Why don't you just try it...? It's not that hard to do. Just relax your sinus muscles and close your lips, then alternate between using your tongue to fill the space in your mouth pushing air out your nose and moving your tongue out of the way to create a void, sucking air back in. If you can coordinate this while also alternating between closing your sinuses and opening your lips while you create the void in order to suck air in your lips, and then closing your lips and opening your sinus so that the air gets pushed out your nose, then you'll be able to pump air from your mouth out your nose without using your lungs.

[–] valkyrie@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess I'm not really following the technique. But let me ask this: Regardless if you aren't getting air to your lungs then there is no point of breathing right? Since the lungs are the ones that get the oxygen into your bloodstream. If using the technique above is actually effective, wouldn't you choke because of not getting enough oxygen?

[–] Stephen304@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah so you're essentially holding your breath while you do it, so you'd need to take a break to breathe in and if you're trying to siphon you would need to seal your lips to prevent losing your progress / prevent the liquid from falling back down. But you can exhale while doing it, which also helps to make sure your don't accidentally inhale whatever fumes you're "pumping".

Granted it's kind of a silly thing to do and only marginally useful. Each cycle only moves a mouthful of air so I only find it useful for clearing trace amounts of isopropyl fumes from vapes and pipes without hurting my throat, but a fun trick nonetheless if you have the coordination. And depending on the fumes it might still burn your nostrils a bit.

Maybe the better way to explain the technique is: you can close the back of your throat and move your tongue back and forth to push air in and out of your mouth. You can also close your lips and do the same motion with your tongue to push air in and out your nose. All you really need to do is alternate between the two so that instead of pushing the air back out your mouth, you push it out your nose.