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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
I've been sick for the last week or so. It seems like I have a common cold: coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and a slight fever. I'm getting better though, and I'm right at the sweet spot where I sound really sick but feel perfectly normal in the head. What I felt today though was this awesome feeling when I blew my nose. Oh man it was epic. I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about. Your nose is running real bad, and for one reason or another, you hadn't blown your nose in the last 30 minutes. You can't live with the cruelty of your nose anymore without sniffling like 6 year old every 5 minutes, so you bust out the tissues and swing for the fences. 30 full seconds of snot-blowing, air-shaking, facial tissue twisting action later, you come out a new man. It's like your nose gave you a mini-orgasm. You feel like you just woke up to brisk morning air, completely with a dose of bright sunshine and a choir of birds. It's indescribably awesome. Now that I think about it, there was a time during college where I was actually looking forward to being sick so that I could feel this awesome nasal-mental sensation. If this is any indicator, I probably shouldn't try any recreational drugs. Why is it that we feel some amazingly awesome when we blow our noses during this fleeting moment of recovery? I imagine there are endorphins released and whatnot, but a part of me thinks that this has to do with "the relativity of happiness", where we feel happy not in absolute but in relative terms (like how we sense taste in absolute or relative terms). If you think about it, we really shouldn't feel as good as we do in moments. After all, we are still sick; in absolute terms, we should feel worse than we would while healthy! But the key here is our relative happiness (or relative euphoria, if you will). Before blowing our nose, we feel pretty crummy; we can't even breathe through our nose! But post-nasal-blockage? Our situation has unquestionably improved! Our head feels light (in a good way)! We feel refreshed and renewed! We can even breathe fully! I feel like there's a poignant life lesson buried in here somewhere, but that might make this blog a little too cheesy so I'm going to end it with this. Next time you have one of those colds where you have a really runny nose, savor it! It's a blessing in disguise! Enjoy that little bit of happiness that it's going to give you, and don't forget the sheer awesomeness that you felt from such a stupidly miniscule and irrelevant occurrence in your life! It just might be the key to happiness.
Crossposted from new English only main blog
 
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I like the illusion of doing something productive. Nowadays though I'm always congested in at least one nostril and no amount of blowing can help 
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One nostril is the worst, because you never achieve the sensation OP was describing.
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I have a cold right now but blood comes out of my nose as well, does it still count?
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Zen of noseblowing.
Suffering, and then it's end.
It's Impermanance.
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I think my sister infected me. She had the cold and is just now getting better while I'm at the beginning stage. Itching throat, headache, runny nose, fatigue, I hate it.
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Nasal happiness is such a rare occurrence; I'm pretty jelly. The only times I seem to get it is right after I take a hot shower or when I take a halls or strong mint or something, and even then it doesn't last very long.
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i thought this read on (nazgul) happiness..
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8748 Posts
On November 22 2011 15:16 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:I like the illusion of doing something productive. Nowadays though I'm always congested in at least one nostril and no amount of blowing can help
Blowing helps only if mucus is causing the blockage. More likely the congestion is from inflammation and blowing is counterproductive or useless. Mucus is usually pretty easy to clear out. Drink a lot of water, take a hot shower and breathe in the steam, blow hard, it comes out. Getting the blood vessels near your nasal passages to stop being assholes is the tricky part.
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try rinsing out your nose with salt water.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On November 22 2011 16:51 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 15:16 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:I like the illusion of doing something productive. Nowadays though I'm always congested in at least one nostril and no amount of blowing can help Blowing helps only if mucus is causing the blockage. More likely the congestion is from inflammation and blowing is counterproductive or useless. Mucus is usually pretty easy to clear out. Drink a lot of water, take a hot shower and breathe in the steam, blow hard, it comes out. Getting the blood vessels near your nasal passages to stop being assholes is the tricky part.
Was this part of your routine during your track and field days? :O
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I have the same strive towards nasal happiness. Mornings are worst for me, I always wake up nose full o' shit, mouth dry from breathing all night and drool all over my pillow. It's a fucking miracle I still have a wife. Must be because I get up before she does...
Or maybe that's WHY I get up before her...mind blown.
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Know its a bit of topic but...
I have had problems with my breathing through my nose my entire life, i even had laser surgary where they burnt of some on the stuff that in there.. but i still cant breath through the nose.
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8748 Posts
On November 23 2011 12:58 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 16:51 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On November 22 2011 15:16 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:I like the illusion of doing something productive. Nowadays though I'm always congested in at least one nostril and no amount of blowing can help Blowing helps only if mucus is causing the blockage. More likely the congestion is from inflammation and blowing is counterproductive or useless. Mucus is usually pretty easy to clear out. Drink a lot of water, take a hot shower and breathe in the steam, blow hard, it comes out. Getting the blood vessels near your nasal passages to stop being assholes is the tricky part. Was this part of your routine during your track and field days? :O
Hmm I never really had a problem. I would get a lot of mucus while I ran sometimes but it was always easy to blow out. I just needed to stop running and have a tissue to do it. And I seem to recall that running helped with stuffy nose, not that it really mattered because I'm breathing through my mouth all the time anyway. And as a general rule, we completely avoided exercise when sick and I typically got stuffy nose only when sick.
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United States22154 Posts
I've been watching too much SC2, I read the title as "on (NASL) Happiness"
But yes, blowing your nose when sick is great
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On November 24 2011 02:35 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 12:58 thedeadhaji wrote:On November 22 2011 16:51 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On November 22 2011 15:16 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:I like the illusion of doing something productive. Nowadays though I'm always congested in at least one nostril and no amount of blowing can help Blowing helps only if mucus is causing the blockage. More likely the congestion is from inflammation and blowing is counterproductive or useless. Mucus is usually pretty easy to clear out. Drink a lot of water, take a hot shower and breathe in the steam, blow hard, it comes out. Getting the blood vessels near your nasal passages to stop being assholes is the tricky part. Was this part of your routine during your track and field days? :O Hmm I never really had a problem. I would get a lot of mucus while I ran sometimes but it was always easy to blow out. I just needed to stop running and have a tissue to do it. And I seem to recall that running helped with stuffy nose, not that it really mattered because I'm breathing through my mouth all the time anyway. And as a general rule, we completely avoided exercise when sick and I typically got stuffy nose only when sick.
thats interesting, I ran cross country and 400/800 and as a general rule the last thing you wanted to do was breath through your mouth, once you gasp for air its pretty much over, and I still have congestion in the nose all the time, steam inhalation is far and away the best way to fix it.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On November 24 2011 04:12 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2011 02:35 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On November 23 2011 12:58 thedeadhaji wrote:On November 22 2011 16:51 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On November 22 2011 15:16 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:I like the illusion of doing something productive. Nowadays though I'm always congested in at least one nostril and no amount of blowing can help Blowing helps only if mucus is causing the blockage. More likely the congestion is from inflammation and blowing is counterproductive or useless. Mucus is usually pretty easy to clear out. Drink a lot of water, take a hot shower and breathe in the steam, blow hard, it comes out. Getting the blood vessels near your nasal passages to stop being assholes is the tricky part. Was this part of your routine during your track and field days? :O Hmm I never really had a problem. I would get a lot of mucus while I ran sometimes but it was always easy to blow out. I just needed to stop running and have a tissue to do it. And I seem to recall that running helped with stuffy nose, not that it really mattered because I'm breathing through my mouth all the time anyway. And as a general rule, we completely avoided exercise when sick and I typically got stuffy nose only when sick. thats interesting, I ran cross country and 400/800 and as a general rule the last thing you wanted to do was breath through your mouth, once you gasp for air its pretty much over, and I still have congestion in the nose all the time, steam inhalation is far and away the best way to fix it.
O_O I feel like I'm being enlightened with each post!
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8748 Posts
On November 24 2011 11:15 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2011 04:12 Rebs wrote:On November 24 2011 02:35 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On November 23 2011 12:58 thedeadhaji wrote:On November 22 2011 16:51 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On November 22 2011 15:16 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:I like the illusion of doing something productive. Nowadays though I'm always congested in at least one nostril and no amount of blowing can help Blowing helps only if mucus is causing the blockage. More likely the congestion is from inflammation and blowing is counterproductive or useless. Mucus is usually pretty easy to clear out. Drink a lot of water, take a hot shower and breathe in the steam, blow hard, it comes out. Getting the blood vessels near your nasal passages to stop being assholes is the tricky part. Was this part of your routine during your track and field days? :O Hmm I never really had a problem. I would get a lot of mucus while I ran sometimes but it was always easy to blow out. I just needed to stop running and have a tissue to do it. And I seem to recall that running helped with stuffy nose, not that it really mattered because I'm breathing through my mouth all the time anyway. And as a general rule, we completely avoided exercise when sick and I typically got stuffy nose only when sick. thats interesting, I ran cross country and 400/800 and as a general rule the last thing you wanted to do was breath through your mouth, once you gasp for air its pretty much over, and I still have congestion in the nose all the time, steam inhalation is far and away the best way to fix it. O_O I feel like I'm being enlightened with each post!
hm yeah I've never heard of that either. every professional runner breathes through the mouth when competing. it's pretty indisputable that breathing through the mouth can more easily move volume of air than breathing through the nose. and it's equally clear that it's possible to breathe through the mouth without gasping. i can agree that a runner, no matter the distance, should not attempt a pace that causes the "out of breath" feeling before the end of the race. but i have no doubt that breathing through the mouth with proper control and rhythm will delay the "out of breath" feeling longer than breathing through the nose. i've done some nose breathing (with both "stomach breathing" and "chest breathing") and the best pace i could hold is around 7 minute miles. any faster and i start accumulating some oxygen debt and breathing through the mouth would relieve that pretty quickly. i understand that some extremely aerobically fit people, with some really efficient muscles, can run 6 minute miles with nose breathing. that's not very fast though for a serious runner. but again i've never heard of anyone being able to run faster for longer with nose breathing than with mouth breathing
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when i run i usually breathe through my mouth and gut.
during races or on hills i have to control my breathing and kinda force myself to take deep enough breaths. i've passed out on mt sac because of it, and i can't imagine anyone using his or her nose when you're already so tight on air.
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EPT
