So, am I telling a joke? What is the connection between spraying something up your nose and running better? How in the world can there be a connection between saline nasal spray and running faster? I must say it does sound like a joke, but I mean it in all sincerity!
How can this be you might ask? Well it is a kind of interesting story and to tell it I’m going to digress a little bit into some neat stuff we have been learning about running. I am an instructor in what is called “Chi Running” and one of the things we do with Chi Running is study how to run with the best energy conversation and decreasing the odds of any kind of an injury.
Lots of people every year get an injury of some sort while they are running. My goal as a Chi Running instructor is to eliminate these injuries and eliminate the setting that caused the injuries. One of the surprising things that has come up through the study of breathing is that how you breath can really affect the likelihood of an injury. So how is this all connected?
Admittedly the connection between breathing and injury is indirect but it is still very real. When you breath through your nose while you run you kind of set the equivalent of a governor on your system. You can only run so fast or push yourself so hard before you have to open up your mouth and start breathing harder. When you open up your mouth to start breathing harder you will tend to faster—-going faster when you are getting tired can increase your injury rate. Here’s another neat thing- when you run breathing through your nose your heart rate is slower! So you will slow down getting that sense of fatigue if you keep your heart rate slower.
So what does this have to do with Saline Nasal Solution that can be used as a Nasal Spray? Simple. Lots of people have subtle or not so subtle congestion issues in their nose. That makes it artificially harder to breath through their nose, so they start gasping through their mouth, run faster than they ought to and increase the risk for an injury! If they can use a saline nasal spray before and during the run they can keep their nose more clear and improve the odds that they can continue more of the run breathing completely through the nose!
So if you can help a person breath through their nose while they are running, it is less likely that they will have an injury which means that in the end they are going to go faster while they are running because they are not dealing with injuries. And the very best way to help a person become a “nose breather” while they are running is by using our nasal saline solution which can also be made into a saline nasal spray which can be used while running. I find this connection to be fascinating and so very true.
Learn more about saline nasal spray. Stop by Dr Stanley Lang’s site where you can find out all about saline nasal solution and what it can do for you.