14/11/2025
💨 Post Accident Recovery
Breathing, Invictus & that Eiffel-Tower up my Nose
(A light-hearted lesson in physiology, healing, and being your own captain)
I’ll be upfront…
Right now, I cannot nasal breathe.
Not even a little.
It feels like someone has installed scaffolding up my nose — a full renovation —
Paris-style.
Think Eiffel Tower, but internal.
Magnificent engineering…
Terrible airflow.
So I’m stuck mouth breathing.
And here’s the truth:
🧠 Mouth breathing when you’re still — sitting or lying —
is physiologically, neurologically, and emotionally destructive.
It pulls you into the upper emergency zone of breathing:
jaw tight, neck switched on, ribs lifting vertically instead of spiralling, diaphragm sulking in the corner refusing to descend.
It’s exhausting.
It’s the kind of breathing that makes you feel like life is happening to you, not with you.
But…
I’ve learned something important.
If I move, even gently, even slowly —
if I walk,
swing my arms,
bend my elbows,
open my fingers,
let my spine rotate —
my whole respiratory pattern comes back online.
Suddenly, even mouth breathing becomes
refreshing, reorganising, invigorating.
My gait triggers my diaphragm.
My arm swing triggers my rib rotation.
My eyes widen and the thorax expands.
My brainstem stops panicking.
My vagus nerve wakes up like,
“Oh good, we’re allowed to live again.”
And in that moment —
something from my favourite poem rises in me:
**“I am the captain of my fate,
I am the master of my soul.”**
Even when my nose is barricaded like a Parisian construction site…
Even when I can’t use the so-called “proper” breathing technique…
Even when the body is puffed, stiff, swollen, or protective…
I still have agency.
I still have movement.
I still have pattern generators ready to be switched back on.
I still have a nervous system waiting for participation.
And that is enough.
So if you’re stuck mouth breathing like me right now —
(we should form a club) —
remember this:
💛 Move first.
The breath will follow.
You are still the captain.
You are still the master.
Nose scaffolding or not.