Nasal Respiration Entrains Human Limbic Oscillations and Modulates Cognitive Function

If you care about your cognitive capacity, you should care about how you breathe.

I know. You are tired about listening and reading about the importance of breathing. You do it anyway so why should you care or even spend your limited time improving your breathing skills?

Well to begin with you could look to science. If you do not currently know if you are primarily breathing trough your nose or mouth, you might be cognitive impaired without even knowing it.

Breathing drives neural oscillations and there is a profound difference in the rhythmic pulsation if you breathe through your nose compared to your mouth.

"Respiration paces brain oscillations and the firing of individual neurons, revealing a profound impact of rhythmic breathing on brain activity. Intriguingly, respiration-driven entrainment of neural activity occurs in a variety of cortical areas, including those involved in higher cognitive functions such as associative neocortical regions and the hippocampus."

 - Shani Folschweiller & Jonas-Frederic Sauer

Since suboptimal neural activation of primary breathing muscles, and (stress) adrenaline and cortisol release, will push you towards mouth breathing, it may not be sufficient to just breathe consciously with out addressing the underlying factors as well.

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/36/49/12448