We’re all holding our breath waiting for treatments, cures and immunizations.  Waiting is one of the hardest things to do, isn’t it?  What if I told you I read an article this morning, then talked to an internationally known research scientist and I could tell you how you can fight Covid-19 right now?  It’s as easy as breathing and it is free.

If you’re like me you have been watching and waiting for months and every time it looks like life is getting better, like we are flattening a curve, opening the economy and getting back to normal things just seem to get worse.  If you’re like my friends, you are experiencing furloughs, unemployment and kids on a spring break that threatens to continue past the summer.  If you’re like my neighbors, you’d just like to know there is something, anything you can do, really do, that would make even one bit of difference.  Am I right?

Today I happened upon an article by Louis J. Ignarro, along with Robert F. Furchgott and Ferid Murad won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1998 for his research on Nitric Oxide.  Now, before I totally lose your attention, let me tell you that after reading his article and other research I can now tell you, not only how to breathe to cope but also how to breathe to lower your chances of suffering from Covid-19.  Please keep reading and I promise to make this as clear as possible because it really is fantastic news that should go viral (pun intended).

Most of the air we breathe is Nitrogen and almost all the rest is Oxygen.  Combine them equally and you get Nitric Oxide (NO) which is this wonderful stuff that Ignarro, Furchgott and Murad have researched.  It’s produced naturally by the body (more about that in a minute) and is also used by doctors, most notably and for many years to help newborns with difficulty breathing.  In nature, it signals muscles such as the ones in your arteries to relax in order to prevent high blood pressure, to relax smooth muscle in the airways to improve breathing and even smooth muscles in the penis during sexual arousal.  But I digress.

Back to breathing.  As I said, inhaled NO helps relax arteries and increase bloodflow to the lungs, increasing oxygen delivery to the lungs and blood.  Fifteen years ago, several studies were done involving SARS-CoV (a virus that shares many of its qualities with SARS-CoV-2 which is causing the current pandemic).  NO was found not only to increase oxygen in the body but also seems to have an antiviral effect.

Studies are being done right now to see how Nitric Oxide can be used to treat people who already have Covid-19 and it seems like an inhalation treatment may be one of several solutions over the coming months that will be used to save more lives.

Now here’s the part I’ve kept you waiting for and you’ve waited long enough.  What can you do, how can you breathe to help lower the effect of the virus on your body, aside from wearing a mask (which you still MUST do).  The answer is as plain as the nose on your face.

In fact, the answer is the nose on your face!  Breathe through your nose.  You see, Dr. Ignarro tells us in his article that “your nasal cavities produce the molecule nitric oxide… breathing in through the nose delivers NO directly to the lungs where it helps fight coronavirus infection by blocking the replication of the coronavirus in the lungs.”

It is most important to inhale through the nose to have this effect because the Nitric Oxide is produced in the nose and not in the mouth.  The Nitric Oxide produced in the nose is chemically identical to that which is used clinically.

Dr. Sundar Balasubramanian, a researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina and expert on the effects of meditation (particularly breath meditation) on the body, told me today that exhaling as well as inhaling through the nose may help still more because there are exhalation linked nasal pathways that are as important as the inhalation pathways.

Dr. Balasubramanian also says that there have been studies showing that humming increases the production of Nitric Oxide in the nasal cavities.  Students of Yoga may recognize this as the “hummingbird breath” or Bhramari Pranayama.

So that’s it.  Shut your mouth and breathe through your nose.  Your nasal cavities will produce more Nitric Oxide which will relax muscles in your circulatory and breathing systems as well as have an antimicrobial effect on some Covid-19 molecules that sneak past your mask.*. Of course, always follow the latest guidance of your doctor and your other medical advisors.

Put on your mask.  Bring your attention to your breath.  Inhale and exhale through your nose. Do you feel a little better?  Do you feel a little more in control of your body? E-mail me at [email protected].  I’m interested in reading your results.