The question: Why is breathing through your nose better than breathing through your mouth?
The short answer: James Stewart calls nasal breathing the foundation of any breathwork practice. Your nose slows, filters, humidifies and pressurizes air before it reaches your lungs, and a low, slow breath through the nose tells your nervous system that you are safe. Your mouth is the emergency pathway; your nose is the primary design.
What James explains
Your nose isn't a straight pipe to the lungs the way your mouth is. James asks you to picture it as a canyon that weaves back and forth rather than a tunnel. Behind it sit the sinuses and nasal passages, built to slow the air down, clean it, filter it, humidify it and pressurize it so it arrives ready for the lungs. Watch a baby feeding or sleeping and you'll see them breathing through the nose, comfortably. The nose and sinuses also produce nitric oxide, which James explains acts as a vasodilator and which he links to making the air you breathe more usable.
Because the nose is a much smaller opening than the mouth, it naturally slows your breathing. Slower breathing sends a relaxed, parasympathetic signal: rest and digest, a lighter stress load and better regulation. That is where the vagus nerve comes in. It is a central part of the parasympathetic nervous system, and slow nasal breathing with an unhurried exhale helps lower your heart rate.
James describes vagal tone as your ability to recover from stress. It is often estimated with heart rate variability (HRV), and higher HRV generally means you bounce back from stressful situations more easily.
Try it: low, slow nasal breathing through your day
- Start in low-stress moments, such as just after you wake up or before you go to sleep.
- Breathe in low and slow through your nose, then let a slow, relaxed exhale follow.
- Keep the inhale and exhale balanced.
- On a walk, breathe through your nose and count your steps on the inhale and on the exhale.
- Aim to be intentional rather than perfect.
What to watch for
Don't try to make nasal breathing perfect from day one. James suggests beginning in calm, low-stress moments, like waking up, going to sleep or walking, rather than forcing it in demanding situations. The aim is to be intentional, not perfect, and to keep the breath low, slow and relaxed.
Key points
- Your nose slows, filters, humidifies and pressurizes air in a way your mouth can't.
- Slow nasal breathing sends a relaxed, parasympathetic signal and supports vagal tone.
- Nasal breathing is the foundation for every other breathwork practice.
Common questions
When is it OK to breathe through my mouth?
James describes the mouth as the emergency pathway and the nose as the primary design. The episode's notes add that the mouth becomes an important alternative pathway during higher-intensity activity. For quiet breathing, rest and sleep, the nose comes first.
What does nasal breathing have to do with the vagus nerve?
The vagus nerve is a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps regulate digestion and stress recovery. James explains that low, slow nasal breathing with a relaxed exhale helps lower heart rate and shift you into a calmer, parasympathetic dominant state.
How do I start practicing nasal breathing?
Begin in low-stress moments: as you wake up, before sleep, or while walking, counting your steps on the inhale and the exhale. James's advice is that you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be intentional.
Research mentioned
Laborde S, et al. (2022). Effects of voluntary slow breathing on heart rate and heart rate variability: A systematic review and a meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 138:104711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104711
Zaccaro A, et al. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12:353. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30245619/
Leyro TM, et al. (2021). Respiratory therapy for the treatment of anxiety: Meta-analytic review and regression. Clinical Psychology Review, 84:101980. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33540222/
Bayrak O, Polastri M, Pehlivan E (2025). Effects of Nasal and Oral Breathing on Respiratory Muscle and Brain Function: A Review. Thoracic Research and Practice, 26(3):145-151. https://doi.org/10.4274/ThoracResPract.2024.24061
Read the full transcript
Auto-generated from the video captions, so expect small errors.
Breathwork isn't simply moving air in and out of your body. How you breathe determines whether your body feels activated, elevated, and stressed or whether it feels calm and relaxed. Today I want to show you and have you understand why your nose is one of the most important tools that you have available for better health, for better sleep, and certainly for better regulation of your nervous system. Before techniques and before routines, before any optimization, nasal breathing is foundational in any breathwork practice that you do. So, let's learn about our nose a little bit more. I know I talked about our breathing physiology in episode two. And
if you want a deep dive there, you can check that out. But you know, as most of you are familiar with, you see it right here in the center of your face. What I want you to understand that our nose is not just a direct pipe to our lungs, kind of like our mouth is. And think more of our nose as it as a as a way it slows the air down as it brings air into our body. I want you to think of your nose much more like a canyon that weaves backwards and forwards than a tunnel that goes straight to our lungs. Evolutionarily
speaking, we are born perfect breathers. Any of you who watch a baby, whether they're feeding or sleeping, they breathe through their nose. And they are very comfortable and happy doing so. From that perspective, our body is used to and designed to breathe through our nose. When you think about it that way, your mouth is the emergency pathway. The nose is the primary design. Behind this thing that sticks out in the center of your face is your nasal physiology, our sinuses. And it takes up the size of an orange to a grapefruit. And it is perfectly designed to prepare the air for reception in our lungs.
When we think about the nasal breathing, we think about slowing the air down, cleaning the air, filtering the air, humidifying the air, and and pressurizing the air for optimal reception. The other big part of nasal breathing that a lot of us fail to realize is the production of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide production is up to five to 20 times more when we breathe through our nose as compared to when we breathe through our mouth. Nitric oxide acts as a vasodilator for one. And secondly, it helps improve the absorption of oxygen in our bloodstream by up to 20% so we're getting greater use of the air
that we are breathing when we use our nose. And nasal breathing isn't just bringing that air in. It makes that air much more usable. This hole is much smaller than this hole. So, when we slow our respiration rate down, we send a relaxed signal to our body. So, that signal is parasympathetic dominant, gets us into that rest and digest state. It reduces our stress load, and it improves regulation. So, when we're thinking about regulation, and especially when we're talking through a frame of breathwork, we have to talk about the vagus nerve. Nasal breathing encourages slower breathing. We're slowing our inhalation, and we're slowing our exhalation.
When we have that low, slow through the nose inhalation, we are mechanically stimulating our vagus nerve. And on that exhale, we're sending that relaxed signal to our body to reduce our heart rate and to send us into a more parasympathetic dominant state. That's happening because our vagus nerve is an integral part of our parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates digestion, it regulates stress recovery. And so, someone with a high vagal tone is able to recover from a stressed or an elevated state much more quickly. Someone with a lower vagal tone usually has challenges with inflammation, certainly emotional regulation, and anxiety very often. Vagal tone is also
often measured with HRV, heart rate variability. So, high HRV is synonymous with high vagal tone, which is beneficial for regulation. And low HRV, synonymous with low vagal tone, means we are less able to bounce back from stressful situations. When you breathe low, slow through your nose, you're telling your nervous system that it is safe, and it will slow down. So, that's a lot of information. And really, what I want to give you is some tips on how to integrate nasal breathing into your daily routine. You want to start in low stress modes. As you're waking up before you go to sleep, simply practice low, slow
through the nose, relax, slow exhale, bringing balance to your breath. Nasal breathing while you're walking is a great way to use it as well. Counting your steps from an inhale, counting your steps on an exhale. As I'd mentioned in I think our last episode, episode six, we talked about nasal breathing and the importance and the benefits it can be for bedtime. You don't have to be perfect, you really just have to be intentional. So, what can I take away from all of this information here today? Nasal breathing improves our oxygen efficiency. It brings calm and regulation to our nervous system. It improves our quality of
sleep. And really, and most importantly, it is a strong foundation for any and all breathwork practices. In our next episode, we're going to talk about breathing dysfunction. I've had a lot of questions recently about what that looks like and how it shows up, and more importantly, how you can help improve any breathing dysfunction you may have. So, I look forward to seeing you in our next episode.