Breathing – The Solution To Acne Which Everyone Is Missing

To truly clear your acne, there are many strategies which you have to consider.

You have to remember the foods which are beneficial for human skin, and organise the optimal diet for your own needs. You have to cook and budget for all those foods, and possibly revolutionise your entire lifestyle.

But there’s one acne strategy which is available to all human beings at all times. You can use this acne-clearing trick at work, in the car, or while watching TV.

It is equally accessible to a poor villager from the valleys of Nepal and a rich billionaire sitting in a penthouse. It is a trick which can be performed at any time and at any place.

We are of course referring to your breathing technique, said by some to be the most overlooked factor in acne ever.

 

Why the average person has messed up breathing

The connection of breathing to acne was rarely discussed until recently, but breathing oxygen is so vital to all bodily functions that a connection is perfectly feasible. 

Your survival depends on breathing. You can survive for 3 days without water; you can survive for 3 minutes without oxygen. You inhale oxygen 18 times a minute, 1080 times an hour, and 25,920 times a year.

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Take a deep breath and you will feel the clear-headedness right away. Most of the deaths on Mount Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga and other 8000 metre-high mountains aren’t because of the cold weather or avalanches. They occur because of the “death zone”; the oxygen deprived environment above 8000 metres to which the human body can never acclimatise. Many mountaineers fall because of high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), a swelling of the brain caused by the lack of oxygen. Their physical co-ordination, ability to think, and judgement are all impaired.

Some mountaineers get so confused because of the thin air that they start climbing back uphill once they’ve already summited. They might die from the cold temperatures later, but the lack of oxygen is what kick-started the chain of events.

Oxygen is vital for human life. Your skin turns blue without it…

…and it happens that the average man or woman has a very poor breathing technique in the 21^st century. Stress is running rampant, so people keep their bodies in a very tense position. The result is an obstructed diaphragm, which makes deeper, more replenishing “belly breathing” harder.

Obesity is also running rampant. This causes people to block deep breathing by 1) sucking in their stomach to look thinner, and 2) physically reducing the amount of space inside the abdominal cavity. Office jobs are everywhere, so people are hunched over for eight hours per day, possible more.

Finally, basic bad habits are everywhere. Observe the breathing of the average 3 year old and you’ll notice their belly rising and falling naturally, through deep diaphragm breathing. Many people get into the habit of shallow breathing by age 5-10. The same applies to mouth breathing. 

Check your own breathing patterns. Are your stomach muscles rigid and inflexible? Is breathing deeply a challenge for you?

Since you perform most of your breathing involuntarily, it’s difficult to analyse exactly what your subconscious patterns are. However, the point is this – most people alive today do not breath in the way nature intended.

 

Breathe properly, get more attractive skin

The most important connection to acne is the most basic one. Your breathing technique is closed linked to your arterial oxygenation rate, the quantity of oxygen in your bloodstream.

Deep diaphragm breathing is particularly important here, as the upper 7% of your lungs absorb oxygen at a rate of 4ml per minute. The lower 3%, where the diaphragm expands and contracts, absorbs 60ml per minute. If you regularly keep your stomach muscles tense, or if they’re tense at this very moment, you are not maximizing the oxygen delivery to your skin.

Mouse breathing is just as dodgy, because when oxygen travels through your nostrils, they release a burst of the gas nitric oxide. NO is the most potent vasodilation agent in the body. Consequently, the “addition of nasal air samples” can increase your arterial oxygenation rate by a huge 18% (study).

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You are designed to breathe through your nose; the role of nitric oxide is just one factor. How does higher bloodstream oxygen affect your skin? Firstly, it’s well known to create a healthy red tinge (study).

Secondly, this study showed photos of human faces to various volunteers. Increasing the skin colouration associated with higher blood oxygenation increased perceived attractiveness in 98% of the young adult Caucasian faces studied.

Men and women were also allowed to manipulate photos themselves, to produce a face which they personally found attractive. With few exceptions, the colour changes bore a close resemblance to higher blood oxygen delivery. Deoxygenated colour was decreased by the participants; a lack of oxygen is associated with the grey, pallid, anaemic look.

Interestingly, the female faces were more sensitive to blood oxygenation increases, but the men improved significantly as well. They concluded that blood oxygenation and blood perfusion are “important for mate choice”. In other words, oxygen is the secret to sexiness.

There are no studies on acne specifically, but think about the people you know. If you place two 20 year olds with equal levels of acne side by side, the one with a glowing skin tone magically looks more attractive. The pimples they do have seem far more natural somehow.

 

Breathing can funnel acne vitamins to your skin

That said, one benefit which could affect acne is the nitric oxide boost we just mentioned. 

Nitric oxide is the king of blood pressure reduction. It’s the master of circulatory regulation and vasodilation. You can witness it for yourself when you take an NO-boosting secret such as l-citrulline, or dark chocolate; watch the veins on your arms turn into a road map.

We know from the study above that your nostrils release nitric oxide when breathing. Similarly, this study found that nose breathing during exercise significantly lowered blood pressure. The mechanism was  “unknown”, but the study was performed in 1990 and the nitric oxide link has emerged since then.

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Nitric oxide can increase the delivery of oxygen to the skin through blood, but also the delivery of blood itself. Therefore it’s highly likely that nose breathing can encourage the flow of healthy nutrients to the skin.

If it does, the implications for acne would be excellent. The ability of vitamin A to bind with sebaceous gland receptors and decrease oily skin would be enhanced. Antioxidants like vitamin E and resveratrol would build themselves into skin cells more efficiently. A variety of anti-inflammatory compounds whether it’s the sulforaphane in broccoli or the cryptoxanthin in carrots would be free to reduce acne more powerfully.

None of this is proven, but I’d judge the changes as 95% plus. The links in the chain couldn’t be clearer: they go from nose breathing, to nitric oxide, to higher blood flow, to higher acne nutrient flow.

 

Does your breathing technique affect stress?

The classic  psychological benefit of breathing properly has got to be stress reduction. Yoga and meditation advocates always preaching anxiety benefits, but there’s no need for a new age revolution – you just need to breath with your nose, or with your full diaphragm.

The human body has the “flight or fight” response built into it. You probably know this. You feel it every day; if you’re blasting around empty, back country roads at 70mph and a deer suddenly walks in front of the car, your heart starts pounding and your energy levels surge.

However, the hormones involved are a disaster for health if uncontrolled, causing heart problems and misfiring neurotransmitters. Your body therefore has a backup system to keep a lid on things: the relaxation response. This is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system, the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system which controls stress.

To activate this response, just breathe deeply with your entire lungs. In turn, your acne will fall away. 

Mouth breathing is particularly disastrous; it can increase the fight or flight response by up to 50%. The reasons are unknown, but I’d guess that your body is priming you for battle mode. If you’re inhaling big, gulping gasps of air through your mouth, then your body probably assumes that you’re in danger and needing some fighting energy.

There are more basic factors at play as well. Mouth breathing leads to higher water vapour loss, increasing dehydration. Dehydration can increase the stress hormone cortisol at all intensities of exercise (study); that’s one reason why water is important for acne.

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There was also a study which compared nasal breathing to mouth breathing and found significantly increased alpha brain waves, waves which induce a relax and meditative state. Nasal breathing also increased parasympathetic nervous system activation by 50%, the relaxation response we just discussed. Finally, nasal breathing increased the coherence of brain waves, which is useful for keeping anxiety and runaway worrying thoughts suppressed.

You can enjoy the relaxation from deep breathing right now. Less stress equals faster healing of old acne, as cortisol inhibits collagen formation. 

 

How to correct your breathing technique

To summarise then, you have two major breathing goals. To reduce acne, you need to 1) breathe through your nose, and 2) breathe deeply, utilising your entire lung capacity. Here’s how to do it:

Practise – it may be years since you’ve done any proper belly breathing. Singers and wind instrument musicians are probably the only group alive today who have to practise deep breathing on a regular basis.

Relax, inhale and make sure that your stomach rises. Sit at a desk and bend forward. You will feel the change in your lung capacity instantly; the diaphragm will be obstructed and shallow breaths will become your only option. Focus on the areas obstructed by this exercise, and use them in your regular breathing. Keep practising until you nail it. The best measure of success is the feeling of relaxation and happiness from these deep breaths.

Nose breathing sounds simple – just keep your mouth shut until it becomes second nature. However, some people who switch to nose breathing find it challenging, because they’re stuck with their old shallow techniques. Fresh converts to nose breathing sometimes alter their technique in subtle but detrimental ways.

So here’s what you should do: pretend that you are mouth breathing, and utilise the same old action, while keeping your mouth tightly shut. Pretend that you’re inhaling big gasps of air, but only use your nose. Do that and you’ll be shocked at how easy and replenishing nose breathing is.

Lose weight – shedding the pounds is vital for fixing an obstructed lung capacity, particularly in obese men, who tend to gain huge round beer bellies. Check your stress levels – instinctively tensing your muscles can be just as bad.

Tape your mouth shut – this old man reckons that taping his mouth shut at night revolutionised his sex life. If you understand the role of nitric oxide in the body, you’ll know why instantly.

A roll of masking tape will force the air through your nose, guaranteeing your skin a good eight hours of hyper-oxygenated blood. But more important, it will reprogram your subconscious breathing habits the rest of of the time.

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It’s all well and good to perform regular nose breathing exercises, but you have a job to perform, and school, sports, friends, and exercise. You can’t consciously control your breathing all day, every day. Use masking tape for eight hours a night and the habit should become ingrained.

Five minute exercises – you might be shocked at the speed with which you can completely alter your breathing method. Recently, I decided to optimise my breathing as well. My breathing has never been terrible, but I focussed on the nose breathing aspect and kept my mouth shut, keeping the benefits for energy and concentration in mind.

I quickly lost patience and reverted back to what I was doing previously. However, as I was walking around later in the day, I suddenly realised that my mouth was shut and I was still breathing through my nose.

I was carrying on with the new breathing technique automatically, despite having only focussed on it for two or three minutes earlier in the day.

If you’re like me, it will be a piece of cake to change your old breathing habits. 

 

Does living in the mountains starve your skin?

The last question is the question of altitude. It’s a related topic, since many wonder whether the chronic oxygen deprivation of living at 2000, 3000 or 4000 metres would damage your skin.

Don’t worry; the human body can easily acclimatise to thin air at heights of up to 4000 metres. If you dropped a man on the summit of Mount Everest wearing the normal thick layer of insulating clothing, the lack of oxygen would kill him within 5 minutes. After four weeks spent at base camp, however, he can survive for two days.

Less than 12 hours after increasing your altitude, your red blood cells begin to multiply, and your metabolization of oxygen becomes more efficient. The end result = no difference in skin oxygenation.

 

Conclusion

Breathing is one of the ultimate cheap tricks for acne, right alongside drinking water and standing up straight. 

If you can’t afford vitamin D, organic foods, or fruits and vegetables, then breathing is available to you no matter what. If you’re reading this on a laptop in an Antarctic weather station, or on a rowing boat in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, you can take a deep breath right now.

Optimise your breathing and you will enjoy 1) less acne due to reduced stress levels, and 2) a more attractive skin tone in the eyes of both men and women, due to enhanced oxygen supply. You’ll also lower your blood pressure, and even enhance your mind, keeping brain fog suppressed.

The only time I don’t recommend this is if you step through a secret NASA portal and end up on the surface of Venus. 

NEXT: forget creams and moisturisers – discover the ultimate acne-clearing diet

 

 

Thanks for reading!