Is dysfunctional breathing ruining
your sleep?
Why the way you breathe could be causing your
insomnia, bad morning breath and annoying night
time trips to the loo!
I don’t know about you, but how little sleep you can
survive on sometimes seems like a competition amongst
individuals that label themselves as ‘successful’ or ‘high
performing’. Boasting that they are so busy and important
they can’t possibly fit in more than 3 or 4 hours sleep at
most as if they are some sort of work warrior.
Work addict
more like. Ever heard the phrase ‘work hard, play harder?’.
I used to be about all the go, go, go and more, more, more
life until I realised it wasn’t actually taking me anywhere
other than a GP surgery due to becoming so energy
deficient that I actually needed medical assistance. And no,
thankfully I personally never got to that point but sadly,
yes, there are individuals who actually have got to the
point of clinical burnout.
Scary right? But not particularly surprising in today’s goal orientated, fast paced society we are
constantly being over stimulated by our, now many, devices
and are often being asked to adhere to impossibly high
standards in terms of performance.
No wonder we can’t
sleep! Not only that, this never-ending hamster wheel is
causing a lot of us to ‘over breathe’; to breathe in excess of
our metabolic requirements, which can cause a whole host
of problems to your physical and mental health.
We
breathe all the same, around 25,000 times per day in fact,
and so OBVIOUSLY the way we breathe effects every single
area of our lives including, you guessed it, the quality of
YOUR SLEEP.
Our quality of sleep is just not what it used to be, back in
the good old days before phones and social media, not to
mention a year of intermittent lockdowns.
A 2020 article in
the Guardian :titled; ‘Coronavirus lockdown caused sharp
increase of insomnia in UK’ revealed some crazy stats on
the mailer.
The overall incidence of worry-related sleep loss rose from
15.7% to 24.7%. But that 9% increase nationally masked
much bigger spikes in certain groups, partcularly mothers
of young children. For example, while the number of men
experiencing poor sleep rose from 11.9% to 16.5%, the
increase among women was much more pronounced – it
shot up from 18.9% to 31.8%. Sleeplessness doubled from
19.5% to 40% among mothers of children aged 0 to 4 and
rose almost as dramatically – from 21.7% to 38% – for
those with children aged 5 to 18.1
They go on to name Insomnia as one of Britain’s biggest
health problems, affecting millions of people in normal times and often caused by stress, anxiety or depression, as
well as often being linked to an underlying mental or
physical health problem.
So what’s all this got to do with your breathing?
Well, most likely, the way you breathe during wakefulness
is generally how you’re most likely to breathe during sleep.
If your breathing is dysfunctional when you’re awake, it will
be dysfunctional as you sleep puFng you at much higher
risk of obstructive sleep apnea, snoring, bad morning
breath and insomnia, but more on that later.
A lot of us, without realising, have become habitual mouth
breathers leading to a continuous stream of short, shallow
breaths residing mostly in the upper chest, also known as
dysfunctional breathing. Of course, mouth breathing is
occasionally necessary when we’re exercising intensely,
under threat, or have a cold or sinus infection, but it’s only
ever meant to be occasional not habitual.
Essentially, when
we mouth breathe, we over breathe, expelling too much
carbon dioxide, which actually reduces the amount of
oxygen released from the haemoglobin to the tissues and
organs. Yep, that’s right, carbon dioxide is actually the
catalyst for the release of oxygen from the haemoglobin,
you need it!
Sleep is supposed to be a time to repair fatigued muscles
and restore the bodies energy levels for the following day,
not to mention a chance to give your already over
stimulated brain some down time. However, overbreathing
through an open mouth during sleep causes
carbon dioxide levels and blood oxygen levels to drop,
triggering the brain into a fight or flight response through
the influence of adrenalin and cortisol release it the
body in a state of stress.
Not the ideal recipe for a good
nights beauty sleep! The posh science name for this
stressful sleep state is hyper-arousal and is characterised in
part by chronic sympathetic hyper activation and/or
parasympathetic hypo activation which disrupts normal
sleep onset latency, sleep quality, and sleep duration.
SNORING.
We all know someone that snores and my heart goes out
to anyone who has to sleep next to a snorer. Snoring is now
SO common it’s actually been normalised among the
western population. I have some bad news for you guys.
It’s not normal. Humans should not snore.
Sleeping with your mouth open aggravates snoring in
numerous ways. The main culprits being;
The airway is
narrowed. An open mouth causes your throat to compress
as your tongue falls further back into your airway and the
open space behind your tongue and soft palate is reduced.
Inhaled air becomes turbulent. Directly inhaled air vibrates
the soft tissues at the back of your mouth
The airway dries out. This is because mouth breathing
doesn’t humidify incoming air like nasal breathing does.
You are more susceptible to breathing in harmful things.
Unlike nasal breathing, mouth breathing doesn’t trap
allergens and bugs which can in turn worsen your
snoring.
2
BAD BREATH.
In addition to disrupting your sleep, and anyone within the
next few rooms sleep, you may also have mouth breathing
to thank for your stinky morning breath. Mouth breathing
can be a cause of bad breath due to altered bacteria flora
and a disturbance to the PH in our mouths. According to
Michigan medicine, a major cause is decreased saliva.
Saliva has a cleaning action that helps reduce or eliminate
bad breath. When saliva decreases, bacteria can grow,
causing bad breath.
3
OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA
Mouth breathing at night also puts you at much higher risk
of developing obstruc:ve sleep apnea. A serious condi:on
that, left untreated, can be fatal. Obstructive sleep apnea
occurs when the muscles that support the soft tissues in
your throat, such as your tongue and soft palate,
temporarily relax. When these muscles relax, your airway is
narrowed or closed causing airway obstruction as your
tongue falls further back into your airway, and breathing
momentarily ceases causing apnea.
FREQUENT PEEING
Believe it or not, it’s actually not normal to get up to pee
more than once in the night and ideally you wouldn’t get
up at all. The question is, what is actually causing our
sleepy toilet trips? The posh science term here being,
Nocturia.
Brandon R. Peters, M.D. from the Stanford centre for sleep
sciences and medicine explains;
The body normally releases anti-diuretic hormone (ADH) in
sleep to prevent needing to wake to urinate. It works to
shut down the kidneys, preventing movement of fluids
from the blood vessels to the bladder. The bladder is like a
storage balloon, and there is no need to wake to empty it if
the fluid isn’t there to start. No matter how well or poorly
the bladder may function, or whether an enlarged prostate
obstructs or not, without urine filling the bladder from
overac:ve kidneys, these other issues should not ma2er.
Research and clinical experience demonstrates that sleep
apnea changes the release of ADH (4).
More severe sleep
apnea may lead to pulmonary hypertension and right-sided
heart failure. The body responds to this strain by stopping
the release of ADH, which causes more urine to be
produced, filling the bladder and triggering awakenings to
pee during sleep. Peters goes on to describe a treatment called CPAP,
whereby a constant flow of air is delivered through a face
mask that keeps the airway open and prevents the
associated changes and describes sleep apnea as the most
overlooked cause of nighFme urina:on.
If you’re freaking out right now because you know you
habitually breathe through your mouth, never fear.
The
solution is simple, easy and, unlike most medical solutions,
will cost you less than your oat milk flat white from
Starbucks.
Revolutionising your sleep costs you less than this cup of
coffee….just saying.
Mouth taping can come across as some kinky millennial
craze on first glance, but it’s actually a simple, effec:ve tool
that has the power to revolutionise your sleep (regardless
of your sexual quirks )
Mouth taping involves placing a small piece of adhesive
tape to gently bring the lips together to ensure nasal
breathing whilst sleeping, think of it like a tiny moustache
moved down an inch or two.
If the tape doesn’t take your
fancy, plenty of companies are now offering alternatives.
Somnifix for example; SomniFix strips are hypoallergenic,
can be painlessly removed without leaving a sticky residue,
and have a small mesh vent to allow limited mouth
breathing if necessary.
Myotape is also a reputable
company for mouth taping.
However you wish to tape up, mouth taping has been
shown to allow for deeper, more comfortable sleep,
enhanced filtra:on, elimination of dry mouth, improved
blood oxygen satura:on, enhanced nitric oxide inhala:on
(a “mighty molecule” that helps to expand blood vessels
and lower blood pressure) as well as reducing and often eliminating snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.
I suffered with an excessively dry mouth in the mornings
up until about a year ago. From the first night I taped my
mouth I noticed an enormous difference in my energy
levels, mouth moisture and muscle recovery! It was as if I
had experienced a good night’s sleep for the first :me in
my adult life and it was oh so simple.
In addition to ensuring nasal breathing at night, making the
switch as often as possible during the day is going to make
your life a whole lot easier in terms of energy levels, your
ability to focus, your digestion, your mental health, your
fitness levels and your ability to cope with stress.
The key here is AWARENESS.
First, you need to figure out how you habitually breathe
during rest and physical exercise then, you can start to
implement nasal breathing as much as possible throughout
your day. As a bonus, you’ll find that taking a moment, a
few times per day, to simply become aware of your
breathing will have a wonderfully calming and balancing
effect, allowing you to effortlessly transition through the
different segments of your day.
Take it steady; changing the
way you breathe is a journey, so take your time and be
patient.
If you really want to optimise your health and wellbeing,
why not see if you can breathe slow and low every :me
you check in with your breathing? Breathing lighter
optimises your breathing efficiency, balances the nervous
system and increases resilience in times of stress.
For more breathing tips and guided breathing videos check out my Breathe with
Georgie here above or visit my channel on You Tube where you’ll find an array of breathing exercises for
increased motivation, calm and balance.
Bibliography: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/02/coronavirus-lockdown-increase-insomniauk-
sleep-mothers
2.https://www.snorelab.com/open-mouth-snoring/
3.https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/sig258649spec
4.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/you-may-be-getting-up-to-pee-at-night-because-of-sleepapnea_
b_7206750