This is a preliminary exercise for those who are habitual shallow breathers and have trouble getting the air down into the lower lobes. Lie on your back with your legs out straight in front of you. Place a light book on your abdomen. Empty your lungs by slowly sucking in your abdomen. Now, breathe in deeply and slowly, concentrating on forcing the air down to your abdomen. As the diaphragm muscle descends with this deep, inhalation, the abdomen will distend and the book will rise. Concentrate on getting the book to rise up and down with each ‘in’ and ‘out’ breath. This may not come easily at first as you probably haven’t used your diaphragm muscle properly since childhood. (Next time you get the opportunity observe the belly breathing action of a baby.) Keep persisting. Breathe slowly.

Practise each day for ten to fifteen minutes. If you are still having trouble try pursing the lips and breathing through your mouth —suck the air in slowly through pursed lips. Normally it is better not to breathe through your mouth but for the purpose of learning to use your diaphragm properly (the strong dome-shaped muscle that’s attached to the lower ribs and separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity) it’s important that you do so. Pursing the lips produces an obstacle to breathing that necessitates a vigorous sucking motion to get the air in. This vigorous sucking requires the use of the diaphragm. You can practise this pursed lips breathing at intervals through the day while driving or at work. Don’t sit with a collapsed, forward hunched posture. This will make it difficult for the diaphragm to descend and will encourage shallow chest breathing.

You may notice that just as your belly breathing is progressing well, you will experience a sudden stalling as your chest muscles try to come into play and return you to your old shallow breathing habits. Don’t be discouraged if this happens. We are creatures of habit and if we habitually breathe with our chest muscles it’s perfectly natural that we involuntarily slip back into that habit while in the process of learning belly breathing. Besides, rib and chest expansion is normal during belly breathing but takes place only in the latter stages of the inhalation when the diaphragm is fully descended. If you experience a stalling in your breathing, concentrate even harder on pushing the book up with your abdomen. If you stall significantly and lose rhythm, relax and go back to the beginning—starting off with a new inhalation.

Chances are a lifetime of slumping in armchairs or at your desk, combined with shallow breathing, has left you with ribs that are tightly fixed to your spine and have lost their ability to articulate freely. If you are getting chest and back pains and/or repeatedly experience stalling in your breathing, it would pay to see your osteopath or chiropractor to have the ribs and thoracic/cervical vertebrae freed up. This will make all the difference.

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