Claudia von Boeselager: If you wanna sleep better or stop you or your partner snoring, this episode is for you.

Welcome friends to another episode of the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast. I'm Claudia von Boeselager, your host here to bring you the key strategies and tools to help you be at your best.

In today's episode, I wanna dig into breathing better, and specifically nose or nasal breathing, why it's important, what happens when you breathe through your mouth too often, what you can do to train it, as well as what you can do to stop you or your partner, snoring.

Breathing is one of the best biohacks available to us, and it's free. According to Patrick McKeown, leading international expert on breathing and sleep, around 20% of people have dysfunctional breathing, and this percentage increases dramatically if you have lower back pain, anxiety, or asthma.

Why should you pay attention to how you breathe? Because the way you breathe has a tremendous impact on many areas, essential to functioning day to day, such as your ability to deal with stress, your quality of life, your sleep, your focus, concentration and brain function, your blood pressure and respiratory rate, your blood sugar regulation and more.

What's wrong with mouth breathing? 

Mouth breathing can dry out your mouth. It increases your risk of bad breath and gum inflammation and reduces the quality of your sleep. It also deprives your brain, heart, and other organs of optimal oxygenation. While sleeping, mouth breathing can lead to snoring, which can cause sleep apnea, as well as an increased risk of strokes, not to mention disrupting your partner's sleep.

What are some of the benefits of nose breathing? Well, breathing through your nose helps you to not only filter dust and allergens, it humidifies the air you breathe in.

It can warm the air you breathe in by as much as 40 degrees before it gets to the lungs, which is particularly important in cold weather. But most importantly, it boosts your oxygen uptake by providing up to 20% more oxygen in your bloodstream at any given time. This means more oxygen is being delivered to your cells, improving their function, restoring damage caused by stress, and overall helping you sleep and live better for longer.

If you want to improve your oxygenation, sleep, and even stop snoring, here are six top tips you can try. Number one, practice breathing in and out through your nose. It sounds obvious, but the more you retrain yourself to breathe through your nose consciously, the more often you will do it subconsciously.

Number two, keep your nose clean before you sleep, or even during the day for that matter. Make sure to clean your nose to assist in easier nasal breathing. You can even use a nasal spray, for example, to help with this.

Number three, keep stress at bay so that you're not gasping for air with your mouth.

Number four, prop your head up with a large pillow while sleeping.

Number five, exercise regularly.

And number six, try using mouth tape at night to literally tape your mouth shut. Research by the Sleep Foundation showed that wearing mouth tape caused all participants to breathe through their nose, changing the angle of the pallete and the tongue, which led to significantly less snoring and fewer instances of lapsed breathing.

So, now's a good time to try nasal breathing and improve on that as well to help you feel better in your optimization journey. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Remember to share with family and friends, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Bye-bye.