April 15 marks Patriots Day in Boston and the 128th Boston Marathon. See how runners are gearing up. There aren't many things one can say that will offend me.
Playing high school football and then spending most of my adult life around the journalism industry has ensured that I've heard and endured just about every insult one can imagine. But when I hear the term "mouth breather" get thrown out there, I usually do two things: Make sure my mouth is closed, and then clench my teeth inside that closed mouth. I think we all spend some time breathing through our mouths each day, but some of us are more susceptible to "sucking wind" than others.
I catch myself all the time. Whether I'm working hard or just sighing thinking of some random stupid thing I said when I was 11, I have to remind myself to close my mouth. Prolonged mouth breathing can cause a myriad of problems, including but not limited to poor sleep, bad breath, gum disease, early aging, high blood pressure and facial deformities.
Tackling this issue can take months, if not years, of self-awareness and constant self-correcting before nasal breathing feels natural. But once you master breathing through the nose, you're on the right path for improved jaw growth, muscle tone, posture and even oxygen intake. One way to practice and improve nasal breathing is to implement it while running, an exercise that seemingly requires us to operate with mouths wide open.
A well-seasoned nasal-breathing runner will see a reduction in the.
