There is an episode of The Dollup podcast about ninjas in 1800s (I think) Japan and in one part they talk about how the ninja would often have to wait around all day or more hiding to assassinate someone. They way they could tell how long they’d been waiting was by the change of the “dominant” nostril.
Apparently even when not stuffed up the air passes thru one nostril more easy than the other when you breathe. It switches about every 40 minutes.
It’s also a mechanism to enhance our sense of smell. Some odors are slower to bind to olfactory receptors, so they need a slow, restricted airflow to properly be absorbed.
I did not know that. Very cool piece of info to learn. Thanks!
Before you take everyone’s word about the nasal cycle, check if you have dust mite allergies. Turns out I did and my nose was far stuffier and itchier than what should be normal.
I switched out my pillowcase to an allergy pillowcase and started taking some allergy meds. It cleared up my nose a lot and now I can actually feel one nostril only being slightly more closed due to the nasal cycle instead of having it almost all blocked.
Yesterday I bought an air purifier. Today was the first day since the furnace turned on I woke up with clear sinuses! Dust mites and cat dander are what’s happening with me I think.
Mine’s more closed because I broke my nose in a fight 🤷.
Why did you break your own nose in a fight?
Lol 🤣, yeah, you could interpret it like that 🤣.
The other guy broke it of course 🤣.
What allergy meds do you take? I also have a dust mite allergy.
Zyrtec and Flo-nase works well for me, but everyone’s biochemistry is different. I recommend getting an allergy panel if you have access to affordable healthcare. Otherwise, try every OTC allergy med one at a time.
Here is a wild theory: I have cats and I’m not directly allergic to them, but I found that brushing them helps improve dust mite allergies because they shed less and leave fewer surfaces for dust mites to cling to.
I’ve done an allergy panel. That’s how I know I have the allergy. Also allergic to a type of mold, and willow trees. Sadly, I can’t do the flonase because of very bad psychiatric reaction to steroids. I’ll have to try others. Right now I’m doing 24hr Claritin.
That’s a shame that you can’t use Flonase. Any luck with antihistamine nose sprays?
Haven’t tried any yet. Unless you’re taking about saline misting sprays.
Usually one of my nostrils be like
I’ve found that blowing your nose before bed fixes this. Otherwise that liquid snot turns into little whistling boogies later.
Your nostrils are never open at the same time.
They switch sides every so often, so one of them can catch a break and repair.
They aren’t both open right now either, just try.
See, this is what always bothers me with blocked noses, like. Okay, yeah, it’s probably automatic, but certainly, the brain can just override the active nostril and switch ot to the other sode when it detects something is wrong.
I’m so curious why it just doesn’t.
Your body doesn’t want to override because it’s doing it to give half your sinuses a break and recover. If it just kept running on the unblocked one you’d quickly dry it out. Unfortunately the only override is manually switching to mouth breathing.
I get why it’d try to avoid it. I’m just unsure why it can’t make an exception when it struggles to get air.
Also, true with mouth breathing. But that’s so uncomfortable
Because drying out and damaging your sinus is worse than a little obstructed nostril, your body is more concerned with the resulting damage rather than comfort. You’re not struggling to get air if one nostril is restricted.
Okay, okay.
New question: How long could a nostril go without drying out? Unrelated to the blocked nostril.
I don’t have an answer but I would guess somewhere along the lines of a couple hours (we’re talking about the whole half sinus, not just the nostril). So it would be great if the body could adapt to a plugged nostril by not switching to it, the mechanism just doesn’t exist as the sinus are on autopilot.
Cool note, it’s erectile tissue in the sinus that expands and contracts to make the automatic process work.
They aren’t both fully open, but in the day time I breathe normally through both. I don’t get the OP scenario any more but I used to, it’s a different feeling to the normal cycle in my experience.
Then there’s me with one nostril that’s always closed.
It sucks that septoplasty surgery can reverse itself.
I think it’s to prevent the nostrils from drying out. One nostril does most of the breathing, while the other one gets a break.
My recommendation is to drink lots of water throughout the day, homie. It can get pretty dry.
Neti pot those things. It’s a little like self-waterboarding, but your sinus passages will thank you later.
And please, please, please do not use tap water. You may get a brain eating amoeba which will end you, guaranteed.
Yeah, just distilled with a dash of salt.
Boiled
I do not see this as a negative.
I have a love/hate relationship with mine. It does help with allergies and the constant runny nose that I had… But it’s genuinely an awful experience lol. I feel like I’m gonna vomit every time.
I’ve always found doing pushups clears them up. No idea why. It just works.
Kind of difficult to sleep while doing pushups.
I could make a Rick and Morty reference here but I’ll spare the cringe.
You didn’t give us the thing and you didn’t spare us from the other thing.
Truely this is the worst timeline.
You cycle through which nostril is dominant all day long, about every 30-50 minutes. This is to allow each side to return to body heat equilibrium and recover.
You pass 10-20k liters of generally colder than bodytemperature air through your nose in a day.
f.12
And one of them is whistling with every exhale.
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How hard is it to get a humidifier?
From what I know, it is pretty regular behavior for a nose. This is how noses behave due to the way blood circulation works. So, every 3-6 hours, a nostril will feel like it’s clogged. If both nostrils are clogged, it’s most likely a cold where there’s a ton of mucus accumulated.
