Hey!
A friend of mine is not able to breath through his nose, thus when he is doing his asanas he has to breath alway through his mouth.
I would like to know if he should do his asana practice with mouthbreathing or if this carries any dangers. He feels dizzy sometimes after a yoga session.
I am not interested in cleaning exercises for the nose or so, I just want to know if he shouldn t do some asanas or even yoga at all. Or if there are perhaps some special mouthbreathing practices for people with such problems.
Thanks a lot!!
Due to what reason he is not able to breathe via his Nose?
Breathing via Nose greatly affects the efficiency of lung which cannot be possible via mouth breathing.
I know the reasons why you should breath through the nose.
But the question is what should you do if breathing via nose is impossible.
(I can t discuss the reasons for his problem, like I said; I just would like to know in general, how you should chance your asana program if you can t breath through your nose while you have no other physiological problems)
Thanks a lot Y & U!!!
Hello there,
If your friend cannot breathe throught the nose, then he must obviously breathe through the mouth. Your friend will then miss some of the physical benefits of nose breathing: moisturizing, warming, filtering.
If your friend is otherwise healthy, he can do asana practice. It may be useful to learn the ujjayi technique to slow the breath. That is because mouth-breathing tends to be faster than nose-breathing.
Dizziness should not occur as a result of asana practice. There are a great many variables that could induce dizziness (too rapid pace of the practice, moving too quickly out of inversions, other health problems). Please have your friend talk to his yoga teacher and modify his practice. Dizziness is not the intended outcome of yogasana.
There are many physical and less physical benefits of breathing through the nose. If at all possible, see if your friend and the medical profession can come up with a solution.
Nose blockage can really effect the practice badly. If one cannot breath easily throughout the yogic practice it can be harmful as it can create imbalance in pranas and lose of energy Which are the opposite effects of what we want from yoga. I also dont think breathing through mouth is right as it may also create imbalance in prana which can lead to new health problems.
I think he must first clear his nose blockage by certain asanas and medications. That is teachers job.
I have tried not only yoga but many other spiritual practices. But had to give up all due to this single problem. Now I feel better without any practice
If I remember correctly a friend of mine did a workshop with Max Strohm and Im sure he said that they were asked to breathe through the mouth during the workshop, this was something to do with opening the heart.Try it i can sort of feel what he means,much more than that I dont know , but thought you might be interested.
It is “okay” for the student to breathe through the mouth. It is not preferred but it is okay.
gordon
[QUOTE=Manulito;30155]Hey!
A friend of mine is not able to breath through his nose, thus when he is doing his asanas he has to breath alway through his mouth.
I would like to know if he should do his asana practice with mouthbreathing or if this carries any dangers. He feels dizzy sometimes after a yoga session.
I am not interested in cleaning exercises for the nose or so, I just want to know if he shouldn t do some asanas or even yoga at all. Or if there are perhaps some special mouthbreathing practices for people with such problems.
Thanks a lot!![/QUOTE]
I’ve had significant inflammation in my nasal passages for years. Trips to western medical doctors invariably ended up with them wanting to slice and dice me which I’m not willing to do as I don’t want to ignore the problem.
My guess is that it is due to nutrition, stress, unresolved issues from the past resulting in tension, poor breathing technique, or a combination thereof. For example, I notice that I usually draw breath in with my nose rather than my lungs if that makes any sense.
Anyway, during asana sometimes I’m able to breathe through my nose and sometimes I’m not. When I have to breathe through my mouth, I feel that my practice isn’t quite as good in a variety of ways, but it’s still good 
This is how i see it.
Breathing through the nose essentially has the added benefit of waking up the brain and prana and so on as the nose/nasal passages are like a conduit for all of that.
I think breathing through the mouth is fine, as long as you are breathing.
Personallly, if my breath is laboured bretahing through the nose (for respiratory and/or other reasons, and lack of concentration in asana or some other practice-i.e i can’t quite co-ordinate everything or action suitably together) then i will breathe through the mouth, or perhaps more accurately,the mouth and the nose ;).
I agree with Gordon- it think it is perfectly okay, as long as you are breathing- steadily and so on, no jerkiness. The quality of the breath is possibly more important then whther hrough the nose but i have observed that energetically it is a stronger practice.
I would’nt mentalise over it too much. I think it is okay.You do whateve you can do- if you are practicing period, albeit not ideally, then all good.
I don’t think it matters too much. I think sometimes we get into a pickle by trying to acheive too much in our practice. Depending on the emphasis it might be on th breath or the movement,whether it is where we place our mental attention or physical, or the quality of our awareness overall.
You do whatever you do.
Having a plugged up nose once in a while is a part of life, and it’s ok to practice while breathing through the mouth. Like David said, practice is not as good as when you can breath through the nose, but it’s still ok! During “cold” season if I can tell a bunch of my students are really congested, I will explain how to control the breath while breathing through the mouth, when I am explaining how to do Ujayii breath at the beginning of class.
It concerns me that you can’t breath at all through your nose though! That must be annoying! I would definitely go see someone to help you out. Here are some healing options; Ayurveda, Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine, Naturopathy, Homeopathy.
Find out what is accessible in your area, what appeals to you, and what you can afford. It would probably be a good idea to get to the root of your problem first so you can enjoy your yoga practice more fully, as breathing through the nose is a good part of it.
Good luck!!
Nose blockage sometimes is ok, But if its a chronic problem, there must be a great imbalance in his Tridhoshas(They are the basic concepts of Ayurveda. They are the three energetic forces that control the activities and govern the physical, mental and intellectual structure and functions in an individual. They are vata, pitta and Kapha.). I think he have an imbalanced Kapha. He can Balance it by Counter diet for kapha.
First do a Tridosha test to find out which is in imbalance