Breathing for Better Health
Diaphragmatic breathing has been clinically proven to reduce blood pressure and promote relaxation but it can also soothe your nervous system! One thing I have found in my years of clinical practice is that many people have difficulty recruiting their diaphragm and require some re-orientation and re-education to engage this vital muscle.
This process is most easily performed in sitting. Are you in a relaxed and comfortable sitting position? Place one hand covering your lower ribs, one hand up at the top of your chest, and you're going to just take a deep breath. And then think about where you feel that breath. Is it underneath your lower hand on your lower ribs? Or is it more or all felt with the hand that's at your chest?
Now on your next breath try to minimize the movement up at the top of your chest, and maximize it into the hand down below at your lower ribs. When you feel your breath movement at your only lower ribs and just a tiny bit or none at all at the top of the chest, YOU HAVE DONE A DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATH!!
That means that you are engaging the diaphragm muscle. You are taking in breath with your diaphragm muscle rather than using the muscles up around your neck and that attach onto your upper chest. Those muscles around your neck and upper chest do NOT like to do someone else’s job-just like any of us! The neck muscles attaching to your rib cage only want to be called in during breathing if there is a wild animal chasing you NOT with every breath you take in a day! And they revolt! If you find yourself with daily tightness in the muscles of your upper chest and neck, this may be why!
If you can feel your breath only at the chest, try this PT trick: use both hands at your lower ribs and apply gentle pressure to the ribs. Then release that pressure and at the same time try to breathe into your lower ribs with your hands still placed upon them. Often this will allow you to activate and engage your diaphragm.
Once you have mastered the diaphragmatic breath, there's a little trick to the end of your exhale that will get you to fire your most important abdominal muscle, your transversus abdominis. Try another deep belly breath in. Then exhale through pursed lips. and then I want you to go that extra little bit and just try and get it out with a little tuck of the belly and just try and bring your belly button towards your spine. So you want to engage that as often as possible.
It does take practice, but practice makes perfect, and perfect practice will make it so that you get relaxation, lower blood pressure, calming of your nervous system, and there's many other benefits. Those benefits are all very helpful things for you to heal!
But if you can only feel your breath in the top of your chest, even after the trick I gave you, your diaphragm is disengaged from your brain, what we call in the Physical Therapy “business inhibited”. It might be time for you to see a physical therapist so that you can work on muscle re-education since it is very important for your health to engage that diaphragm in so many ways!
There are many ways to re-educate muscles and I find the process very fun! So schedule today if you have trouble with your deep belly breath. Your body will thank you!
Remember, your body has its own innate ability to heal, you just need to learn how!!