Hi Everyone! I’m Priya Mistry the TMJ doc and today I’m going to talk to you about
Nasal Breathing vs. Mouth Breathing. This is something that is often overlooked during
physical examinations for both children and adults. In my humble opinion, breathing - being
ESSENTIAL to life - should be evaluated thoroughly and treated in a way that enhances optimal
breathing function! So be sure to watch this video until the end to fully understand the
differences between nasal breathing and mouth breathing and which one is most ideal!
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a general dentist with a practice in beautiful Portland, Oregon where I practice with my mentor, Dr. Arthur L. Parker.
At my practice, we are limited & dedicated to taking care of patients with TMJ disorders.
If you don't already, be sure to check out my Instagram! My Instagram handle is "the" underscore "tmj" underscore "doc".
Please also follow me on Twitter if you don't already - Tweet Tweet. And my handle there is at PriyaTMJ.
So on Instagram & Twitter I post pretty frequently with tips, trivia, just general information on TMJ Disorders.
and so if you like to nerd out on this stuff like I do, be sure check out my social media accounts!
So let’s get right into it! Which is preferred - nasal breathing or mouth breathing?
The answer is: exclusive nasal breathing - day and night - is far superior to mouth breathing!
So why is nasal breathing so important anyway?
Breathing through our noses and having our lips sealed is important because our noses
have a special system that filters, humidifies, & heats or cools the air (depending on the
outside temperature) before it’s sent to the lungs. The lungs then receive this air and
oxygen with the best efficiency once it’s been filtered, humidified and temperature-regulated
by the nose. After this, the lungs distribute this oxygen optimally throughout our bodies.
Nasal breathing and sleeping with your lips sealed also helps prevent nighttime coughing, dry
mouth, bleeding gums and cavities because the airway and mouth don’t get dried out!
Some people literally CANNOT breathe through their noses - because of a deviated septum,
chronic allergies, or severe swelling causing obstruction of the nasal airway.. so seeing
an ENT - an Ear, Nose, & Throat doctor - to establish nasal patency - the ABILITY to breathe through your nose;
to make sure you have clear and open nasal passages is really important if your unsure about whether you can breathe through your nose.
If you’re mouth breathing, all of the benefits of nasal breathing are bypassed.
The air is NOT filtered, the air is not humidified and the air it’s not temperature regulated.
If the air is not filtered by the nose, then that means more foreign particles can enter the body.
This can lead to more illnesses - which is definitely a concern with what's going in the the world today.
If the air is not humidified, if the air is not temperature-regulated, then the lungs don’t receive it as efficiently as if the
air was humidified, as if it was temperature- regulated. So long story short - our bodies have
to take big gulps of air and breathe really heavily through our mouths just to have the same
oxygen saturation as we would if we were breathing through our noses!
Think of watering a small plant. Now take a garden hose at full spray and try to just
water that plant. It’s kind of a big mess and the water goes everywhere. You need
much more VOLUME of that water to adequately water the small plant... THAT is mouth breathing.
Now take that same garden hose and put a nozzle on it and that water becomes streamlined so you don't
need as much water to adequately water that small plant. THAT is nasal breathing.
All that heavy breathing that mouth-breathers have to do to keep up their oxygen saturation level ends up stressing and fatiguing the body
and mouth-breathers often wake up feeling exhausted because their bodies have been working hard all night.
Many people that have sleep disordered breathing, sleep apnea, and/or are mouth-breathers have been diagnosed with
Fibromyalgia. They've been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. They've been diagnosed with Depression.
And often times it's that their sleep and their breathing while they're sleeping has been overlooked.
By now, I think and hope that you understand the benefits of nasal breathing over mouth-breathing.
So if you are a mouth breather, once you’ve established that you can breathe through your nose -
and this might require a trip to your local ENT who is airway friendly - then the next step would be
to see a MYOFUNCTIONAL therapist - an MFT.
If you’ve been breathing through your mouth, then your tongue has literally been on the floor of your mouth your entire life.
So imagine that - try to breathe through your mouth with your tongue up against the roof of your mouth... you can't do it!
So, breathing through your mouth and low tongue posture - which is not ideal - go hand-in-hand with each other.
So if you've been breathing through your mouth with the tongue on the floor of your mouth for a long time, then you will have to do some work to retrain the muscles of the tongue,
the face and the neck to support nasal breathing and proper tongue posture. This "work" is called Myofunctional Therapy.
It's a type of physical therapy that retrains these muscles to support
proper tongue posture, nasal breathing, lip seal, and correct swallow function.
I explain more about Myofunctional Therapy in my video called “What is Myofunctional Therapy"?
So be sure to check that out if you want more information on this amazing therapy that I've seen benefit so many people!
The VAST majority of my TMJ patients have low tongue posture and are mouth breathers.
Many of them also have sleep apnea, upper airway resistance syndrome, or some sort of sleep disordered breathing.
These issues - the sleep disordered breathing, mouth breathing - make the body work HARDER to keep up oxygen saturation levels.
This hard work stresses and fatigues the body, and stress can induce us to then clench and grind our teeth.
With clenching and grinding being 80-100 x more force than chewing - and sometimes more than that -
this then exhausts the muscles of the head, neck and jaw as well as the Temporomandibular Joints (the TMJs).
This then leads to TMJ Disorders - clicking, popping or crackling noises in the joints, episodes of the jaw actually locking or getting stuck,
headaches, ear pain, jaw pain, neck pain, and more! The connection between mouth breathing, sleep apnea, and
TMJ Disorders is something that I see all the time at my practice. So when I see something repeatedly
it inspires me and encourages me to make videos and get this information out there.
If any of you have small children that are mouth-breathers, that are grinding their teeth, it's worth getting their airway checked out by an airway-friendly pediatric ENT.
These are problems that we can address in children and they're easier to address in children than they are in adults.
You may be able to save your children from a lifetime of TMJ Disorders if you address it early enough and get them in with a Myofunctional Therapist.
My daughter is 4.5 years old and we got her adenoids out at 3 and that changed her sleeping and breathing overnight.
So I've seen this firsthand with my own child. I've seen this with my patients time and again.
So that’s it my friends! If you like what you heard or learned something new, click LIKE below, Subscribe to my channel.
As always, feel free to ask questions or comments in the comment box below and remember, my friends -
you can never have TMI about TMJ! Thank you!