Get a lungful of this…
What do walking up a hill, laughing till your belly hurts and yoga have in common? Breathing heavily!
The first two make you breathe more deeply than usual as your body responds to the need for extra oxygen and in the third you are usually prompted to take slow deep breaths at some point during the practice.
I guess most of us know that deep breathing is beneficial, we’ve been told about it by health professionals somewhere along the line. But why? And why do yoga teachers bang on about ‘the breath’ all the time? Is that just a yoga thing, something to do with energy channels or whatnot…?
Let’s investigate breathing a bit - the primary muscles are the diaphragm (contracts and relaxes to activate in/out breath) and the intercostal muscles (in between your ribs) which allow the ribcage to expand as the lungs fill. But also very important are your trunk muscles - the obliques and transversus abs wrapping the side of your abdomen - and the spinal musculature. Deep breathing is a workout for these, which is great news! Just getting out of breath is strengthening a whole load of muscles. But, if these muscles are weak we are prone to back pain and bad posture which can lead to a number of other ailments.
What I didn’t realise until recently is that when we constantly live with bad posture we are not only weakening the muscles mentioned above but overusing our breathing muscles. Think about it - if you’re hunched forward a lot then your diaphragm and intercostals have to work harder to do their job, creating tension as well as restricting breath. Over time this can impact the immune system as constant tension triggers the stress response unnecessarily, not allowing us to fully relax which takes its toll on the immune system.
So, breathing deeply creates a positive cycle of strengthening muscles which in turn makes it easier to breathe, which in turn facilitates all physical actions including relaxation! Brilliant.
There’s more! Another thing I didn’t know until recently is that the diaphragm is really a centre of movement and intelligence in the body not just the muscle responsible for breathing and vomiting. Basically, it’s connected (physically or via nerves) to the heart, lungs, liver and is a ‘space’ for many chemical processes to happen. It is also located literally in the centre of the body so we can think of it a bit like a massive junction… Huge numbers of peptides (amino acid chains that create the bridge between body and mind) are found here so no wonder there’s a strong connection between how you breathe and your state of mind.
Deep slow breaths are commonly known to bring calm and focus but faster deep breathing while running for example is also beneficial - we may even still feel calm despite working hard as we’re co-ordinating heartbeat and breath and getting enough CO2 in our blood (yes - we need enough of it as well as O2).
The obvious effect of taking in more air to get oxygen to muscles that are working hard when we’re playing sport makes sense but what about in yoga when we’re not necessarily moving vigorously and perhaps don’t feel the need to breathe more deeply? Well, holding postures in yoga can be a cardio exercise to some extent - perhaps not as aerobically challenging as fell running - but the muscles are still working hard to hold the body in place and while we may not feel that we’re moving, there are constant processes and minor adjustments being made in the body that require nourishment. It can be tempting to hold your breath as you make effort or just forget to breathe as you concentrate, so yoga instructors often remind you.
To summarise: breathing deeply is a workout for the deep and superficial muscles of the trunk which are important for more (and better) reasons than having a toned belly. Breathing deep into our lungs, breathing rhythmically and paying attention to our breath is very powerful for both body and mind.
There are lots of other aspects to breath in yoga and types of specifically ‘yogic’ breathing - I’ll come back to that in another post. Please see below for my sources of information :) And in the meantime, thanks for reading…now let’s go get out of breath!
https://www.thebreatheffect.com/immune-system-breathing-techniques/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3731110/
https://www.advancedbuteyko.com/about-good-breathing-10-reasons-why-we-need-co2.php