Risks of mouth breathing
Why mouth breathing is not natural
When breathing through the mouth, the air enters the lungs unfiltered, unheated, and unmoisturized. All of which can have detrimental effects on the health of the lungs and sinuses, leading to different various infections and illnesses. When we breathe through our mouths, we bypass all the functions the nose is designed to fulfil naturally.
Mouth breathing and dental health
Long-term mouth breathing dries out the saliva, which is the mouth’s natural cleansing mechanism to clear the mouth of harmful bacteria. This is a concern because, in addition to giving you a cottonmouth and bad breath, it can eventually lead to gum disease and tooth damage.
Mouth breathing in children
Children who frequently mouth breathe, run the risk of developing a dysfunctional jaw joint and narrowing of the jaw, dental arch, and palate, which can result in crooked teeth or an open bite (malocclusion). If severe enough, future orthodontic corrections might relapse. Additionally, mouth breathing greatly affects cognitive ability and health, as mouth breathing children perform less well in school than those who breathe naturally.
Relationship between asthma and mouth breathing
Mouth breathing could aggravate asthma, especially exercised-induced asthma. On the contrary, a study showed that when young asthma sufferers breathed through their noses, they had virtually no exercise-induced asthma symptoms.
Mouth breathing during sleep
When we sleep, mouth breathing can have the most detrimental effect. When you breathe through your mouth, your nervous system remains more active, and we retain higher levels of adrenaline, preventing you from entering into a deep sleep state and thus fully recovering for the next day. Besides that, mouth breathing can result in snoring or worse sleep disorders like sleep apnea—involuntary pauses in breathing during sleep.
Prolonged sleep deprivation impairs not only the immune system, but proper oxygenation of the blood, and cardiovascular health. Besides that, it increases the risk of diabetes, weight gain, and a low sex drive.
The mouth breather and mental health
Overall, mood and stress levels are highly influenced by the breath. When we breathe through our mouths, we tend to breathe faster and shallower which can cause a stress reaction and eventually lead to chronic hyperventilation, overbreathing, anxiety, or even depression. It’s crucial to keep in mind that this is reciprocal; tension or anxiety can also lead to (more) mouth breathing, which in turns leads to more anxiety, starting a vicious cycle.
“It appears that the connection between breathing and emotions is a reciprocative relationship, in which changes to one leads to corresponding changes in the other.” (Ley, 1994).
Mouth breathing can have an adverse effect on your mental health in ways you would not have imagined before reading this. This is in addition to a negative effect on physical health, breathlessness, and sleep disorders.
With a deliberate effort to begin nasal breathing, all of these can be prevented and reversed. Lastly, we may agree that mouth breathing isn’t very attractive.