Making Masks Easier to Wear
by Lynette Nelson
It looks like masks are here to stay for the near future. For some people they are a slight inconvenience. For others, they are claustrophobic and draining. If you fall into that later category, you should know that you aren’t just stuck being miserable until this is over. You can improve your mask-wearing experience.
Lots of information has been swirling around the internet, telling people that if they wore a mask they would start breathing their own carbon dioxide, thus lowering their oxygen levels and causing health issues. It is true that you will breathe in more carbon dioxide while wearing a mask, but not at the levels that would cause lowered oxygen levels or health problems.
Carbon dioxide actually plays an important role in the body. It signals your body to release oxygen from the red blood cells and causes a sensation known as air hunger – or the need to breathe. So that feeling you have that you can’t breathe while wearing a mask, is simply your body sensing more carbon dioxide than it’s used to. You are not suffocating from lack of oxygen.
The good news is, there are exercises you can do improve your breathing, and reduce air hunger.
Let's gauge your quality of breathing:
Breathe several times through your nose as normal. After one exhalation, simply stop breathing and using a timer, time how long it is before you feel that very natural need to breathe.
If it took less than 20 seconds for you to need to breathe, you have a low tolerance to carbon dioxide, probably can’t stand wearing a mask, and could benefit from changing your breathing.
The first thing you need to do is to focus on breathing through your nose at all times. When you breathe through your mouth, you naturally breathe more shallowly. Making things worse, when feeling air hunger behind a mask, the instinct is to breathe even more quickly and shallowly, trying to get more air in. Breathing through your nose can help breathe more slowly and deeply.
How many times do you breathe in a minute?
So, let’s get a feel for your normal breathing patterns. Using a timer, count how many breaths you take in a minute. If you breathed more than 6 times a minute, it’s time to work on slowing down your breathing.
Let's slow down that breath!
The exercise is very simple. All you have to do is:
Inhale for 5 seconds,
Exhale for 5 seconds.
You are now breathing 6 times a minute. You should feel slight air hunger before each inhalation. If you do not, expand to 6 seconds in and 6 seconds out.
Practice this for several minutes a day, or as often as you think of doing it:. With repetition you will adjust to more carbon dioxide in your blood. It will also actually increase the oxygen your body is able to use. Someone who breathes 20 times a minute is only getting 3 liters of air into their air sacs. Someone who breathes 12 times a minute gets 4.2 liters. But someone who breathes 6 times a minute brings 5.1 liters of air for use by the body.
Breathe through your nose, and slow your breathing. Before you know it, you will find your mask becomes less and less difficult to wear.
This information came from a video by Patrick McKeown, author and breathing practitioner. There’s much more scientific information in the video, so please give it a view. You can read more about the importance of your breath at oxygenadvantage.com