Nose vs Mouth Inhale Case Study
Nose Vs Mouth Case Study with Direct and Documented Feedback from Breathers
Note: this is not to “push up against” mouth-inhale Breathwork but is to to boldly speak to this point: Every single person is different in their needs and ultimately Breathwork should be nervous system-led, along with the facilitator taking in the unique psycho-emotional compositions of every single breather. There should not be a ”cookie cutter” or aggressive mouth-inhale approach given to every person. This kind of invasiveness must stop. It is harmful, even if unintentional.
Part of my (Kaya Leigh’s) soul dharma exists in challenging the "status quo" if that SQ is not serving the whole... I wholeheartedly embrace this mission as I continue to compile a decade of research and real-time tracking on why mouth-inhale breathwork does not support all nervous systems.
It is one thing to activate the SNS (sympathetic nervous system) and work with mouth-inhale formats if a breather has already attained nervous system regulation (or are naturally regulated), however to push aggressive mouth-inhale formats on every individual with zero due diligence/no awareness of the general state of their nervous system (i.e. if they are in dysregualtion or not/what their deeper psycho-emotional composition is/if they are able to safely meet repressed emotions in a SNS response/etc) is causing much harm in the circular breathwork world.
To offer a mouth-inhale approach in mass without consulting with the nervous system of the breather is both unethical and irresponsible in my eyes, creating further fracturing, non-safety, and body armoring, and, at times, even further traumatization to the breather.
We must understand that breathwork is big, life-changing work and hold its magnitude. Because of this knowing, our Academy remains a trailblazer of ethical, trauma-informed and responsible space-holding, and this includes the inhale method. We have heard far too many stories to count within the Breathwork community of breathwork being held in an irresponsible and/or non-informed way, and so it has become our FOREMOST INTENTION to set an unwavering community standard of impeccability and somatic safety when guiding this work. We hope that you will join us!
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Let us now begin with a recap of why we promote the nose over the mouth, as found in our Nose: The Intelligent Path of Breath Blog…
According to a wealth of information, both ancient and modern, we should ALMOST NEVER be breathing into our mouths, not even in Breathwork Journeying. It could be argued that short bursts of mouth breath, for example in kundalini yoga that is under 5 minutes, does not cause any lasting harm. Anything beyond this, however, has significant consequences.
Simply put: Our bodies were intelligently designed to breathe through the nose, not the mouth. It’s even been said that breathing through your mouth is about as practical as trying to eat through your nose!
Breathing in and out through the nose helps us take fuller, deeper breaths, which stimulates the lower lung to distribute greater amounts of oxygen throughout the body. Also, the lower lung is rich with the parasympathetic nerve receptors associated with calming the body and mind, whereas the upper lungs — which are stimulated by chest and mouth breathing — prompt us to hyperventilate and trigger sympathetic nerve receptors, which result in the fight or flight stress response.
Once the parasympathetic nervous system turns on, cortisol levels decline and the parasympathetic receptors slow the stress response by releasing hormones that relax the mind and body while inhibiting, or subduing, many of the high energy functions of the body. It produces a visceral feeling of calmness and relaxation within which [during breathwork] is key for meeting and releasing un-met trauma, repressed emotions, core blockages and energetic distortions. Through our breath, we can learn to trigger this parasympathetic response to immediately reduce any sense of anxiousness or stress in the body. This response also helps to lift our mood, strengthen our immune system, and reduce blood pressure in the moment. Conversely, the fight or flight response releases stress hormones and can cause long term oxidative stress in the body. It can additionally create “stimulant” effects, akin to a short-term high, but this not support the long-term picture of embodied healing and somatic unwinding.
What this means is that when the body feels safe (through the parasympathetic response) it will be more receptive, relaxed and congruent with the breath journey. When the body doesn’t feel safe (through the sympathetic response), it will further contract, armor and shut down. It is, in essence, like adding fuel to the fire. It’s that simple. A heightened stress response induced through a mouth-inhalation breathwork journey additionally holds the potential to re-traumatize and further dysregulate the breather. This is why we fundamentally disagree with mouth-inhale breathwork unless the breather is advanced in the practice and fully regulated from a nervous system perspective. (Most are not)
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Below you will find a case study of comparative feedback from breathers that have experienced both methods.
TESTIMONIALS AND FEEDBACK
“What I notice with the mouth-inhale breathing, is that there is definitely more intensity and feeling of “lack of control”, hyper alertness/unsteadiness in myself, lack of trust in how intense the journey is going to get, dry mouth, my energy moves upward into my chest and head, dissociation type feeling, and some fear of what's going to happen “to” me.
Conversely, in nose-inhale journeys, I notice I'm definitely more in my body, my whole body feels like it's breathing, I feel an ease and naturalness in my flowing breath even though it takes work to stay consistent with the technique, I feel more present to my experience and feel a greater sense of choice and safety when entering into catharsis.”
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“I can barely manage 5 minutes of mouth inhale without my nervous system going into major panic.”
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“I participated in a mouth-inhale session as an experiment after taking the SBA Training just to be able to compare the methods. So I decided to say yes to a short 30-min mouth inhale journey with a local facilitator just out of curiosity because I always like to determine things for myself. So here we go! To be completely honest, it was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. On top, the facilitator did not know how to hold space and was not attuned to the group. Not only was body completely tense and cramped up afterwards from the mouth approach, but it was in such a state of shock that I couldn’t move or get up afterwards. I needed to continue to lie down for at least a half hour longer. I even had to have another healer support me in rebalancing my energy the next day from this because it threw me off in a big way. This experience has given me so much GRATITUDE for the Sacred Breath Method and the way we do things here at this Academy- truly a whole new level of appreciation. I am so glad for what I learned here and will not be doing an open mouth breathwork again- it simply does not work for my system, and for good reason!
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“I was using mouth-inhales in breathwork and kundalini yoga prior to the SBA Training and prior to reading ‘Breath’ by James Nestor. After educating myself more and engaging specific somatic practices of inquiry, I learned how to drop into how my body was actually feeling and what I uncovered is that my body is massively resistant to mouth-inhales. I have experimented since and actually tried to do a mouth-inhale journey with a breathwork school who I used to breathe with (just for variety), and I can feel at which point my sympathetic nervous system activates, I soon go into a freeze response and can no longer access emotional content beyond this point. Along with the new understanding about nose vs mouth, I feel like now my body now knows what true safety feels like in this practice, and it simply won't be pushed through a sympathetic-activating journey like it was before.
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“I have about 3 years experience with ceremonies and individual sessions with mouth breathing. Since finding SBA and reading “Breath” by James Nestor, I have been substituting nose breathing for mouth breathing at the ceremonies that I attend locally here in Michigan.
The biggest differences I have noticed in myself are that I am way less dry in my mouth and nasal passages, but with mouth breathing I could barely make it through without feeling parched and needing water, which takes me out of the experience. And as SBA describes in the course modules, I feel a much deeper sense of embodiment, safety and relaxation instead of the high or feeling of “out of body” dissociation I would often get with mouth breathing.”
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“My prior breathwork trainings were using mouth-inhalation. I feel that I went deeper much quicker, which felt abrupt if I wasn't in a space that was ready for it; or at times it was a harsh integration. I was also very distracted by dry mouth, dry lips which would pull me out. I find the nose cycle to be less aggressive but one I have to work harder to get to mentally. I appreciate the awareness of coming up against my edges and making the decision to soften. If I were to summarize a comparison: It's as if mouth cycle breathing pulls you underwater, where nose cycling is a gradual conscious descent. I'm also far more aware of my body in nose-inhalation breathing. For integration, nose-inhalation breathing seems to allow more to bubble up over a duration of time, where mouth was pretty instant and sometimes scary or overwhelming.”
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“I've had around 12 journeys using mouth-inhalation. Within minutes, I was in a "high state"/deep state. The first journey (1 teacher & 45 people at a festival) was way too much for me. I felt very detached from myself and couldn't really land back on earth. After some months I re-started breathwork.
The nose-inhalation feels more gentle— I am more with my body than out of it. Nose-inhalation is for me an approach of unwinding and let-go(ddess). I trust that I go as deep as I am ready. After the journeys now, I feel very much with me, I am very much aware of myself and feel grounded. In retrospect, mouth-inhalation is for me a more aggressive, forceful technique.”
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“The principal reason I am doing breathwork is because it has had a transformational effect on my IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) symptoms. Most of my journeys have been through the nose. However, I recently went to a mouth-based group session. The session triggered my symptoms because of the stress state it brought me into (serious and not fun). Whether this was because of the technique, or due to the fact there were several facilitators who we hadn’t been introduced to, prodding me in different places, I don’t know.
I have only just begun my breathwork journey, but my initial feelings are that for clients who have experienced severe and sustained trauma and suffer from a stress-related illness that is related to that trauma, breathworkers have to be very careful not to trigger that trauma and therefore the symptoms. It seems like a fine line... A fine line that the nose, seems more likely to stay on the right side of.”
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“I have experienced 1 mouth-inhale breathwork journey and that experience ended up being the whole reason I chose Sacred Breath Acadamy to do my training with.
My experience with mouth-inhale journeying created a big physical stress response in my body. I went way too deep too fast and that activated my “fight, flight, freeze” response and my body completely tensed up and froze. I couldn't move, I couldn't talk (hands clawed, jaw tensed). It felt very disorientating and scary. (Please also note that the facilitator didn't explain anything about the possible sensations/feelings/outcomes).
Using the nose-inhale and longer journeys with intentional and safe increase of oxygen levels through Sacred Breath Academy, I have felt my body ease into the journeys more softly. I still experience tetany sometimes, but now that I understand it and meet it from a rest+restore response, I can connect to it in softness and with compassion.”
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”For me the nose-inhale approach has made a huge difference in finding full relaxation and a nurturing space, while still meeting myself deeply.”
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“Before starting the facilitator training with SBA, I had done a lot of open-mouth breathwork and thought that was just the “way it was”. I was skeptical of nose-inhale breathwork journeys because I didn't think you could go as deep, but I was definitely wrong. While the technique took longer to master (I had issues with my nose closing up during journeys and not being able to breathe deeply through my nose at first due to sinus blockages), where I noticed the difference was in the integration.
Open-mouth breathing for me was super intense, and it would take me a couple of days to recover. I would describe it as an elastic band that takes you super high and deep, but the rebound effect after is a lot of contraction. However, this was what I thought 'healing' was because I had experienced similar feelings when doing neo-tantric practices and emotional release.
Nose-inhalation on the other hand, was still so deep and profound, but way more gentle and nurturing. There was less of a rebound, and I felt I could sustain the changes a lot more easily. Overall, I'm a convert to the nose-inhale method because it meets people where they are somatically.
Prior to doing breathwork I had done a lot of emotional release work both with myself and supporting others, so I knew how to support myself, but people who are new don't always know how to do this, and so nose-inhale is a lot easier and safer to integrate back in.”
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“After doing many nose-inhale journeys, it definitely feels more appropriate and even though the work is still work, it is physically more comfortable and I have really loved my journeys. I think the mouth breathing might move you faster into the altered state, but it is worth the extra time to really feel into the journey. Also, the after care and coming back slowly in contemplation as we do through SBA is critical, I feel like the ones I did in mouth breathing we ended and much of my realizations were afterward and I felt disconnected.”
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“I would say that the mouth-inhale left me feeling confused and detached from what was evolving. It left me wanting more answers and no idea how to integrate. This may have also been due to the space and no one supporting or fully guiding the journey. Although I did get to a place of calm, there was no context to the healing, if there was any that took place at that time.
With the nose-inhale, the music, and the progression, there is a beautiful development of communication, a healing dialogue, between all parts of the body, mind, spirit, really working together where i felt integration and embodiment of the lessons. It feels like the hero’s journey where you truly appreciate what you have worked through and leaves you humble and grateful.”
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“I journeyed with a mouth-inhale approach before finding SBA. I have now done 6 total journeys with a nose-inhale and the main difference was how out of control I felt with the mouth inhale. I did feel guided and taken care of by my facilitator, however I felt completely out of control in my own body because of the “fight or flight” response it was inducing. TBH I thought that this is just what “happens” in Breathwork, but now as I have used the SBM I realize it was completely different. The more gentle and intuitive unwinding that happens with a nose-inhale is not at all what I experienced with the mouth-inhale.
With the mouth-inhale, I almost immediately felt that I didn’t have control over any aspect of what came up. I did not feel like I was being guided by my higher self like I have every time with a nose-inhale. I felt like I was being dumped into the hole that contained all my traumas and wounds and it was a free for all on what I would land on. I still actually don’t know what I met that day. I did have a lot of toning and movement happen and I felt lighter afterwards, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what I released that day. Whereas with the nose-inhale, each time I feel like it is slower but much more deliberate and concise and I come out with more of the puzzle put together.”