High Blood Pressure Caused by Poor Breathing
- Although breathing is something everyone does every day, it may be alarming for some to learn that it's possible to do it wrong. A long habit of poor breathing can be difficult to break because the body gets used to it over time. In babies, mouth breathing, the most common form of poor breathing, even leads to an altered sinus cavity growth, making it more difficult to learn correct breathing later in life. Mouth breathing should be corrected as soon as possible in all people.
Poor breathing, which could be mouth breathing, shallow breathing, or a number of other abnormalities, does all sorts of harmful things to our bodies, but the one most affecting blood pressure is likely the inefficiency of a poor breather's oxygen use. Poor breathing is not conducive to creating healthy conditions in the lungs and arteries, both of which are primary concern areas for people with high blood pressure. - The intake of air through the mouth is neither filtered nor mixed with nitric oxide--a chemical commonly known as a pollutant in the atmosphere, but effective at killing harmful bacteria in small quantities. In this way mouth breathers allow many bacteria and pollutants to enter their bodies because the oxygen supply lacks a key sterilizing component. The filtration supplied by nasal breathing alone can greatly aid the health of a body because less bacteria can live and create problems.
But nitric oxide also does something else even more important for maintaining healthy blood pressure levels. According to Dr. Lundberg, adding nitric oxide to the air intake can result in up to 25% more oxygenation in the blood, invaluable in relieving tension, calming the body, and lowering blood pressure. Doctors have used nitric oxide for years to open the blood vessels of patients on ventilators suffering from high blood pressure. More oxygen in blood is healthy because it helps ensure organs get the amount they need to function, which is one of the eventual side effects of high blood pressure according to - Although there is more research to be added to the scientific reason that deep breathing through the nose effectively lowers blood pressure, the results of studies can't be denied: poor breathing affects blood pressure levels negatively. Studies conducted by Dr. David Anderson at Baltimore's Harbor Hospital have shown that breathing methods directly affect the chemical balance of blood, which then affects many body functions. For instance, in a stressful situation the natural inclination is to breathe shallowly and hold the air in the lungs. This causes higher oxygenation of the brain to make a person more alert, but also changes the chemical composition of the blood, making it harder for the kidneys to filter salt, which then raises blood pressure.