Why can’t we inhale and exhale at the same time?
In: Biology
Your mouth and your nose don’t actively push air through them. You inhale by pulling on your lung, which then sucks in air through your mouth or nose – whatever isn’t blocked or obstructed. When exhaling, you push on your lung, forcing the air out the same way. So, for lung breathing, the answer is: because the lung can’t extend and compress at the same time.
There are ways to have air flow in through your mouth and out of your nose at the same time, or vice versa. You can puff up your cheeks, and then blow the air out of your mouth while at the same time inhaling through your nose. Or you can put a source of pressurized air to your mouth (e.g. a balloon you’ve blown up before) and let the air stream into your mouth and out of your nose again. Whether that counts as “inhaling” and “exhaling” depends on your definitions.
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