Take a deep breath. Now don’t you feel better? I find it fascinating how taking a deep breath and learning how to breathe properly with your diaphragm can have such a tremendous impact on not just your workouts but the quality of your life.

The diaphragm is an important muscle and acts like a vacuum that fills your lungs full of air. The diaphragm also aids in digestion by massaging your internal organs and working with the pelvic floor to help create a stable core.

When we are born, we are diaphragmatic breathers; watch any newborn baby breathe and you will notice that their belly rises up and down with each breath. As we move from infancy to adulthood we end up retraining how we breathe and use our accessory breathing muscles - the muscles of the rib cage, shoulders, and neck. The only time a baby breathes using these accessory muscles is when it is sick or its breathing is compromised. As adults we end up breathing with our accessory muscles mostly due to stress.

There is one caveat to this type of breathing and that’s the fight or flight response. When we are placed in a stressful situation this response kicks in and changes our breathing patterns. It is a biological mechanism that is meant to be used for very short periods of time.

Think about our ancestors and how we evolved as hunters and gatherers. We would go out on a hunt and chase down our prey or sometimes be confronted by a predator higher on the food chain than us. We would either fight or run away in order to survive. The physical work we would put our bodies through to eliminate or remove ourselves from the stressful situation would be enough to counter the fight or flight response and eventually return our bodies to homeostasis.

However, in today’s society, sedentary lifestyles have become the norm. We are not moving nearly as much as we use to. The stress we face today doesn’t require a lot of physical work to overcome. Our stress is more psychological (traffic, work, financial) and is more constant. This constant state of stress and lack of physical exercise has completely retrained our breathing patterns for the worse.

If we are continuously breathing with our accessory muscles, then we are telling our bodies to constantly elicit the stress response. This has a horrible effect on your posture and the normal functions of your body. Some of these adverse effects include:

· A hunched forward posture

· A forward head carriage (can result in neck pain)

· Poor digestion

· Loss of core stability

· Poor thoracic mobility

· Early onset of fatigue during exercise

· Increased cortisol levels

It’s not all doom and gloom, there is good news! We can retrain our breathing patterns and get back to feeling great. The diaphragm is a very dynamic muscle and should be trained just like your other muscles. Here are a few drills you can perform right now to reactivate your diaphragm and manage the stress response.

1. Qigong breathing – You can perform this drill standing, sitting, or laying down.

· Place your hands over your belly button

· Inhale through your nose and push your stomach out into your hands

· Exhale through your nose or mouth and your stomach will naturally contract

2. The shoe visual

· Lay down on your back

· Place one shoe on your stomach and one shoe on your chest

· Inhale through your nose and push the shoe on your stomach up

· Exhale through your nose or mouth and watch the shoe on your stomach fall

· If the shoe on your chest is moving as you breath, then you are using your accessory muscles

3. Crocodile breathing

· Lay down on your stomach

· Place your forehead on the back of your hands for a comfortable neck position

· Inhale through your nose and press your stomach into the ground

· In addition to pushing your stomach into the ground, your stomach will also get wider and expand east and west (this is how a crocodile breathes!)

· Exhale through your nose or mouth and let your stomach naturally contract

So there you have it, three simple drills to reset your breathing patterns. I highly recommend taking a few minutes each day to practice one of these drills. Eventually you want to be able to breathe like this naturally without even thinking about it, whether it is during exercise or while stuck in traffic. Until then, practice!

Reset Your Breathing Patterns for Better Health and Stress Management