Patrick McKeown is one of the top teachers of the Buteyko method — a breathing method named after the Russian physician who developed it. McKeown has been teaching the Buteyko Breathing Method full-time in his native Ireland and abroad for over a dozen years.

As he notes in the featured TED Talk, breathing is typically an ignored topic when it comes to health, yet breathing properly can improve oxygenation through your body, including your brain, and is a powerful strategy for relieving stress and anxiety.

Two of the most common breathing problems are over-breathing and mouth breathing, both of which have adverse health consequences.

Mouth breathing even alters your facial structure, causing your facial features to narrow and droop downward. Narrow and set back jaws increase the risk of developing lifelong obstructive sleep apnea.¹

In the video below, McKeown reviews the many problems associated with mouth breathing specifically, and the importance of addressing mouth breathing early in childhood, as it can have lifelong repercussions.

Nose Breathing Is Key for Good Health and Stress Management

Most people will tell you to take a deep breath to calm yourself down. However, this strategy can actually have the opposite effect.

When you’re stressed, your breath becomes faster, deeper, noisier, you breathe more often through your mouth and you tend to breathe with your upper chest rather than your diaphragm.

As noted by McKeown, it simply doesn’t make sense to amplifyyour current breathing pattern if you want to bring yourself from a state of stress to a state of calm. To induce calm, you need to breathe slowly, using the diaphragm. You also want to breathe less, and breathing through your nose is key.

Your nose actually directs 30 different functions in your body. Nerves in your nasal passages (which connect to your hypothalamus) sense everything about your breathing and use that information to regulate your bodily functions.