Relearning how to breathe from the diaphragm is beneficial for everyone. Diaphragmatic breathing slows the heartbeat and can lower or stabilise blood pressure.
The diaphragm is the only muscle unique in that it is under our conscious and unconscious control. We can contract our diaphragm voluntarily, but it will also contract without us consciously telling it to. It’s the foundation of the rib cage. It’s a plate of muscle that moves up and down with the breath.
In fact, when we inhale, the plate moves down and, when we exhale it lifts up, and when that muscle is working it’s creating an internal heating system.
Breathing diaphraghmatically helps restore your body’s balance, through deep and slow breathing. It also brings you inner peace.
Diaphragmatic breathing increases your oxygen volume. Because you are completely filling your lungs. When you exhale fully you release large amounts of carbon dioxide and waste from your body.
The correct way to do diaphragmatic breathing
It is so important to pay attention to and strengthen the diaphragm. The diaphragm is a key member of a team of muscles that help to create dynamic postural stability. The diaphragm works together with the pelvic floor muscles, abdominal muscles, and low back muscles to pre-activate and provides support to the body during movement.
To have a strong and correct posture we need to strengthen the diaphragm.
Chest Breathing makes you rely on secondary muscles around your neck and collarbone instead of your diaphragm. Making these accessory muscles tight around the chest. This causes your shoulders to become rounded and forces your head into a forward posture. This weakens the back by inhibiting muscles that help maintain an upright posture. Including the latissimus dorsi, the largest muscle in the upper body.
Shallow, frequent breaths indicate you aren’t using your diaphragm or ab muscles breathe. To strengthen your breathing muscles, you must push them to the max by breathing fully in and out.
Because we are always working on the technology, we start collapsing into the core of the body. If we don’t consciously strengthen our diaphragm muscle all the time, the foundation of the rib cage becomes weak. Like any weak muscle, it doesn’t sustain its integrity and under the weight of the upper body forcing us to unconsciously lean over our desks.
The majority of the oxygen receptor sites are at the base of our lungs, called “alveoli”. When we breathe diaphragmatically the air goes all the way to the base of the lungs ensuring optimal absorption of oxygen.
When we exhale fully and properly we are optimally releasing all the waste, by-products of functioning, and negative emotions. If we’re breathing through the muscles of the upper chest we’re starving our body and our cells of oxygen. Breathing diaphragmatically can feed your body up to 600 percent more oxygen
You probably think there’s no way you can pull in 600 percent more air! It’s not that we’re taking in 600 percent more breath or air. what we are doing is increasing the absorption of the oxygen 600 percent into our body.
In 2014, a study proved that eighty-four percent of weight loss comes from proper exhalation. It’s the breath that’s the key to weight loss. According to researchers from the University of New South Wales, when weight is lost, the majority of it is breathed out as carbon dioxide. Most dietitians and personal trainers believe that fat converts to energy or heat. This violates the law of conservation of mass. The researchers found that 10 kg of oxidized fat. 8.4 kg was converted and excreted as carbon dioxide (CO2) via the lungs, and 1.6 kg became water (H20).
If we with every single breath access our ability to release waste, we can keep ourselves clean and won’t have a backup of waste. Understanding this concept gives you a significant reason for breathing properly.
Another reason we also want to get rid of waste is that with every breath we could be pulling in fungus. This can be in the air, drinking dirty water, or eating bad food. This ultimately gets released with each full exhalation, when we breathe diaphragmatically.
Let’s think of our abdominal organs, the stomach, the pancreas, the liver, the heart, and the lungs. Every time we breathe, the diaphragm moves up and down, like an elevator, gently massaging these organs. All our organs need to be at the proper temperature to function. If we’re cold, we are collapse and compress, forcing us to breathe through those secondary muscles to pull in oxygen.
If you go for a run and breathe shallowly, you would come back dripping wet and sweaty. But like the majority of people, your belly would still be cold. It’s because we’re not using the diaphragm muscle properly. When we’re breathing diaphragmatically the organs are heated properly. This improves your digestion, elimination. In other words everything improves if it’s heated properly.
Let’s just talk about breathing and digestion for a moment. Your stomach is directly below the diaphragm. The mechanical movement of breathing helps us break down the foods during digestion. A right-handed person typically collapses into the left side. Compressing most of their weight right on top of their stomach, restricting movement. On top of that most of us don’t chew properly. We’re swallowing big chunks of food, into a cold container that doesn’t have that added massaging effect. It’s not surprising that there are so many people with digestive issues.
We want a body that is warm, fluid, and flowing. We don’t want a frozen body where everything takes half an hour to heat up and warm up before it’s ready to be capable or where there’s almost no movement. We have a hundred trillion cells, and we want every single one, if those hundred trillion cells fed and clean. And we can’t do that through breathing through the muscles of the upper chest.
Oxygen is the most important nutrient for the body. We will die in five minutes if we’re starved of oxygen, and every cell is a mirror of that bigger system. Without properly feeding our cells, they start shutting down. Our diaphragm can do this for us, and it doesn’t cost any money. Knowing this shows us how important it is to put time and attention into this muscle. People go to the gym focusing on their pecs, their biceps, their shoulders, or another muscle group that they’re wanting to strengthen. Yet, most aren’t paying attention to the diaphragm. Yet, in order to change ones physiology, you need to strengthen your muscle.
When we breathe diaphragmatically and focus on a full conscious exhalation, we squeeze the belly small every single breath. This means you’re doing core work 24/7. You don’t need to do sit-ups which really don’t target the core, they target the superficial abdominal muscles.
If you haven’t been able to achieve your goal, after doing 400 sit-ups a day, it doesn’t create a flat belly and reduce your caloric intake. It’s because you’re actually becoming more compressed. You will balloon more, and it will affect your digestion. Understanding there’s a different perspective and a different approach.
We use persuasion, not force. When you force something, it’s going to respond with force. When you persuade something, it’s going to surrender, and isn’t that so much nicer?
The diaphragm connects us with a calmer brain frequency.
The muscles of the upper chest connect us with a frequency that’s fast and stressful.
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