Diaphragmatic breathing
Diaphragmatic breathing
Do you know how to breathe with your diaphragm? Funnily, we don’t really think a whole lot about how we breathe. Yes, it’s automatic. But, you can do it well, and you can do it poorly.
As you breathe, your diaphragm, the primary breathing muscle, should expand your rib cage in 360 degrees, opening up space for your lungs to expand. If you get stiff in your neck, back, or chest while sitting; if you have poor digestion; or if you get short of breath while sitting, it’s likely you’re not breathing effectively, and diaphragmatic breathing could help.
Your diaphragm can’t expand your chest if you are sitting in a slumped position. It can’t expand through the sides of your ribcage if you are rigid through your shoulders (think arms crossed, or hands in pockets). And, your mid back can’t expand if you’re sitting in a chair all day.
If you aren’t breathing well with your diaphragm, your breathing will be very shallow, only using the muscles attaching to your collar bones and neck, this is called apical breathing. This is a very inefficient way to breathe, plus it can increase your neck tension, and lead to headaches. Imagine your lungs are triangles, with the base of the triangle at the base of your rib cage, and the point just behind your collar bones. If you’re not expanding your rib cage, you’re unable to get air into the base of your lungs (where all the space is!), and you’ll only fill the points of the triangle. As I said, inefficient!
Diaphragmatic breathing helps to lower stress levels, improve digestion, lower blood pressure, improve concentration, and reduce muscle tension.
Try these diaphragmatic breathing exercises. After 2 minutes, and 4 exercises, you will feel more calm, and less tense, and you’ve literally just been breathing!
For all of these breathing exercises, focus on breathing through your nose, relaxing your abdomen, and if it helps, placing your hands gently on the areas you’re looking to expand.
Lean forward: Slightly leaning forwards is the easiest position to activate your diaphragm. You want to feel your abdomen relax and expand, your sides expand, and your back expand outwards.
Child’s pose: This is a great position to relax your abdomen, and focus on expanding through your back.
Crook Lying (on your back with knee bent): This will be harder to expand your back, but will be perfect to open through your chest.
Sitting upright: this is very hard for some people to do well. Placing your hands on your ribs and abdomen can help to guide your breathe into the lower parts of your lung.
Let us know how you go 🙂 .