Laura's note: Many factors can contribute to a tendency to breathe shallowly, including childhood trauma. When your central nervous system has been stuck on constant alert for years--maybe even a lifetime--holding oneself in a way that restricts complete inhalations and exhalations comes with the territory. Many of us have a very hard time relaxing and letting go in a way that allows our breath to occur the way it is designed to for optimal health. And if on top of it you aren't aware of the habitual postures and tensions that limit the depth of your breath, it can be even harder to overcome. And that affects everything. Of course, two modalities that rightfully get a lot of press in this community--mindfulness meditation and yoga--can go far in helping to reset the body and awareness in ways that encourage full, deep inhalations and exhalations.
Inhale 2,3, 4 ... exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ... and then please read on for more on this involuntary bodily function that when deliberately practiced can change one's entire mood and energy level.
If you want to observe incredible breathing, watch a newborn. They naturally practice deep, or diaphragmatic, breathing by using the diaphragm, a muscle under the lungs, to pull air into the lungs. Visually, you’ll see the belly expand and chest rise as they inhale air through the nose and into the lungs. As they exhale, the belly contracts.
For many people, this kind of breathing is no longer instinctive. Instead, many of us have become shallow chest, or thoracic, breathers—inhaling through our mouth, holding our breath and taking in less air. Over time our breathing patterns have shifted as a reaction to environmental stressors, like temperature, pollution, noise, and other causes of anxiety. Cultural expectations, including the desire to have a flat stomach, encourage holding our breath and sucking in our stomachs, further tightening our muscles.
When we breathe in a shallow way, the body remains in a cyclical state of stress—our stress causing shallow breathing and our shallow breathing causing stress. This sets off the sympathetic nervous system, the branch of the autonomic nervous system that primes us for activity and response.
“Shallow breathing doesn’t just make stress a response, it makes stress a habit our bodies, and therefore, our minds, are locked into,” says John Luckovich, an apprentice Integrative Breathwork facilitator in Brooklyn, New York.
[To read the rest of this article by Rachael Rifkin, click here.]
[Artwork by CHRIS MARTZ]
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