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WHY YOU DO THIS (startrek.website)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/memes@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Okay, okay.

    New question: How long could a nostril go without drying out? Unrelated to the blocked nostril.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    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.

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