The thin wall, or septum, between the nostrils, should be in the middle of your nose. Sometimes, however, it’s off to one side or the other. This is called a “deviated septum”. This condition is usually due to an injury, causing the cartilage or bone of the septum to shift or buckle. This can happen at birth.
Some people can look in the mirror and see that they have a deviated septum. If the tip of your nose is pointing towards one of your ears, that is a good indication that you have one. If this doesn’t work, you can close your mouth, alternately blocking each nostril while breathing in, and see if one side of your nose seems to take in less air than the other. If one nostril is harder to breathe through than the other, you probably have a deviated septum.
Deviated septums have the potential to cause a variety of problems, including a blocked nasal passage, snoring and/or trouble sleeping, mouth breathing, nosebleeds, or recurring sinus infections. As a person ages, these problems may get worse.
Not all deviated septums cause problems. Some people with a have no symptoms at all. Fortunately, if there is a problem, a deviated septum can be fixed with a minimally invasive surgery in less than an hour.
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Because your nostrils split their workload. Throughout the day, they each take breaks in a process of alternating congestion and decongestion called the nasal cycle. At a given moment, if you're breathing through your nose, the lion’s share of the air is going in and out of one nostril, with a much smaller amount passing through the other. Every few hours, your autonomic nervous system, which takes care of your heart rate, digestion and other things you don’t consciously control, switches things up and your other nostril does all the heavy lifting for a little while. The opening and closing of the two passages is done by swelling and deflating erectile tissue - the same stuff that’s at work when your reproductive organs are aroused - up in your nose.
The nasal cycle is going on all the time, but when you’re sick and really congested, the extra mucous often makes the nostril that’s on break feel much more backed up.
There are at least two good reasons why nasal cycling happens.
One, it makes our sense of smell more complete. Different scent molecules degrade at different rates, and our scent receptors pick up on them accordingly. Some smells are easier to detect and process in a fast-moving airstream like the decongested nostril, while others are better detected in the slower airstream of the congested nostril. Nasal cycling also seems to keep the nose maintained for its function as an air filter and humidifier. The alternating congestion gives the mucous and cilia (the tiny hairs up in your nose) in each nostril a well-deserved break from the onslaught of air and prevents the insides of your nostrils from drying out, cracking and bleeding.
When you cry, most of your tears spill over your lower eyelid and run down your face. Some of them, though, don’t quite make it over the hill and instead go back down into the tear ducts and into the nasal cavity, which is connected to the ducts. If you’re really bawling, you’ll have quite a few tears running down into the nose, and their salinity also helps loosen up mucous and get it flowing, giving you a runny nose.
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If you get close to a mirror and breathe out through your nose, the mirror will fog up. Two marks of water vapor will pool on the surface, one for each nostril. But one mark will be larger than the other, because people breathe mostly out of one nostril at a time.
So why do we rarely breathe out of both nostrils at once?
At any given time, people do about 75% of their breathing from one nostril and 25% from the other, said Dr. Michael Benninger, a head-and-neck doctor at the Cleveland Clinic. The dominant nostril switches throughout the day. This is called the nasal cycle.
Related: Why do we breathe so loudly when we sleep?
Although we don't usually notice it, during the nasal cycle one nostril becomes congested and thus contributes less to airflow, while the other becomes decongested. On average, the congestion pattern switches about every 2 hours, according to a small 2016 study published in the journal PLOS One. Right-handed people tended to spend more time favoring their left nostril, according to the study.
No one is sure why the nasal cycle occurs, Benninger said. But there is one popular theory: "Some people have speculated that it has to do with allowing moisture to build up on one side so that it doesn't get too dry," he said.
Most people aren't aware of the nasal cycle, Benninger said. However, it may become more noticeable during sleep. If a person lies on their right side, for example, gravity will cause that lower nostril — the right nostril — to become more congested. If the cycle has designated the right nostril to be naturally more congested at the time, there's no appreciable effect. But if the nasal cycle has made the left nostril more congested and the right nostril is congested because of side sleeping, breathing may be difficult, and the person may wake up.
Usually, people notice the cycle only if they have consistent blockage of one side of their nose, Benninger noted. One way this can happen is if a person has a deviated septum, in which the wall between the nostrils is displaced, causing it to push into one side. Some people also grow soft, painless growths — called polyps — in their nose, which can cause the same effect. Although less common, tumors can draw attention to it as well.
Although your nose may feel stuffy when you have a cold, that’s not due to the nasal cycle. In general, both nostrils are congested when you’re sick, so you’re going to have trouble breathing through your nose no matter where you are in the cycle, Benninger said.
There are ways to decongest both nostrils at once, which can temporarily lead someone to breathe more equally out of them until the nasal cycle resumes. Medications such as nasal decongestant sprays, as well as exercise, can have the same effect, Benninger said. Sex can also open up the nose and may be a natural substitute to decongestant medicine, according to a 2021 study in the Ear, Nose & Throat Journal.
Originally published on Live Science.
Tyler Santora is the Health & Science Editor at Fatherly and a Colorado-based freelance science journalist who covers everything related to science, health and the environment, particularly in relation to marginalized communities. They have written for Popular Science, Scientific American, Business Insider and more. Tyler graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's degree in biology and New York University with a master's in science journalism.