> Naturally we breath out of one nostril at a time
I don't understand how anyone can make that statement with a straight face. Unless one nostril is blocked, we use both simultaneously. There's no balance to be gamed.
I don't understand how anyone can make that statement with a straight face. Unless one nostril is blocked, we use both simultaneously. There's no balance to be gamed.
There is a little bit of airflow in the constricted nostril, but nowhere near comparable to the other. You can test this by covering up your nostrils individually and comparing how easy it is to breathe through them. Then wait a half hour and try it again. (Note that a minority of people do not have this.)
However, this is not something you can consciously control or override, any more than you can override contractions in your intestine.
One of my yoga teachers has us find the one that is currently dominant in the cycle before we practice nadi shodhana pranayama, and then select the starting nostril based on that.
I'm probably one of them then, because I've tested this on and off for years whenever someone makes the claim, and it's never true for me.
It's just really annoying how many people say with absolute certainty that everyone does it.
If you do not have this behaviour (which can disappear with certain neurological diseases or just idiopathically not exist) you also likely have a reduced sense of smell.
I wonder if I'm unusual in that I can consciously control which nostril is open or closed. Most of the time the switching from side to side is unconscious but if I concentrate, I can cause it to happen consciously. This is really useful when I have a cold and a blocked nostril and I want to get some relief when blowing my nose doesn't help - I just focus on allowing that side of my sinuses to open and after a few minutes it will happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_cycle
https://www.rhinologyonline.org/Rhinology_online_issues/2018...
It never even occurred to me that people would experience something like that _all the time_!
That's my point - you probably never thought it was any other way, and I never thought it was any other way, and we're both just like "wait, what? you LIVE like that?" That fascinates me! I think the last time I experienced this was the blue/black white/gold dress thing or when I first found out some people wipe standing up and some people wipe sitting down and everyone is shocked when they find this out for the first time.
What solved it? A trick that an old doctor told me to do. With one hand hold with thumb on the soft palate and another finger (index or ring) on the forehead where the nose meets the forehead in a grip. Then jiggle the grip. The skull is made out of bones that are not fully connected so a jiggle does move the bones around and releases differential pressure in sinuses. That fixed me
We want to try this thing but want to make sure we’re trying it correctly. Have you encountered a more thorough explanation of this technique, preferably in a video?
https://invisiverse.wonderhowto.com/how-to/clear-your-stuffy...
I need to clarify that i did not have a sinus infection though, i had a persisting rhinitis for which doctors could not provide anything else but prescribe over the nose drops or flonaise
"The Ultradian Rhythm of Alternating Cerebral Hemispheric Activity" https://doi.org/10.3109/00207459309000583
"Effect of uninostril yoga breathing on brain hemodynamics: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study" https://dx.doi.org/10.4103%2F0973-6131.171711
"Selective Unilateral Autonomic Activation: Implications for Psychiatry" https://doi.org/10.1017/S1092852900021428
My takeaway: The nervous system is super complicated and has various rhythms. For example the circadian rhythm makes you sleepy at night and alert during the day. There are a bunch of other rhythms that are not yet well studied. The nervous system alternates activity in left and right sides of the body on a rhythm of about 1.5 hours. The nasal cycle is part of this rhythm. One can influence this rhythm by forcing the body to breathe through one nostril.
"Klein, Pilon, Prosser, and Shannahoff-Khalsa (1986) assessed cognitive perfor- mance during different phases of the nasal cycle. They observed significant rela- tionships between the pattern of nasal airflow and spatial and verbal performance. Right nostril dominance correlated with enhanced verbal performance, or left brain activity, and left nostril dominance correlated with enhanced spatial performance, again indicating that the hemispheres alternate with the phases of the nasal cycle."
"Leconte and Lambert (1988) demonstrated that subjects who undergo a test of immediate memory every 25 min with two modalities (semantic and graphic) present a fluctuation in performance with a periodicity of about 100min. The two modalities were in opposite phase."
If breathing can reduce emotional problems for some people, then we could possibly predict this effect by measuring peoples' nasal cycles and hemisphere EEG rhythms. I imagine a typical doctors visit would start out with: 1) filling out the questionnaire, 2) measuring weight, temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure, and then 3) wearing the EEG helmet with nostril sensors for a minute.
The key part is your sinus cavity slightly closes one nostril creating a differential air flow. This difference allows us to figure out the direction the smell via the difference in intensity between nostrils which our brain uses to sense direction.
I believe the reason your body does this is to allow your olfactory system to pick up a greater range of smells: Some chemicals are easier to pick up when the air is traveling slower.
What is totally confusing is what causes the flip from one nostril to another. I have no idea what the mechanism is.
It's actually very easy to switch it. You can lean to towards the side (think yoga triangle pose) that has the open nostril.
You can place pressure in the corresponding armpit for the same effect.
Medidation, concentration, certain ways of breathing will all also affect the flow.
I'm sure you can determnine the various other physical ways, based on these, to swap nostrils.
It's very obvious when I have a cold. I often have one fully-plugged nostril and one not, which also shifts back and forth seemingly randomly.
I think what I'm describing is actually the norm but I haven't exactly surveyed the population.