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Second Wind Difference in right v. left nostril breathing

Pasibrzuch

Pasibrzuch

Level 6 Valued Member
In one of the teaser videos to the Second Wind Online Course Pavel mentions the exercise when breathe through one nostril and exhale through the other and that depending on which nostril you inhale there is a different effect. Unfortunately I cannot find the video nor do I remember what the effect was. Can anyone either point me to the video or remind me?
 
Pasibrzuch said:
In one of the teaser videos to the Second Wind Online Course Pavel mentions the exercise when breathe through one nostril and exhale through the other and that depending on which nostril you inhale there is a different effect. Unfortunately I cannot find the video nor do I remember what the effect was. Can anyone either point me to the video or remind me?
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Right nostril = sympathetic
Left nostril = parasympathetic
 
Red_and_Black said:
Is there evidence for that?
Click to expand...
And extended exhale = parasympathetic, extended inhale = sympathetic.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Breathing through a particular nostril can alter metabolism and autonomic activities - PubMed

There is increasing interest in the fact that breathing exclusively through one nostril may alter the autonomic functions. The present study aimed at checking whether such changes actually do occur, and whether breathing is consciously regulated. 48 male subjects, with ages ranging from 25 to 48...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Assessment of the Effects of Pranayama/Alternate Nostril Breathing on the Parasympathetic Nervous System in Young Adults

Background and Aim: Pranayama, the art of breath control, is considered to be the heart of yogic exercises. The present study was performed with the aim of evaluating the effect of Pranayama/Alternate Nostril Breathing (A.N.B.) on the parasympathetic ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Thanks for the links @Don Fairbanks. I've been practicing yoga and my school always adviced don't just believe what we say but find out yourself. Pranayama really works if you stay consistent. Now one can also believe without trying by reading the research :). I recommend trying as well.
 
James Nestor also wrote about this in his book Breath. I borrowed it from the library so I can’t cite his sources but the book was pretty well foot-noted as I recall.
 
A basic rule in biology is that function is reflected in structure. Adaptation of function has to link back to structure.

It seems very difficult to see how evolution would have selected out some assymetry in single nostril breathing and then built variable autonomic responses into that.

In addition, the studies were not done double blind to avoid variable placebo\nocebo and similar effects.
 
Pasibrzuch said:
In one of the teaser videos to the Second Wind Online Course Pavel mentions the exercise when breathe through one nostril and exhale through the other and that depending on which nostril you inhale there is a different effect. Unfortunately I cannot find the video nor do I remember what the effect was. Can anyone either point me to the video or remind me?
Click to expand...
Your overthinking this. It doesn't matter in any shape, way or form.
 
Pasibrzuch said:
In one of the teaser videos to the Second Wind Online Course Pavel mentions the exercise when breathe through one nostril and exhale through the other and that depending on which nostril you inhale there is a different effect. Unfortunately I cannot find the video nor do I remember what the effect was. Can anyone either point me to the video or remind me?
Click to expand...
not a reply to your question per se but there is an episode of Huberman where the guest, (I think it was Noam Sobel) explains that the body naturally shifts between prioritizing between the nostrils multiple times per day. I don't remember the specifics though but it's timestamped.
 
oab said:
A basic rule in biology is that function is reflected in structure. Adaptation of function has to link back to structure.

It seems very difficult to see how evolution would have selected out some assymetry in single nostril breathing and then built variable autonomic responses into that.
Click to expand...
I'm sort of in this camp...
I tend to believe that if something has been around a long time (such as yogic breathing practices) there is undoubtably some efficacy to it, whether we understand the mechanisms yet or not. But I also believe as @oab describes, why evolution would have selected an asymmetry in that regard.

The exhale = parasympathetic and inhale = sympathetic is much more robust IMO than the left/right proposed phenomenon
 
Don Fairbanks said:
And extended exhale = parasympathetic, extended inhale = sympathetic.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Breathing through a particular nostril can alter metabolism and autonomic activities - PubMed

There is increasing interest in the fact that breathing exclusively through one nostril may alter the autonomic functions. The present study aimed at checking whether such changes actually do occur, and whether breathing is consciously regulated. 48 male subjects, with ages ranging from 25 to 48...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Click to expand...
If anyone is curious about that study here is the full text. The methods are pretty interesting.

For some reason their control group was twice as large as the experiment groups (less sensitive to outliers).
They didn’t report any type of compliance testing to see if people were doing the protocols as requested.

Not a single person of the almost fifty people had any issues or had to drop out over a month in residence at a retreat either. An almost impossible feat in most studies.
 
silveraw said:
If anyone is curious about that study here is the full text. The methods are pretty interesting.

For some reason their control group was twice as large as the experiment groups (less sensitive to outliers).
They didn’t report any type of compliance testing to see if people were doing the protocols as requested.

Not a single person of the almost fifty people had any issues or had to drop out over a month in residence at a retreat either. An almost impossible feat in most studies.
Click to expand...
The paper on mangalm.nl seems to be the same as from the original journal.

There is no control of experimenter-subject effects like the experimenters creating expectations of effects in subjects eg breathing through this nostril will calm you. That nostril will tighten you up. The subjects then condition themselves to relax to tense when breathing through the nostrils and if the conditioning persists for long enough then there may be a detectable difference. Many similar factors apply.

Subject sample group were "yoga tourists" attending a month long retreat. Whether locals or overseas they can be expected to have an expectation mindset and to be very responsive to subtle experimenter cues. Such cues may be verbal or non-verbal.

These yoga and meditation retreats typically do have a percentage drop out for reasons of mental health or physical injury. In these settings, if you will look around the drop outs will be 5-15pc range depending upon the precise teachings\nature of retreat. With the subject sample size utilised some drop out would be expected. It is unclear if the experimenters excluded drop outs from their sample and did not report them in the paper (or not). If one assumes expectations were involved in the results then the same expectations might lead to a differential drop out rate.


The heart is on one side of the chest and the lungs and bronchii evolved differences in structure to allow for that assymetry. There is no structural equivalent for one nostril breathing. I can't think of any reason or evolutionary driving force that would have resulted in selection of individuals who were able to breath through one nostril, let alone for assymetrical nostril dependent autonomic nervous system effects.
 
oab said:
The paper on mangalm.nl seems to be the same as from the original journal.

There is no control of experimenter-subject effects like the experimenters creating expectations of effects in subjects eg breathing through this nostril will calm you. That nostril will tighten you up. The subjects then condition themselves to relax to tense when breathing through the nostrils and if the conditioning persists for long enough then there may be a detectable difference. Many similar factors apply.

Subject sample group were "yoga tourists" attending a month long retreat. Whether locals or overseas they can be expected to have an expectation mindset and to be very responsive to subtle experimenter cues. Such cues may be verbal or non-verbal.

These yoga and meditation retreats typically do have a percentage drop out for reasons of mental health or physical injury. In these settings, if you will look around the drop outs will be 5-15pc range depending upon the precise teachings\nature of retreat. With the subject sample size utilised some drop out would be expected. It is unclear if the experimenters excluded drop outs from their sample and did not report them in the paper (or not). If one assumes expectations were involved in the results then the same expectations might lead to a differential drop out rate.


The heart is on one side of the chest and the lungs and bronchii evolved differences in structure to allow for that assymetry. There is no structural equivalent for one nostril breathing. I can't think of any reason or evolutionary driving force that would have resulted in selection of individuals who were able to breath through one nostril, let alone for assymetrical nostril dependent autonomic nervous system effects.
Click to expand...
Reminds me of this classic study that tounge in cheek encourages people to read methods with some skepticism

www.bmj.com

Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial

Objective To determine if using a parachute prevents death or major traumatic injury when jumping from an aircraft. Design Randomized controlled trial. Setting Private or commercial aircraft between September 2017 and August 2018. Participants 92 aircraft passengers aged 18 and over were...
www.bmj.com www.bmj.com
 
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How the hell do you breathe through one nostril and exhale through the other unless you're using your fingers to plug said nostrils?
 
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