How to Breathe!

Learning to become mindful about how you breathe is essential to mastering stress.  Unless you are a vocalist or public speaker, you may not have learned how to breathe in a stress reducing manner.  When you breathe with shallow, chest focused breaths, you may be even increasing your anxiety and feelings of stress. When you breathe correctly, using your diaphragm, you will find that your feelings of anxiety and stress are reduced.   It does take practice to learn how to breathe correctly. In this article, I’ll take you through the first steps in learning how to breathe from the diaphragm.  After you’ve mastered the first steps, in my next article I’ll give pointers and next steps on how to become your own expert in deep, mindful breathing to reduce stress.

You have probably heard about mindfulness – a stress reduction intervention that includes diaphragmatic breathing.   Researchers studying mindfulness, including mindful diaphragmatic breathing techniques, are finding positive results for people struggling with stress, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, pain, depression and other diagnosis.  Even if you are not diagnosed with a condition but struggle with managing stressors in your life, mindfulness and diaphragmatic breathing can help you cope and master your stress.

Your first step in learning diaphragmatic breathing is to choose a time and place where you will not be interrupted by noise, people or circumstances.

Next, you will need to find a place where you can lie down on your back. If your disability prohibits you from doing this, position your body in the most relaxing open posture you are able.

When lying down on the floor on a rug or blanket, take on a “dead body” pose – legs straight, relaxed, slightly apart, toes pointed outward, arms at your side, not touching your body, palms up and eyes closed.

Focus attention on your breathing – place your hand on the spot just beneath your rib cage. Note where your body rises when you breathe. If your are breathing from your chest, make note and see if you can instead breathe from below your rib cage.  Scan your body for tension -  your chest, abdomen, throat and neck.

 Begin Deep Breathing.

Draw your legs up so that your knees are bent in a way that is comfortable to you. Your toes should be turned outward.

Scan your body for stress/tension.

Place one had on your abdomen and one had on your chest.

Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose into your abdomen.  The hand on your abdomen should rise as you inhale. Your chest should move very little.

Exhale through your mouth, making a quiet, whooshing sound.   Relax your mouth, tongue and jaw.  Take long, slow deep breaths, focusing on your hand rising on your abdomen (focus just below your rib cage) with each inhaling breath and lowering with each exhale.  Focus on the sound and feeling of your breathing.  Do this 5 minutes at a time to begin with.  As you become more comfortable and familiar with mindfulness breathing, increase your time to 10 minutes or longer.

At the end of each breathing session, scan your body for tension.  Compare your feelings of stress and tension at the end of your session compared to when you began. Journal your progress.  Practice these steps for as long as it takes to master.  You will know you have mastered diaphragmatic breathing lying down -  when your chest rises very little and your abdomen rises most. Your diaphragm is then doing the work it should be doing!

After practice, remain in position, let go of your focus and concentration, relax and congratulate yourself for a job well done.