How to free stuffy nose

The importance of breathing freely

Correct breathing (read Correct breathing) is beneficial in any type of physical activity but when we talk about martial arts (as we already had occasion to say) it is even indispensable.

To have the right level of control over our breathing helps us to:

For a practitioner (especially at the beginning of training) the fact of not being able to freely breathe in and out is a rather debilitating.

In this regard we want to talk about a simple “trick” to quickly free up the airways when they are occluded by mucus.

A note by Master Kongling – It must be said that, this happens very rarely if you train every day, in fact if executed with intention, the warrior’s breathing (read Breathe Yoga: the warrior’s breathing) do not allow anything to obstruct our airways.

How to immediately free the nose: a small trick

Note – As always, read the entire sequence before executing it.

Let’s see in a few steps the Buteyko method to rid the nose and immediately return to breathe regularly:

  • First, let’s sit down in a comfortable position
  • Let’s close our mouth (and let’s keep it closed until the end of the practice)
  • Let’s do some free stabilization breathing with the nose (2-3 inhalations and expirations)
  • Once we have stabilized our breathing, let’s begin to exhale (the mouth is always closed)
  • After 1-2 seconds of exhalation let’s close our nose with our fingers (index and thumb)
  • Maintaining mouth and nose closed, let’s bend our head forward (untili it is almost parallel to the ground)
  • Still holding breath, let’s start to shake our head to the right / left and upward / downward
  • Let’s vigorously shake our head until we start to feel we need to breathe (let’s do not exaggerate with the apnea)
  • Now let’s breathe in and out deeply, through our nose only (always keeping our mouth closed)
  • We have to perform a few more breaths with decreasing intensity
  • If the nose is free we have finished, let’s open our mouth
  • If our nose is still partially closed let’s repeat the exercise (no more than 3 times in a row)

Final notes

A few conclusive details:

  • Indicatively, the total duration of a full liberation cycle should be around 40-60 seconds
  • Again, this is not a resistance exercise, to avoid dizziness we do not have to force us (with too long apneas or too fast breathing)
  • It ‘s obvious that this practice does not prevent the mucus to reform and re-fill our nostrils at a later time (but when our workout is already started it will be no more a problem)
  • The positive effect of this technique is caused by the increase of endogenous carbon dioxide
  • This russian method has not only this purpose but also it is indicated as a breathing reeducation (to avoid, for example, to go in hyperventilation)

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Reply in the comments and share your experience:

  • Does the Buteyko method work for you?

Author: Master Kongling

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