Healthy Breathing Practice
When you are rested and relaxed, become aware of how you are breathing. Sit or lie down. Give your attention to your breath and know when you breathe in and out. Breathe naturally without influencing the breath. Do this for several breaths and allow yourself to continue to relax. Put one hand on your belly and one on your chest. When you inhale, do your belly and chest both rise, only your chest, or only your belly? Do you breathe through your mouth, nose, or both? Is your breathing quiet or can you hear it? Count the time it takes to inhale and exhale. Is your in-breath longer than your out-breath, equal, or shorter? Do you have a pause after the inhale or exhale?
A healthy breath is deep, slow, and quiet. You want to breathe in a full breath and effortlessly let the lungs release when they are full. If you have a full breath, your body will want to exhale. The exhale should be as long as or longer than the inhale. The exhale should squeeze the lungs of most of the old breath. Optimally, the body will rest and pause for a short time after the exhale and before a new inhale begins. A rest and pause at the bottom of the exhale is healthy.
We need to learn to use our entire lung capacity for good absorption of oxygen and for the elimination of waste. Your lungs are like a kitchen sponge. If the sponge is full of water and you squeeze out just a little bit, it will still be heavy with water. If you try to wipe something up, the sponge will not work because it is still full of water. If you wring it dry, the sponge will be able to soak up large amounts of water. This is the same principle as our lungs. If you only use the upper part of the chest to breathe, you are only using a small portion of your lungs. This leaves a significant amount of stale air in your lungs.
Most people underutilize their diaphragm. The diaphragm is a membrane separating the lungs and heart in the chest from the belly. When the diaphragm is working properly, it is flexible and moves up and down with the breath. When you breathe in, it lowers and flattens, pulling the lungs down and pushing the belly out. When you breathe out, it forms a dome pushing up against the lungs, contracting the belly. The diaphragm should be the work horse of our breathing. The lower parts of the lungs provide a large resource for breath, and many of us do not breathe here due to limited use of the diaphragm and lower ribs.
In diaphragmatic breathing, the belly rises on the inhale and becomes smaller on the exhale. Put one hand on your belly and one on your back directly behind your belly. Do they expand on the inhale and contract on the exhale? Your lower ribs will also rise and fall while the diaphragm is moving. Put your hands around your lower ribs at the bottom of the rib cage in the front and back. Do they expand on the inhale and contract on the exhale? Put your hands on the side of your lower ribs. Do your lower side ribs expand and fall with your breath? Optimally, the side and back ribs need to work along with your front ribs. The diaphragm moves up and down like an elevator pushing the belly out on the inhale and contracting the belly on the exhale. With the diaphragm connected to the lower ribs, the ribs move out pulling the breath in as the diaphragm moves down. As the diaphragm moves up, the lower ribs contract, pushing the breath out.
If you breathe mostly in your upper chest, developing diaphragmatic breathing can deepen, quiet, and smooth your breathing. Belly breathing can improve energy, happiness, and relaxation.
