The breathe of life… or a pain in the neck?
Breathing how can this be a difficult thing.
It isn’t because we do it without thinking as we should do to stay
alive, but to breathe in order to relax and get more
energy from your body or move more effectively is slightly more tricky.
Quite often when clients are doing Pilates because
they are thinking so much about all the other stuff,
the technique, keeping the body moving, etc, they tend
to forget to breathe and then go home and wonder
why their neck hurts or their shoulders are tense.
Day to day breathing tends to be more into the neck
and shoulders and if you place your hand on your
chest and the other hand on your belly, feel where
you breathe. Notice if you can breathe through
your nose — both sides.
Breathe and keep breathing.
Is your chest rising?
Are your shoulders rising?
Is your belly expanding?
(and by that I don’t mean sticking out like a pot belly.)
Your diaphragm is an amazing powerhouse of energy
that needs to get used otherwise you are only partially using your lungs.
So what happens when you breathe. The diaphragm contracts when you inhale.
The chest and top of stomach should expand as the pressure
drops inside to draw air into your lungs. You don’t want to be trying to hold your
stomach in by over recruiting that girdle of muscles around
your middle, your transversus.
You could try laying on the floor, knees bent, cushion under head and put
hands on belly. See if you can breathe into your belly and feel it
expand with the inhale. As you start to achieve this action then
you could place a small book on your stomach to really see how well
you are inhaling and using that diaphragm. When you exhale don’t try
to add too much tension to your stomach muscles just let your stomach collapse naturally.
Once you are happy with this and allowing your diaphragm to
work try it standing up which will require much more focus.
Again don’t tense up the shoulders of they shrug up don’t
worry just keep your focus on what is happening in the centre.
So think about this – your lungs are above your diaphragm
so if your diaphragm is not moving up and down, contracting and flattening on
inhalation and relaxing and returning to its dome shape on exhalation
you are going to be making it really difficult for your lungs
to work properly.
Visualise space in the upper middle of your body as you breathe in and then
that space decreases as you breathe out. Find your rhythm and stick to it.
See if you can deepen your breaths and play around with how long it takes
you to breathe in and how long it takes you to breathe out.
Notice what happens to your breathing if you breathe from
one side of your nose and then the other, if you breathe
through your mouth. Just play around. It will be relaxing
and very beneficial.
We will always come back to breathing as it is
the essence of life and can be a major obstacle in
withholding tension in your body if you can’t
learn to relax into your breathing.
So patience and keep on breathing!