Who knew that our own breath holds the key to healing our body? When we create a resonance from our breathing we can enhance the healing effect of nitric oxide in the body.
So What is Nitric Oxide?
Nitric oxide is a molecule produced by nearly every type of cell in the human body and one of the most important for blood vessel health. It’s a vasodilator, meaning it relaxes the inner muscles of our blood vessels, causing the vessels to widen. In this way, nitric oxide increases blood flow and lowers blood pressure.
It’s also a molecule that our body produces naturally to help its 50 trillion cells communicate with each other by transmitting signals throughout the entire body.
What Does It Do?
Well apart from the obvious and that’s to keep us alive, it is the sinuses that produce nitric oxide in our bodies. When we focus on our breath and just utilise the nose, our nitric oxide count increases exponentially.
In 1998 the Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to three American scientists for their discovery of nitrogen oxide’s ability to expand blood vessels. This phenomenon is called vasodilation. Nitrogen oxide simply makes the blood vessel walls relax thereby increasing blood flow.
Healing for the Body
Nitric Oxide drives skin repair and is largely responsible for healing wounds and lesions. Therefore it has become critical for study with ageing and diabetes prevalent. Wound healing is an exceedingly complex process, involving a multitude of signaling pathways. In certain disease states such as diabetes and HIV, this delicate balance is disturbed and wound healing is delayed, resulting in non-healing wound sites.
Nitric oxide plays a critical role in the wound-healing process via antimicrobial properties and modulation of platelet function. There have been attempts to apply Nitric Oxide topically with only minor success. The major healing function lies within our own bodies.
Benefits of Nasal Breathing.
There are enormous benefits for naturally increasing our Nitric Oxide intake. The healing effects for skin and body alone, and the increased energy. It has a strong anti bacterial effect and has been shown to kill both bacteria and viruses.
However, people with diabetes in particular, have a reduced ability to produce Nitric Oxide. By using nasal breathing exercises, everyone can increase their intake.
The Science Behind The Breath
In 2002 a research group from Stockholm, Sweden, found that Nitric Oxide is formed and released in human sinuses. They also showed that the Nitric Oxide concentration in the nasal cavity increases as much as 15 times if you make a “buzzing sound”. This is because it creates vibrations that mix air from the sinuses with nasal air.
The study established the importance of breathing through the nose. However, its is also another beautiful example of how easily and cheaply our body can heal. It also demonstrated that breathing through the mouth did not increase the Nitric Oxide in the body.
Are There Any Dangers?
There is no danger in breathing too much. Taking supplements to increase supply can be dangerous but there are some foods that will naturally increase the nitric oxide in the body, including beets, garlic, dark chocolate and meat.
However, breathing through the nose and creating a humming vibration will increase the blood oxygenation 10-15% more, compared to breathing through the mouth.
For a simple and very inexpensive health check, here is how it is done.
