Noses: the unsung heroines of our anatomy

After sitting cross-legged for 10 hours at Jill Purce's six day Healing the Ancestors workshop, I pondered my relationship with my breath and wanted a fresh look at the fascinating part the nose plays in my life, so I leafed through:

Donna Farhi's excellent Breathing Book and found this extract:

"We don't usually appreciate the nose until it becomes blocked. We all know how awful it feels to wake up after a night spent propped up on our pillows swallowing for air like a goldfish. The unsung heroine of our anatomy does more for us than sniff out pleasant and unpleasant aromas; the nose prepares the air before it enters the delicate lung tissue so that it is at just the right temperature and humidity. Air drawn into the nose is separated into right and left caverns, and is swirled through nasal hair and along passageways lined with a light blanket of mucous that serves to catch any dust, bacteria, or other tiny particles. The air then enters a three-storied chamber. The brain, eyes and optic nerve are just above the top chamber, the nasal cavity occupies the middle chamber, and the bottom chamber is just above the roof of the mouth. These chambers are called turbinates and the aerodynamics of their curved walls cause the air to swirl round and round, passing over a much greater surface area than it would otherwise. While the air is doing the Viennese Waltz in your turbinates, it is picking up moisture so that it will be at just the right humidity before entering the lungs. By the time the air has passed through these chambers it has also reached body temperature.

We also know that air alternately enters the nose through the left and right nostrils during the course of the day. Blood shifts from one nostril to the other every 90 minutes or so, causing one nostril to open and the other to become congested. Scientific studies show that when the left nostril is open the right hemisphere of the brain is more dominant, activating the more creative feeling side of the mind. When the right nostril is open the left hemisphere of the brain is dominant, facilitating more analytical, rational and intellectual mind activity. Yogis observed this phenomenon thousands of years ago and developed a sophisticated practice called "alternate nostril breathing" or nadi shodhanam, in which they deliberately changed the flow of through the nostrils to balance their psychophysiology. They believed that when the right nostril was open the surya, or sun/heating element, was dominant and that when the left nostril was open the chandra, or moon/cooling element, was dominant. By opening and closing the nostril in varying patterns one could adjust the physiology of our body just like regulating a hot and cold faucet to produce warm water. Although present research on the subject is controversial, many believe that right nostril dominance stimulates the arousal-producing sympathetic nervous system and left nostril dominance elicits the relaxation-producing parasympathetic system. By alternating the flow of air in a regulated way yogis could have been trying to create an equilibrium in the two sides of the autonomic nervous system and a balance between excitation and relaxation."