Benefits of Nitric Oxide and How to Produce it Naturally
Have you ever heard of nitric oxide? If not, then you'll want to learn about it as it is incredibly important to your health. Nitric oxide is a substance that is produced naturally in your body and has a wide range of health benefits. It is produced in your paranasal sinuses that surround your nasal cavity. But there is a very specific way to stimulate its production.
Studies have shown that nitric oxide is anti inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial. It's a vasodilator and a bronchodilator. So it is incredibly protective to your overall health and wellness. It's supportive to your immune system and your respiratory system.
How do you produce nitric oxide in the body?
I mentioned that nitric oxide is produced in the paranasal sinuses around your nasal cavity. The way that you stimulate the production of nitric oxide happens through nasal breathing. That is one of the key key benefits to breathing through your nose is that you're producing nitric oxide. When you breathe through your mouth, you don't produce any nitric oxide. So this is really important.
But what's really fascinating is at the time of this post, there's a clinical trial going on for a product that is a nasal spray. And it is a formulation of nitric oxide. And what it's being studied for, is its effect against C0V1D. This nasal spray is designed to exterminate the virus in the body and in the upper airways, and to stop and prevent its spread into the lungs. That's incredible! I discuss this further along with the multitude of benefits of nitric oxide in the video above, so be sure to watch it.
In lab tests, at Utah State University's Antiviral Research Institute, this spray proved to be 99.9% effective in killing the virus within two minutes. It's so exciting to hear that there are studies going on for a solution such as this that is likely very natural, safe and effective. However, you can produce your own nitric oxide!!
Steps to Boost Nitric Oxide
Nostril Breathing
Breathing in through your nose produces nitric oxide. When you breathe in through your mouth, no production of nitric oxide occurs. So when you're mouth breathing, you're more prone to all the things that nitric oxide helps prevent. You're more susceptible to hypertension, asthma, colds, flu, and viruses. Switching over to nasal breathing and being aware with how you're breathing through the day and at night is a critical first step. We should all be breathing in and out through our nose on a regular basis.
Breath Holds and Humming
Another thing that helps with the production of nitric oxide is breath holding, and humming. Breath holding dramatically increases nitric oxide. We're talking about intentional, periodic breath holding. Oftentimes, when we're not aware of our breath, and we're under stress, we're focused on something else, and stress is running our entire system, we may find that we're holding our breath without realizing it. And when it's when it's erratic and unconscious, that's not always a good thing. With the breathwork that I teach, we do intentional periodic breath holds. And that serves a great purpose and offers a range of health benefits that I won't go into in this post. But breath holding dramatically increases nitric oxide production.
Humming is another way to increase your production of nitric oxide. It actually increases the production of nitric oxide seven fold! Start humming to songs you listen to while your driving, or hum in the shower, or do some AUM chants when you meditate. When I say humming, I mean mouth closed, and make the sound MMMMM. That sound increases nitric oxide production. And the longer you do it, the longer you extend your, your humming, the better. And if you notice, that when you hum, it's on your exhalation. So by extending your exhalation and creating a longer hum, you are also activating the parasympathetic nervous system and your vagus nerve. So many benefits!!
These are a few things that you can do to really start to support the production of nitric oxide.
- Breathe through your nose
- Periodic breath holds (intermittent hypoxic training)
- Humming/chanting
And to incorporate all of these techniques and learn how to do them correctly, I encourage you to attend some of my breathwork classes because we practice all of these techniques. Can click on the link below to visit my website and check out upcoming classes.
Also, start to incorporate this on your own as well. You can set timers to do a breath check-in periodically throughout the day. And when when you bring that awareness to your breath, you can really start to to create new habits and new patterns of breathing. Set a timer, sit there for two minutes, do some slow breathing through your nose, and then go back to your task. The more you implement small changes, the more you're going to create a new habit of healthy breathing.
