Every second of every day, every person on the planet is faced with a choice: breathe through the nose or breathe through the mouth. According to the instructor of my wife's oral pathology course at Midwinter Meeting yesterday afternoon, way too many of us do the latter.
Apparently the proper way to breathe is through the nose, with your mouth closed, your teeth together and your tongue resting flush with the hollow of the palate at the roof of your mouth. Breaths should come just once every six to eight seconds.
Try that for a while. Not very comfortable, is it? At least it wasn't for me.
That said, I kept at it for a half hour or so and I actually got pretty used to it. People who breathe like this all the time, subconsciously, apparently have more energy and endurance, along with other benefits my wife told me and which I probably would have remembered if I'd been breathing through my nose instead of my mouth for the last 29 years.
Another reason not to breathe through your mouth if you can help it: Among the definitions of "mouthbreather" listed by Urban Dictionary is the entry, "a really dumb person." Yikes.
The photo above is by orphanjones and was found in the Flickr Creative Commons.
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