Room to Breathe: Breath

A September Series on Breath & Immunity

ROOM TO BREATHEHEALING FOUNDATIONSAIRWAY & DEVELOPMENT

Shannon Korczynski

9/6/20265 min read

September begins a new Sunday series I am calling Room to Breathe. This month’s larger conversation is Breath & Immunity, and over the next few weeks I want to explore breath, terrain, the TCM relationship between the Lungs and Large Intestine, and finally what happens when we sleep and the body gets its opportunity to restore and repair.

Breath seemed like the obvious place to begin. We do it all day long without giving it much thought, yet so much happens from the moment we draw air into the body. Take a breath while you’re reading this and notice where it enters. If it came through your nose, that air has already begun to change before it ever reaches your lungs.

The nose isn’t simply an opening that gets air to the lungs. Inside the nasal passages are curved structures called turbinates. They create more surface area and help direct the air across the warm, moist lining of the nose so it can be warmed and humidified. Mucus catches some of the dust, pollen, microbes and other particles traveling along with it. Tiny hair-like structures called cilia then move that mucus and trapped material toward the throat, where it can be swallowed or cleared. By the time the air travels deeper into the respiratory tract, quite a bit has already happened to it.

There is chemistry happening along the way too. Nitric oxide is produced within the nose and sinuses and joins the air we inhale. When it reaches the lungs, it helps regulate the blood vessels there and supports the matching of airflow with blood flow so oxygen can move efficiently into the bloodstream.

We tend to make oxygen the star of breathing, but carbon dioxide deserves a little more respect than we usually give it. Our cells produce carbon dioxide as they make energy, and we eventually breathe it out, but that doesn’t make it useless along the way. Carbon dioxide helps regulate our drive to breathe and influences how readily hemoglobin releases the oxygen it is carrying so that oxygen can reach our tissues. With every breath, oxygen, carbon dioxide, airflow and circulation are working in relationship with one another.

Air also brings the outside world with it. It carries microbes, pollen, dust and particles from whatever environment we happen to be in. When that air enters the nose, it meets a living mucosal surface with its own microbial community. Mucus, cilia, epithelial cells, immune cells and the organisms living there are all part of this first interaction between what is outside of us and what is inside.

Just beyond this area is a larger collection of immune tissue called Waldeyer’s ring. It includes the tonsils we recognize at the back of the throat, the adenoids behind the nose, tonsillar tissue near the openings of the ears and tissue at the base of the tongue. Together, they form a broken ring around the area where the respiratory and digestive pathways meet. Their location allows them to sample antigens arriving through what we breathe and swallow and participate in shaping the immune response.

All of this depends, in part, on having room for air to move, which is where the mouth and dental development become part of the conversation.

Run your tongue across the roof of your mouth. That hard surface is your palate, but it is also the floor of your nasal cavity. I have spent more than four decades looking at that surface from the mouth side, and my years in airway dentistry changed what I see when I look at it. The mouth and nose share structure. The width and shape of the upper jaw affect the space beneath the nose, while the airway behind the tongue determines how much room air has as it continues toward the lungs.

The tongue normally rests broadly against the palate. During growth, its outward pressure works with the surrounding muscles to help shape the upper jaw. This is why a high, narrow or vaulted palate, a tongue that rests low or an open-mouth resting posture gets my attention. I am looking at the teeth, but I am also considering the width of the nasal floor and the space behind the tongue.

There is more to breathing than whether someone can physically pull air through the nose. Watch someone who has just sprinted across a parking lot and their breathing looks very different from someone sitting comfortably reading a book. Our breathing shifts throughout the day depending on what we’re doing, how we’re feeling and how we’re holding our body.

The diaphragm is the main muscle of breathing. As it contracts and moves downward, the chest cavity expands and pressure changes draw air into the lungs. With easier breathing, we may feel the abdomen and lower ribs expand. At other times, we may take smaller breaths higher in the chest or notice the shoulders becoming more involved. We may also move back and forth between the nose and mouth throughout the day without realizing it.

And then we go to sleep, when we are no longer consciously aware of how we are breathing. We may wake with our mouth dry or open. Someone may tell us we snore. We may learn from a dental exam that we have been clenching or grinding our teeth. A dry mouth also means that the teeth and oral tissues have spent part of the night with less of saliva’s normal bathing and protective influence. None of these observations tells us the whole story, but each offers useful information. Later this month we’ll spend more time with sleep, breathing and the restorative work that is supposed to happen at night.

There is another reason I love beginning Room to Breathe as we move toward autumn. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, autumn belongs to the Metal element and is associated with the Lungs and Large Intestine. The Lung obviously has a relationship with respiration, but in TCM it also has a relationship with the exterior of the body and with Wei Qi, often translated as defensive Qi. Wei Qi is part of the traditional understanding of how we maintain our boundary and protection as we interact with the world around us.

That idea becomes quite tangible when we consider how much interaction with the outside world happens across the moist surfaces of the nose, throat and respiratory tract with every breath we take.

Next Sunday we’ll stay at that boundary and look more closely at terrain, including the microbial communities living along these surfaces and what may determine whether an ecosystem remains resilient or begins to shift.

Over the next week, notice your breathing at different points in your day. See what changes when you’re working, driving, walking, eating, concentrating, frustrated or relaxed. Notice whether the breath enters through your nose or mouth, whether your lips rest together, and whether you feel movement through your lower ribs or mainly through your upper chest and shoulders. When you first wake in the morning, notice whether your mouth feels moist or dry and anything else your night of breathing may have left behind.

We’ve been breathing since the moment we entered this world. Spending a week becoming more familiar with how we actually do it feels like a fitting way to begin making Room to Breathe.

Room to Breathe: Breath

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