Nasal Breathing
A couple of nights ago, I had an impromptu conversation with a friend who is a speech language pathologist. The conversation began with her asking me how singers are typically trained to breathe (if it is through the nose or the mouth). I responded saying that the end goal is to be able to breathe through both the nose and mouth, but typically we start off with the mouth. She was surprised and let me know that she has been studying about all the benefits in regards to nasal breathing and how it actually allows more ease of movement in the diaphragm. Of course, I tried this and realized that that was true. The thing I couldn’t get past was that I couldn’t inhale with the same speed and “ease” that I when breathing through the mouth. I had done alternate-nostril yoga breathing in the past and found that there was a lot of resistance, to the point where I was debating that there was something abnormal about my nasal cavity. After bringing this up to her, we decided to FaceTime later that evening to check in and talk more.
When FaceTime-ing, here were some main takeaways from my conversation:
Nasal breathing should be slow and gentle and it doesn’t need to be loud “sniffle” sound (take away the concept of breathing in on 4 and breathing out on 8, etc.). Let the air simply “enter” the same way as you would when breathing through the mouth.
The nose serves as a filter. Simply breathing through the nose will help with many things, especially managing allergies!
There are strategies to encourage nasal breathing even while sleeping! You can use a small piece of medical grade tape to keep the lips closed while you sleep (only enough to encourage the muscle memory of the mouth to stay closed during the night, you are not forcibly taping your mouth shut).
The Breathing Cure was recommended reading and was encouraged to learn more about the Buteyko Breathing Method.
An interesting nose-clearing method! Breathe in through the nose, plug your nostrils with two fingers, gently bob your head forwards 10-15 times (or however long that you can comfortably hold your breath for), then breathe out through your nose. It is recommended to do this repeatedly (with breaks in between) and then you will feel clarity in your nasal passages! Click here to see this in action!
Another big takeaway (something that I am familiar with about myself and something I will tackle in another post) is my fast talking. My friend recommended that since nasal breathing encourages you to slow down the breathing, then maybe it may also slow down my pace of talking. She also mentioned that this was something she has had to work on as well and when working with her patients, she also slows way down and breathes through the nose so that she can model to them what she is looking for.
That evening, I had a young family friend stay with me during the week and part of our routine is that I read to him before he goes to bed. I decided to try putting the nose breathing in practice. I don’t really breathe mindfully when I am reading and just try and cram as much as possible in one breath. Unsurprisingly, I took the punctuation as the note to breathe as a starting point. Surprisingly, although I was nose breathing, my old habit of trying-to-fit-as-much-in-as-possible-in-one-breath stuck with me for quite a bit. This resulted in very long run-on sounding sentences with a long pause at the end to account for the gentle inhalation, which, I’m sure, sounded very weird.
I then decided to take the on the tactic that I use when teaching voice and “refuel the tank” whenever I have the opportunity. Instead of fitting everything possible in one breath, take the opportunities to breathe when they are offered to you! I breathed through my nose at every comma, period, question mark, colon, and semi-colon. I found that I didn’t have to breathe as long this way and the tempo of my reading improved. Most importantly, I also found that I was much less out of breath when reading. Although it will be difficult to fully replace my voice training breathing with nasal breathing (especially in quick breath moments), there are definitely many more opportunities that I can incorporate nasal breathing in my singing, my teaching, and my day-to-day routines.
