Proper breathing during exercise is important for you

Can you be found in the gym regularly? Do you take part in boot camp fanatically? Do you run? Or do you want to move (around) more? Your breathing will play a more prominent role than if you hardly or don’t move. You’ll notice that the way of breathing affects your performance and, of course, the other way around. In addition, a good breathing technique also has a positive impact on oral health. How exactly and what a good breathing technique is during exercise, you can read below.

Rapid breathing: unnecessary use of energy

In each and every state of mind, a certain breathing pattern is required. In rest you take a breath five-to-eight times a minute. When your effort increases, you easily take twenty-five breaths per minute. A lot of people breathe too fast in rest, however. The result of this is that your body uses unnecessary extra energy. When your body is going to make an effort, the respiration rate increases and so, you’ll start to pant soon. Preferably you’d like to postpone this so that you’ve longer for intense exercise. Why we pant during exercising and how it works with your energy, I’ll explain below.

How to limit panting during exercise

When you’re moving your body needs more oxygen. The amount of air you breathe during your effort is accurately aligned with the amount of oxygen that the active muscles need. After all, the muscles burn carbohydrates and fats to free energy. This energy is used to contract the muscle so you can move. When the muscles have to contract faster and more powerful, as with intensive exercising, they also need more oxygen to burn more fuel. Your heart rhythm increases because the heart needs to pump more oxygen through your blood into your body. This also automatically makes your breathing faster. The more you exercise, the more efficient this process will run for your heart. Long term this means that you’ll pant less and can move more intensely.

Breath through your nose as much as possible

It’s clear that the way of breathing is important for your energy level. Both in rest and in an active state. In addition, the way in which you breathe through the nose or mouth, also plays an important role for the state and condition of your teeth. Even for the shape of your face and your body posture.

The best way to breathe is through the nose. In our nose there are tiny hairs (cilia) that take/keep dirt particles from the air. Smaller pollutants and viruses are captured and enclosed by the mucous membrane and transported to the stomach. It’s also true that you inherently less breathe less quickly through your nose. So in the end, this is more beneficial for your energy level.

The correlation between exercise and caries

If you mainly breathe through the mouth, than this may have an affect. The saliva reduces, which can lead to a dry mouth. A dry mouth decreases the pH of your saliva and so increases the risk of dental caries. In children, it can even lead to crooked teeth and deformities of the jaws.

Breathing wrong can have serious consequences

Adults and children continually breathe through their mouth, push down their tongue to make the air flow to the lungs easily. This causes a developmental disorder of the jaw and a deformity of the face in general. Especially in children, this is a problem, since their face is still in development. Sixty per cent of the facial growth takes place in the first four years of life and 90% of it is its formation until the child reaches the age of twelve. The lower jaw is fully developed at age 18. If in this life phase a wrong breathing technique isn’t corrected, it’s decisive for the rest of life and virtually irreversible.

In addition, continually breathing through the mouth can lead to changes in body posture. An open mouth can tilt your head forward, which eventually causes a stooped posture. The main breathing muscle, the diaphragm, then becomes inactive. The breathing is then regulated by the muscles of the neck, breast and shoulders. Which thereby become overloaded and thus pain symptoms can occur.