Breath Work is Body Work!
Do you even know how to breathe?
One of the first things I go over with all my clients is how to breathe. Believe it or not, so many of us are breathing incorrectly, inadvertently putting our bodies in a state of heightened alert. Ask someone to take a deep breath and more often than not you’ll see them puff out their chest on the inhale—leaving the most important part out! During proper breathing mechanics, the chest should move very little when calm, but we should see and feel the ribcage and belly expand. Fill the belly with air on the inhale, compress and release breath and belly on the exhales. Most people can do this laying down, but try it seated- and then again standing. It’s not uncommon to find it difficult to get the hang of, but with daily practice you can improve quickly and note how this simple exercise can have cascading effects on the rest of your body.
The improper breathing we often do can rile up the nervous system, putting it on the defensive and activating the oft referenced “flight or fight” mechanism. When we workout, being able to use our diaphragm to control our breath is paramount. This helps to regulate the nervous system, the command center for the body. The nervous system influences everything from breath, digestion, memory and learning, to voluntary muscular control—so it’s probably a good idea to intentionally strengthen it. Deep diaphragmatic breathing has been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping to reduce cortisol, stress, depression, and blood levels of the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein. It lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, and elevates your mood. Breath work “exercises” the nervous system so that all of those functions run smoothly. However, keep in mind that exercise in itself is stress on the body, so if we’re exercising in an already stress-sensitive state, we’re probably not recouping all of the benefits exercise has to offer - and no one wants to feel like hard work was wasted.
Further, if you’re only breathing into the chest, muscles surrounding the torso can begin to constrict around the rib cage due to lack of use. When that happens, we can also see impaired shoulder and scapula mobility. And when the shoulder blades aren’t able to glide as freely as they ought to, it can lead to neck, shoulder, and back pain, as well as migraines, facial pain, and poor digestion. Deep belly breathing is also a wonderful way to gently “massage” your important internal organs, including the lymph nodes - which, by the way, there are more of in your digestive tract than anywhere else. Breath work is also autonomous, so when we exercise, if we can connect when we’re doing to an autonomous activity, our brains will not only be better able to remember the movement, but also control the movement- making you stronger, faster. And efficiency is what we’re all about.