Know Your Body: Is it possible to breathe and swallow at the same time?

Dr Satyanarayana Mysore, HOD and consultant – Pulmonology and Lung Transplant Physician, Manipal Hospital, Old Airport Road, Bangalore said that one cannot swallow and breathe at the exact same millisecond -- but why?

By: Lifestyle Desk

New Delhi | June 9, 2023 09:10 AM IST

3 min read

Here's what to consider (Source: Getty Images/Thinkstock)

The human body, as we continue to discover more about it, is not only fascinating but also awe-inspiring due to the sheer scale of its multifarious functions. As such, our desire to keep learning more about it only keeps increasing — and well, it does not disappoint. Would you like to know the most recent thing we discovered? It’s the fact that we actually stop breathing for a few milliseconds when we are swallowing something. Yes, in simple words it does mean that we cannot swallow and breathe at the same time!

Elucidating, Dr Santosh Pandey, naturopath and acupuncturist, Rejua Energy Centre, Mumbai explained that swallowing and breathing happen because of the pharynx, which is the common passage for food and air. “It serves as a conduit for air going to the lungs and from the lungs to the nostrils, and for fluids going to the stomach from mouth,” Dr Pandey told indianexpress.com.

So, the pharynx has a neural mechanism regulating the coordination of swallowing and breathing. “If you accidentally swallow and breathe at the same time, you will aspirate. Hence, the coordination of breathing and swallowing is important else you may end up coughing,” warned Dr Pandey.

Here’s what to consider (Source: Getty Images/Thinkstock)

Experts noted that this is why one feels a painful sensation down their throat when the body tries to deal with the foreign object (like a piece of food, for instance) that has entered one’s windpipe.

Dr Satyanarayana Mysore, HOD and consultant – pulmonology and lung transplant physician, Manipal Hospital, Old Airport Road, Bangalore agreed and mentioned that the physiological phenomenon that occurs in the body when we are swallowing is that our airway is closed by a cartilage called epiglottis. However, the epiglottis doesn’t always manage to correctly cover the trachea or the windpipe.

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Dr Mysore said that one cannot swallow and breathe at the exact same millisecond. “The acts of breathing and swallowing are sequential. There may be pathological exceptions to this, and that is when we see people aspirating foreign bodies into their airways,” said Dr Mysore, who has retrieved nose rings, betel nuts, peanuts, metallic objects, and dentures from patients’ airways as a result of “disproportionate dysfunction between the act of swallowing and an open airway”.

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