble out of the way. Nick kneed me in the face, breaking my nose, while the sled sliced the back of his calf, and we both began to bleed approximately everywhere. Whatever state my septum had been in before that, it was worse after. 

Last year, some 15 or so years after an 18-year-old defensive lineman took out my nose, I found myself at the ENT. I was frustrated about breathing, or my lack thereof. It was time to do something about it. The doctor I went to was somewhat perplexed — my septum was deviated, though not terribly, but it was obvious just watching my eyes get wider as I tried to keep my mouth shut — I couldn’t breathe. She suggested we try turbinate reduction.

Turbinate reduction is like cool sculpting inside your nose. It’s a temporary fix, but it was worth a shot. You’re awake for the procedure, and they use local anesthesia while hammering away inside your nose, asking if you can breathe yet. I couldn’t believe it. When I stood up off the table, I asked them incredulously, “This is what it feels like to breathe?”

Post turbinate reduction, looking my absolute best.

We all used to be able to breathe, but evolution doesn’t always work in our favor. As we began to cook and thus soften our food, the structure of our mouths and nasal cavities began to change. Now, 90% of kids are born with some kind of malocclusion, i.e., not perfect teeth. I was one of those kids, and now, I am one of those adults still on the quest for breath. 

Earlier this month, I found myself at the Telluride Medical Center for a yearly physical. I had a laundry list of questions about my health, including lymphatic issues, peeing all the time, phlegm build-up  (this is sexy, huh?), and fatigue. My blood tests came back normal, if a little dehydrated. In response to all of this, the RN asked about my sleep.

“Do you drool or snore?”

“I don’t snore, but I drool sometimes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Can you breathe through your nose?”

“Sort of, not really, I mean I can if I blow my nose and then hold still.”

“Have you tried taping your mouth shut?”

“What?”

“Get this book called Breath. You tape your mouth shut at night. I couldn’t do it, but maybe you’ll be able to.” 

Breath. Where had I heard about that book?

A month prior, during our avalanche rescue training, I struck up a conversation with a fellow participant re-upping her skills. I wanted to know about her Hestra gloves. Are they really as warm as they say? Is it worth the price? Yes, they’re warm. Yes, they’re worth it. But. She went on to tell the story of her since-corrected issue with poor circulation. 

“I used to have such cold hands that it didn’t matter how good the gloves were.” (Something I am familiar with.)

“Used to?” 

“Yeah! I don’t want to sound crazy or anything, but I started doing cold plunges to improve my circulation and now I don’t have any issues with it.”

“Are you serious?”

“You should read this book called by Breath. It’s why I started.”

I took out my phone and made a note. Breath - cold plunging book? Wim Hof ish? 

By the time I had my physical, I had completely forgotten the book. But there it was, in my notes. So I downloaded it on Audible. 

I have long suspected that my anxiety disorder was aggravated by my persistently shallow breaths. I’ve also worried throughout the years that my inability to breathe through my nose was diminishing my athletic performance. But I never thought that my ineffective nose would result in a shorter lifespan until I started reading Breath.

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor explores humans’ relationship with the breath, how it’s changed over the years, and what we’re losing when we go from nasal breathers to me, a mouth breather. Spoiler alert: we die faster. 

Our airways function under a use-it-or-lose-it type premise. The less you breathe through your nose, the less you’re able to. Congestion begets congestion, and soon you’re hollow-faced and slack jawed over an iPad at the airport taking Claritin. I’m not kidding: mouth breathing literally leads to an elongated face, droopy eyes, dark spots underneath your droopy eyes, narrow nostrils, trouble sealing lips, dry lips, a narrowed upper lip, a forward open bite, bad breath, gum disease, tooth decay, lowered lung capacity, snoring, sleep apnea, etc. etc. 

After reading the first two chapters of Breath, I went for a walk with Cooper, attempting to breathe only through my nose. It was 9° and I gave myself brain freeze. I went skiing and attempted to use my goggle-smooshed nose smooshed, but each breath was so belabored by the internal sloshing of freshly generated snot that I had to give up. But even sitting on the couch now by the fire under a blanket, warm as an oven-fresh pot pie, breathing through my nose hurts my head. It feels like I am freeze-drying my brain. But I know this has value, and I like a mission. 

While I love to feel like the Mandalorian, I am newly curious about he breathes.

Breath doesn’t reference a lot of “deeply researched double-blind scientific studies following statistically significant populations either.” It’s an investigation of a lost art after all. If we’d never lost it, there would be plenty of studies on it. But I like a little fresh science, mainly because I like experiments. Maybe two years ago, at the beginning of COVID, I attempted to do a course of Wim Hof with Ben. We did two weeks or so, I got up to 3.5 minutes of breath holding, and then life kept going and other things occupied our time. Our efforts fell to the wayside, and oxygen returned primarily to my mouth. 

But I am newly incentivized at these great heights in the mountains. I am, inarguably, bound to be left out if I don’t learn to lean into the most challenging of athletic pursuits. Never before have I been surrounded by this many world-class athletes (and no, not even in Boulder.) And if I am going to keep up, my body needs to make a few changes.

1. I need better posture. When we’re skiing, my mountain mentor keeps telling me to “push the bush.” I have a tendency to hinge at the hips, walking uphill like an old woman, hands on her hips. I’m not relying on my glutes. I’m relying on who knows what, but it’s not great. My pelvis is at the wrong angle, and that’s true not just for skiing, but for skinning, trail running, and even hiking. 

2. I need more stamina. It doesn’t matter how living at altitude translates to sea level if I can’t keep up where I live. I don’t need to be the best, I just need to be my best. And stamina comes from getting enough oxygen to my muscles and having the lunge capacity to do it. 

3. And if I want that capacity, I need to change the way I breathe. 

Over the next couple months, I’m going to do a little self-torture. I’ll be trying the experiments from the book, including everything from the morning friendly Tibetan rites to the evening cruelty of mouth-taping. I’ll be sharing what I learn from Breath, how the book’s suggested exercises do or don’t affect me, and I’ll be rechallenging myself to complete the Wim Hof course as well. To supplement my anecdotes, I’ll share my health data from Whoop, including sleep performance, strain, recovery, and blood oxygen levels.

Now, how’s your breathing?