1 Dimensional Breathing

Breathing is something that comes naturally it is something we do without even thinking about it. That being said we are able to disrupt our “normal” breathing pattern weather it is through injury, prolonged periods of poor posture, prolonged illness or bad habits, this causes us to re-learn how we breath the problem with this is it can lead to difficulty exercising to our full potential, pain and tension in neck and chest, poor breathing habits can even be a cause of low back pain. These exercises are designed for every day breathing not for high intensity exercise where 3 dimensional breathing is required.

The steps below are a training method to activate the primary breathing muscles minimizing the engagement of secondary breathing muscles with the view to retrain the muscles of inhalation and exhalation to the most efficient practice.

Stage 1

1. Laying on your back on the floor or in bed.
2. Gently rest one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest.
3. Concentrate on your breathing into your stomach only we don’t want your chest to rise (this can take some getting used to for chest breathers).
4. Once you can do this easily it is time to start retraining.
5. Breathing in through your nose trying to fill your stomach with as much air as possible (try imagining your stomach is getting pushed up to the roof).
6. Gently breath out through your mouth.
7. Once you have finished breathing out we are going to gently pull in and up with our belly button to get the last bit of air out.
8. Repeat for 5 min every night.

Your breathing should be slow and controlled during this exercise if you feel short of breath, breath normally till you are able to finish the exercise.

Stage 2

Once you have mastered stage 1 and you feel yourself naturally breathing into your stomach lets introduce some gravity into the equation.

1. Sitting in a comfortable chair with good posture (dining chairs are ideal) try to avoid the couch as they tend to promote poor sitting habits.
2. Concentrate on your breathing into your stomach only we don’t want your chest to rise.
3. Once you can do this easily it is time to start retraining.
4. Breathing in through your nose trying to fill your stomach with as much air as possible.
5. Gently breath out through your mouth.
6. Once you have finished breathing out we are going to gently pull in and up with our belly button to get the last bit of air out.
7. Repeat for 5 min every night

Your breathing should be slow and controlled during this exercise if you feel short of breath, you may not be ready to progress just yet but keep going.

Stage 3

Once you have mastered stage 2 and you feel yourself naturally breathing into your stomach lets introduce full gravity into the equation.

1. Standing up
2. Concentrate on your breathing into your stomach only we don’t want your chest to rise.
3. Once you can do this easily it is time to continue retraining.
4. Breathing in through your nose trying to fill your stomach with as much air as possible.
5. Gently breath out through your mouth.
6. Once you have finished breathing out we are going to gently pull in and up with our belly button to get the last bit of air out.
7. Repeat for 5 min every night

Your breathing should be slow and controlled during this exercise check in with yourself during the day are you breathing to new way? Can you feel a difference within yourself?

This can be a slow process progressing from one step to the next and it depends on the person, how long they have had altered breathing patterns, how often the exercise is completed personally it took 3 months to progress from stage 1 to stage 2 and only a few weeks to progress through stages 2 and 3.

If you find better breathing practice contagious and your enthusiastic to learn more about 2 and 3 dimensional breathing, please let me know.

By Daniel Collins (Remedial Massage therapist)