Stress/anxiety/panic disorder

Stress/anxiety/panic disorder - I believe this is one of the main contributing factors to mouth breathing right now, when we're stressed the brain believes we're in danger, as a result we breathe faster, harder and shallower. In other words 'hyperventilating’, this doesn't mean you have to be breathless, it simply means breathing more than you need, 'over-breathing’.

Over time continuous stress/anxiety/panic disorder will begin to set in the habit of prioritising the mouth to breathe, and before you know it, you're breathing this way day and night!! I come across people all the time who don't actually notice how they breathe, and have no idea that it should be through the nose.

Please stay positive if you're a mouth breather, all is not lost, far from it. If there are no physical reasons that are causing obstruction to nose breathing you can train yourself to go back to functional breathing. Even if there are physical reasons there's still a lot you can do.

I'm a certified Buteyko Functional Breathing practitioner, l can support you using a selection of exercises and lifestyle actions to reintroduce your nose to it's other main function.

What is also very important to recognise here is the cause of your stress/anxiety/panic disorder? One factor for sure is the way you're breathing, the crazy thing is it becomes a vicious cycle! The more you over breathe the more stressed your brain feels and reacts with more over breathing, this over-breathing feeds back into the emotional and physical reaction until something changes.

Life can be more manageable when your breathing is through the nose so it’s functional and calm, the brain can then process and react with better emotional balance and positive energy rather than over react because it feels safe when we’re calmly nose breathing.

Think about sleep here too, if your breathing is dysfunctional most likely it's the same during sleep too, meaning disturbed sleep, exhaustion, poor focus, mood swings and many other consequences. What does this do? It feeds into the vicious cycle of stress, exhaustion, anxiety which in turn leads to over breathing using the mouth leading to poor sleep! 🌱