Proper Exhale - mouth or nose or both

[harleythedog]

hello,

forgive me for asking what may be a silly question but new to diving and wanted to clarify something.

When exhaling, is the proper technique to ONLY exhale through your mouth ? I have noticed that I exhale through both my mouth and nose, this breaks the seal on my mask just a tad, no water gets in because air is escaping. I can learn to just use my mouth to exhale, but the way I am doing it now seems pretty comfortable and normal at the moment.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[drbill]

Use your mouth since it is "attached" to the reg which is designed to exhaust the gases you breathe out. As you've discovered, blowing out through your nose affects your mask and could cause minor problems. Just be sure you don't exhale through your ears! That can create some really serious problems (just teasing).

 

[carldarl]

Occasionally exhaling through your nose is good as it keeps your mask equalized. As you descend without equalizing you can get a "mask squeeze". Not overly painful but can cause a mild nose bleed and/or minor ruptures of vessels in your eyes.

 

[String]

Mouth is ideal although on descent you will need some nose to equalise pressure in the mask to prevent squeeze.

Having said that i tend to breathe out pretty much equally through my mouth and nose. (i) this causes my mask to fog and (ii) all the air goes from my mask into my hood which after a while creates some buoyancy and i look like a traffic cone. Its not a habit anyone should really copy.

I wouldnt worry about it too much.

 

[rockandrolljack]

When exhaling, is the proper technique to ONLY exhale through your mouth ?

If you feel comfort to exhale from both mouth and nose, that's ok. But exhale through the nose can cause mask fog sometimes.

 

[DivingCRNA]

I try not to exhale through my nose because it seems like the moisture from my lungs can start to fog my mask. But it take a while for that to happen. I will equalize the mask on descent, but that is it. Like others have said...i wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I'd worry about it. Exhaling through your nose is not a good habit to develop. Even when descending, you should exhale through your nose only enough to equalize the mask with no extra bubbling out under the skirt.

If you ever move up to diving a rebreather, exhaling through your nose removes oxygen from the loop and at best will have a very heavy toll on the efficiency of the unit and severely limit the bottom time of your O2 supply. At worst in a heavy exertion situation with a semi closed circuit rebreather using a fixed O2 orifice, it could reduce the 02 percentage in the loop to the point of causing you to pass out.

In diving, as in everything else, it is much easier to develop proper technique to start with than it is to try to unlearn a bad habit later.

 

[DivingCRNA]

I'd worry about it. Exhaling through your nose is not a good habit to develop. Even when descending, you should exhale through your nose only enough to equalize the mask with no extra bubbling out under the skirt.

If you ever move up to diving a rebreather, exhaling through your nose removes oxygen from the loop and at best will have a very heavy toll on the efficiency of the unit and severely limit the bottom time of your O2 supply. At worst in a heavy exertion situation with a semi closed circuit rebreather using a fixed O2 orifice, it could reduce the 02 percentage in the loop to the point of causing you to pass out.

In diving, as in everything else, it is much easier to develop proper technique to start with than it is to try to unlearn a bad habit later.

Good Point!

 

[spectrum]

Sustained oral breathing is not what we do in our surface lives so it becomes something of a learned skill for a new divers. Like all things diving it is an adaptation and for some it's a quicker process than others.

If you have the chance to go out skin-diving between dives or classes. this will do wonders for getting you comfortable with many aspects of diving without burning dive time.

Other than "puffing" up yopur mask on descent to control squeeze no good can come though exhiling through your nose. Exceptions would be clearing your mask and blowing your nose.

Also please consider beefing up your profile so we can all target answers to your abilty, locale and diving preferences.

Pete

 

[countryboy]

I had a "purge" mask.. and I develped the habit of exhaling out my nose (water keeps seeping in the purge).. to keep my nose dry..

Now that I have a non purge mask, the bad habit of exhaling out my nose is tough to break (getting there).. As String said.. the air goes out the mask and into my hood.

Exhale out your nose to equalize the mask, and clear when / if needed (practice periodically).. Develop good habits.. The sooner the better..