What CO2 Does in Your Body

            Too many people have told us lately that breathing through masks is bad for us, carbon dioxide supposedly being bodily waste.  

Our bodies have several organs that expel waste: the urinary system; the lower intestine; and sweat glands.  Lungs do not expel toxic waste, mostly just unused air, carbon dioxide and water.  Carbon dioxide should not be maligned as waste; it plays a vital role in the body’s ability to get oxygen to its tissues. 

Hemoglobin grabs and holds oxygen tightly to carry it through the body.  It can’t let go of oxygen until the blood is sufficiently acid with carbon dioxide.  This is how oxygen gets to where it is most needed.

Sinuses regulate how much air goes in and out with erectile tissues that inflate and narrow the airways when they detect too much smoke and dust.  They filter out pollutants and germs with mucus that is swept down to the throat to be swallowed.  They moisten the air and warm it to body temperature.  When carbon dioxide is low, sinuses inflate and slow breathing, allowing it to build up in the bloodstream so oxygen can get to the body’s tissues.  If there isn’t enough carbon dioxide, more oxygen gets expelled, and one feels like one can’t get enough air.

This is one reason why one should always breathe through the nose, not the mouth.  The mouth is made for eating, drinking, and speaking; its ability to breathe is for emergencies when the nose cannot.  It does not clean the air, warm it, or slow its entry and exit.  The mouth inhales and exhales too fast, expelling too much carbon dioxide from the blood and stopping oxygen from getting into tissues

The author, wearing a half bandana mask, which has a bit of elastic sewn in over the nose so it doesn't squash it, with a good deal of inner surface area to grab moisture and particles and room to hold a lot of air.  It also is a somewhat open weave, for easy breathing and clear speaking.  Not all bandanas are open weave; this is new. Gator masks also have a lot of room for air and even more surface area to grab, but this writer has not tried them out for breathability, and they look rather warm to wear in summer heat.

The right kind of mask works much like the sinuses and helps them function better.  This kind of mask has a large breathing pouch down to the chest that holds the warm, moist, relatively clean, slightly acidic air from our lungs, making the sinuses and the lungs more comfortable and opening the sinuses.  The cloth holds moisture from the breath that catches particles and holds them as well.  

We absorb only a quarter of the oxygen we breathe at normal breathing rates, so there is still plenty left in your breath for you to use.  And increased from 400 to 40,000 parts per million by the body, carbon dioxide still doesn’t hurt anyone.

Thanks to James Nestor and his book, Breath, for the workings of the body.  Opinions about masks are based on my own experience.

 Speech to the Josephine County Commissioners and the Grants Pass City Council, 8-4-2021.

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 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener    541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com