Commercials sometimes annoy me. One in particular irks me every time it appears on television. The folks at Breathe Right®, the inventor of the nasal strip, features a commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAcDq_IxBcin) which they discuss what happens when your nose is obstructed and you are forced to become a mouth breather to compensate for the lack of open passageways. The newest clip on television includes a daughter video recording her stuffy-nosed mother, presumably for future shaming on social media. A cat appears to look on with contempt–well, maybe that isn’t so unusual–at its human in the same situation, stuck with his mouth open to breathe. “How can anyone sleep like that?” the voice-over lady asks. How, I ask, does anybody not breathe while sleeping?
So when did breathing through one’s mouth become unpopular? Culturally the term “mouth breather” is often used as an insult to imply that somebody is less intelligent. Why is that, when air can get to the lungs, and oxygenate the brain, quicker by inches that way? I find it contemptible when somebody snorts or whistles through their noses, but I don’t shout “Nose whistler!” at them.
So there is plenty of information out there about the causes of mouth breathing unrelated to allergies or colds, including reports from periodontists who claim that improper jaw or tooth alignment can affect closing your mouth properly. Other causes include large tonsils, a deviated septum (think anybody who has broken the nose) or nasal polyps.
Nobody ever mentions that some people have a jungle of nose hair in their nostrils, which surely slows down normal breathing, and the folks at Breathe Right® have never tried to invent a nose hair machete. If they ever remake the 1966 science fiction thriller The Fantastic Voyage, it should still be about a crew of miniaturized scientists who are injected into a person to reach and treat a dangerous life-threatening condition, but instead of exiting the patient’s eye, they must chop their way out through the nose hair jungle.
The idea behind the nasal strip is that a metal piece adhering to the outside of the nose spreads the outer edges of the nostrils to clear the airway. I actually tried the product once when I had a bad cold. The next morning, the strip was not on my nose, so a search party was called out and it ultimately turned up perched on the outer rim of the wastebasket. So it seems it didn’t keep my nose open, but it flew gracefully through the air and nearly stuck the landing.
Sports figures tend to wear the nasal strips; sometimes they are color coded to match the team colors of those burly football players. If you’re the fashionable tight end, you want the right color strip on your nose. You can even get lavender scented strips, but since it is above your nose, and you have a cold, can you really smell it?
I don’t know if mouth breathing is really as bad as they claim in the commercials, but I feel there are better ways to tout a nostril aid than making fun of its users. So when the ad comes on I simply sigh, through my mouth, and exhale through my nose.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 