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Comment by callmeal | Hacker News Reader

Looks like it forces you to breathe through your mouth. I remember reading something on here about the harmful effects of doing that on a consistent basis.

Do you find any change in your stamina/capacity when using this device?

see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23962638

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When one is working out sufficiently hard, everyone breathes through their mouth.

Boxers don't. Is that hard enough for you?

You can't train above your ventilatory threshold while nose breathing, and boxers are definitely training above that level of intensity, at least for short burts. Fighting is anaerobic.

> You can't train above your ventilatory threshold while nose breathing

Why? What about this? http://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/IJKSS/article/view...

Conclusion: This study supports the ability of recreational runners to utilize a nasally restricted breathing pattern at all levels of running intensity without loss in VO2max or GXT TE, and with superior PE and VE/VO2, following an extended training period using this practice.

I was a bit flippant, yes sometimes you have to breathe through the mouth but whenever possible one breathes through nose.

Hence the "sufficiently hard" qualification

His comment still does not make sense as a reply. I'll admit my response was poor as well.

Aerobic - with air.

Are you saying boxing is purely aerobic, or that anaerobic includes the word aerobic which means “with air”? I’m not picking up your intention either way. Boxing is a high intensity exercise which would at points be anaerobic.

Just being a little clever. It's both but boxing isn't a street fight, you do have short bursts but you still need to make it 12 rounds or less.

Can you explain what you mean? I’m fairly certain I’ve seen footage of exhausted boxers breathing through their mouths

Not biting down on your mouth piece and having you mouth open is a broken jaw waiting to happen

Ive been boxing for a while now and definitely breathe through my mouth a lot. You cant keep your jaw hanging open when exchanging punches, but you still do a pretty significant amount of breathing through your mouth

I’d love to proves wrong, but the “only breathe through your nose” crowd always seemed a little woo-woo.

It’s understandable to feel that way, particularly since a lot of the formal breathing exercises we know in the west come from yoga practices which are thousands of years old and have all sorts of metaphysics tied up in them. But it doesn’t seem too hard to believe that having a nasal cavity to regulate air temperature, block dust, increase moisture, etc would be beneficial to the lungs.

Here is one somewhat extreme experiment on rats that showed continual mouth breathing had negative cognitive effects [1]. There is also research that has correlated nasal cycle dominance to different cognitive functions [2]. I’m not totally sure about the covid-19 links this paper makes, but it’s interesting to note the sinuses help create nitric oxide and NO plays a wide range of biological roles [3].

Personally, I do pranayama every morning before seated meditation as well as right before bed and find it to have great emotional benefits if nothing else.

[1] https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/josnusd/61/1/61_18-0006...

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8063547/

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7200356/

The COVID-19 link is very plausible btw, inhaled NO has been researched as a COVID-19 therapy. (It just happens that that’s one of the less interesting benefits / effects of nose breathing)

I have to imagine that these days putting some silly link to COVID-19 makes it easier to publish, at least based off the increase of incredibly poor quality papers I’ve seen published : P

I was given "only nasal" as an endurance tip as a child and always understood that simply as a helpful intensity limit guide: if you stick to "noseable" level you won't find yourself completely exhausted any time soon.

It may lack sophistication but it's surely helpful for people who haven't yet learned how to spread out their endurance. But whenever something works in the realm of athletic performance, there'll be a flock of people who make up the wildest theories to explain how it works and misapply it to situations where it's actually completely wrong. So I totally get that "woo-wooh"

My kickboxing teacher just said "breathe like this" and nobody had time to ask questions. I've often found it to be pretty beneficial to have proper breath control. Because breathing in through your nose when exercising hard isn't instinctive, you practice breath control very consciously.

I must admit I'm a little curious what kind of woo-woo could surround proper breathing.

> ... the “only breathe through your nose” crowd always seemed a little woo-woo.

Can highly recommend 'Breath' by James Nestor, for some science-focused, non-woo look at the practice.

(I'm about 3/4 the way through it -- so I can't guarantee woo-free content in last quarter, but based on extrapolation we should be fine. :)

Not quite. Investigate the work of John Mew. ( considered a quack by mainstream, I think, though I personally I find him credible)

I still breathe normally through both the nose and mouth when using it. And the effect is good enough from just warming the (bigger) airflow through the mouth. But it probably stings a bit more in the nose compared to the mask variants.

I don't feel it hampers my breathing at all, really. If anything, it allows me to take full breaths in conditions where that normally would hurt. I got the sports variant.

Note that the difference between air from your nose and mouth is that your nose has hairs and a sinus system that warms and filters air. With a system like the above you essentially are doing the same thing.

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