Breathing
When we discuss breathing, we are not just talking about the process of breathing in itself, but rather how we can optimise breathing to help better our quality of training, injury prevention, sleep quality, blood flow, reduce stress etc.
Process of Breathing
When the lungs inhale, the diaphragm contracts and pulls downward to create space in the thoracic cavity so that the lungs can expand to take in air. This is known as inspiration. The second phase of breathing is called expiration, or exhaling. When the lungs exhale, the diaphragm relaxes, and the volume of the thoracic cavity decreases, while the pressure within it increases.
Now we have a level of understanding how breathing works, we can discuss how to train and strengthen the diaphragm. The diaphragm is the prime mover of the breathing muscles. However, the body does have accessory breathing muscles that it will turn to if the diaphragm is weak. These include pec minor, scalene, sternocleidomastoid (SCM), upper trapezius, platysma to name a few. All these muscles sit around the neck, head and shoulders.
Why Breathing with Accessory Muscles can be Problematic
If the diaphragm is not working properly, it is unable to create enough downward pressure/intraabdominal pressure to stabilise the entire midsection which can feed into lower back problems. But the biggest issue with breathing primarily with accessory breathing muscles (or chest breathing) is that we are facilitating hundreds of repetitions per day through these accessory breathing muscles. What this is doing, is creating a very clear mapping from the brain to these muscles. The body will use this map more when you do anything.
For example, you may be performing a dumbbell side lateral raise in the gym, you may find that although this exercise is supposed to target the medial head of the deltoid, because the mapping to the upper trapezius is so clear, your body will use that muscle over the deltoid because it knows how to use them so effectively. This clear mapping to the accessory breathing muscles can even feed into posture issues which may cause pain and further breathing difficulties.
Strengthening The Diaphragm
The obvious solution to this problem is to strengthen and improve the mapping to the diaphragm. Firstly, we need to perform a breathing assessment to evaluate if you are a chest breather (breathing primarily with accessory breathing muscles) or a belly breather (Using diaphragm). Simplest way to do this is to cross your arms, placing your left hand on your right shoulder, then placing your right hand on your left shoulder. Then lift your elbows up to shoulder height and take 3-5 deep breaths in and out. If you notice a rise and fall of the shoulders then you are a chest breather and are using accessory breathing muscles primarily.
Nasal Breathing
There are many ways we can go about correcting this issue and strengthening the diaphragm. The easiest place to begin with is nasal breathing (breathing through your nose). Nasal breathing is reflexively tied to diaphragm contraction, it has to happen! Making a conscious effort to breath through the nose more regularly can have a profound affect on improving diaphragm contraction. However, we don’t want nasal breathing to have to be a conscious thought, we should aim to breath through the nose without having to think about it.
A very useful tool to help with nasal breathing is nasal strips. Nasal strips help to decrease the resistance through the nasal passage ways, allowing for a better contraction through the diaphragm. You can wear nasal strips whilst training, day to day and when you go to sleep. Wearing nasal strips to bed is a great way for nasal breathing to become more natural and an unconscious effort. To take it one step further we can add putting a thin layer of micropore tape across the lips with the nasal strips whilst you sleep. What this does is essentially give your body no option but to breath through your nose. It sounds weird, but trust me it works! If you find it too uncomfortable to sleep with the tape across your lips then simply try to use the tape and nasal strips before you go to bed. For example, you may use them whilst you read a book or watch TV. Then simply increase the duration that you wear them as you get more comfortable.
When you breath through the nose (nasal) you also have to stimulate nitric oxide production, which causes vasodilation (increase blood flow).
There are 3 major forms of nitric oxide synthesis:
- Endothelial (eNOS): works on endothelial cells in your veins, capillaries and arteries to help with vasodilation.
- Neuronal (nNOS): Works in the brain as a stimulant in a very positive way to stimulate the nervous system. Very important for energy production in the brain.
- Inducible (iNOS): Has a lot of different benefits as an antimicrobial and antibacterial, it is toxic against invading or pathogenic cells in the body.
If we get more nitric oxide production, we get better vasodilation leading to better blood flow, which benefits the entire body. People generally have more damage to micro capillaries due to poor elasticity of the capillaries, possibly due to a lack of nitric oxide. This problem however may also come from a lack of nutrients, maybe a lack of folate and methionine, these two things are important for re generation of nerves and blood vessels and capillaries.
Hopefully now after reading this article you can begin to understand the importance of correct breathing/nasal breathing, and the affect and benefits it can have on your entire body and wellbeing.
References
- Ganbaru Method, Eugene Teo, Published November 2019, Accessed February 10th (ganbarumethod.com)
- MedlinePlus, National library of medicine, Published 04 February 2022, Accessed February 11th Lungs and Breathing: MedlinePlus
