Invitation to Expansive Breathing
Invitation to Expansive Breathing
Many of us have likely heard of diaphragmatic breathing, but I have a very personal pet peeve with this phrase. The words simply mean breathing with your diaphragm which is already what has to occur in order for you to even be alive. Then most people when teaching diaphragmatic breathing actually teach belly breathing, which is to either actively or passively work to see your belly rise and fall. The issue with this is that your capacity for breath is not in your belly, it’s in your lungs and diaphragm, and so to use the belly as a visual cue more often than not promotes really poor habits such as contracting the abs or arching the back to get a bigger belly extension.
I therefore, like to use the phrase expansive breathing. In expansive breathing, the concept is that our lungs expand in all directions when they take in air. Therefore our torso, abdomen, backs, and rib cage also have to expand in all directions, meaning up, down, front, back, and sideways. If we can get used to breathing in this manner, in all directions, then the diaphragm will naturally follow into a descent/ascent that utilizes its full range of motion. The other thing that often can start happening is that the pelvic floor will also naturally expand on inhale simply due to the expanding pressure occurring in all directions.
This post is to invite you into expansive breathing and hopefully some pelvic floor relaxation!
A couple more pointers before we get breathing.
You will want to set yourself up in a very comfortable position, preferably lying on your stomach or side (with a pillow between your knees). On your back, seated, or standing positions require postural muscle activation which means you cannot fully relax, even when relaxed.
Check in to see if you are breathing through your nose (see blog post on mouth breathing and pelvic floor tension). Mouth closed, tip of tongue behind the back up your upper teeth, the body of your tongue filling the roof of your mouth.
Check in to see that your throat space feels as open as possible, not restricted by your chin being tucked too much or lifted such that your neck is arching.
Check in to see that your toes feel relaxed and at length. The toes have a direct correlation to the pelvic floor due to their locations in the somatosensory cortex of the brain (more on that in a later post), but needless to say, relaxed toes help to relax the pelvic floor.
See if you need any other adjustments to make this position as comfortable as absolutely possible. Take time to get fussy and picky for your comfort, it matters.
Invitation for Expansive Breathing:
After getting super comfortable using the pointers above, begin to breathe.
Breathe with ease, meaning try not to really force a bigger breath, or force directing your breath in any direction. Just notice your natural tendencies in breathing.
As you continue to breathe with ease, picture your lungs and how they are like two balloons that live inside your ribcage on either side. See them inflate in all directions, up, down, front, back, and sideways. Again don’t force, just picture and let breath come naturally.
Perhaps take some moments to just notice, again no forcing, to see if you can feel movement of other body parts in all those directions. For example you might feel the back expand right around the shoulder blades, or the ribcage move sideways.
As you are here, remain with your breath, if thoughts start flooding, they will inevitably cause tension so acknowledge them and ask them to wait until you are done breathing to be addressed.
Notice if as you inhale you can feel motion in the pelvic floor. Ideally that motion is a sense that the pelvic bowl is getting bigger. Again the pelvis is like a bowl and if it increases in size, it will increase in all directions creating a wider deeper bowl, not a tube.
Breathe as long as is comfortable for you, this may be 30 seconds, this may be 30 minutes. The choice is up to you. Note that to achieve parasympathetic nervous system activation and restoration (your rest and digest nervous system), you do need about 20-30 minutes sustained decompressing activity. However don’t think for a second that a few breaths lasting 5 seconds is not also incredibly helpful.
Happy breathing all.