breathing

Nose Anatomy [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged anatomy / athletics / breathing / cartilage / episode / mouth-breathing / nose / sinuses / Sleep / smell by

Nose Basics

Your nose is responsible for breathing and smelling.  These things work better when it isn’t stopped up.

The part of your nose that you can see and touch is cartilage covered in skin.  There is bone above it, beside your nose, below it, and right in the middle (inside your head).  Part of the cartilage is stiff and hold shape, other parts of cartilage are soft for flexibility.

The nasal root (the bone that extends between your eyes) connected to the bridge of your nose (which is made of cartilage).  The tip is also called the lobe.  The wings are on each side of your nose that you can flare.  The nostrils is actually the holes.

There are 4 main sinus cavities

  1. Frontal sinuses = in your forehead, between your eyebrows
  2. Maxillary sinuses = run under your eyes, behind your cheeks
  3. Ethmoid sinus = right between your eyes, in the middle of your head, connected to your tear ducts
  4. Sphenoid sinus = under your sphenoid bone (in the middle of your head)

The sinus cavities are lined with mucous membranes that keep them moist and have lots of blood flow to them.  Their job is to warm and moisten the air you breathe in your nose before it goes into the lungs.  Your lungs don’t like cold air.

Mouth breathing is not very efficient. This is true in athletics as well as sleep.   But breathing out through your mouth can be useful because you can get a large amount of air out rather quickly and the lungs empty better.

You have a fast-flow and a slow-flow nostril – this has to help you perceive smell.  Sometimes almost as good as dogs.

The cartilage of your ears and nose never stop growing through your life.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Brainstem

 in Brain / Podcasts  tagged brainstem / breathing / episode / heart beat / medulla oblongata / midbrain / pons / rhythms by

An out of focus image of white and colored dots of light. The picture was taken this way, don't blame the out of focus on your brainstem.

Brainstem Basics

Your brainstem is the most basic area of the brain.  The area of the brain that we have in common with almost all other levels of the animal kingdom.  It extends right into the spinal cord.  A lot of other whole body involuntary reflexes come from the spinal cord – that’s another story for another day).

3 main parts

  • Medulla oblongata – rhythm center (heart rate, breathing, swallowing, vomiting and coughing reflex) – they’re all involuntary
  • Pons (not ponds) – the bridge between the cerebellum hemispheres and other brain regions, helps coordinate the right side and left side of your body for complex activities
  • Midbrain – sensory reflexes (also involuntary) – blinking, eye focusing, pupil dilation in response to light, visual and auditory startling reflex that kick-starts the “fight or flight cascade”.

Other eye focusing problems are not rooted in the midbrain. They are more likely rooted in the areas of the brain that control orbital muscles or in the areas that translate what your eyes are seeing, like a “lazy eye” or drifting eye or being cross-eyed.  There are therapies that doctors prescribe to try and strengthen the weak eye.  Blinking is usually a response to eye moisture.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/