We don’t breathe out with much force, and even if we did, we immediately inhale. So, how do we not just inhale what we just exhaled?
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The space between your mouth and your lungs is referred to as dead air and it doesn’t get exhaled. We always reinhale it and it gets mixed up in our lungs with new air. And the air we just exhaled immediately starts mixing with the outside air so it’s a mix of both fresh air and not.
At the end of the day it’s not an issue for our breathing. Our lungs rely on differences in concentrations of gasses in the air and our blood to work. As long as the concentrations of oxygen in the air is higher than in our blood and the concentration of CO2 is lower in the air than our blood everything works. Breathing is just how we make sure the concentrations in our lungs are closer to the outside atmosphere than our blood. The lungs are very passive when it comes to which direction the gasses go in.
Take for example the ISS. It has to scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere or else astronauts can die, even if there is plenty of oxygen around. If CO2 concentrations get too high, then the CO2 in their blood can’t leave and will cause issues.
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