Learning The Breath: The Connection between Mind and Body

My journey with the breath started in a science classroom, learning the physiology of breathing. Back then I thought breathing work was only for patients who had trouble breathing. I now know that how you breathe affects how you move, how you recover and how you feel, and it’s become one of the most useful tools I have in the clinic.

I was a chest breather

I found yoga in 1995 and quickly realised that I, like a lot of people, was a “chest breather”. I was starting every breath from my upper chest instead of from the diaphragm.

When you get stuck in that pattern you overwork the muscles in your neck and upper body (the accessory breathing muscles) and underuse the diaphragm. Those accessory muscles are meant to help out during hard exercise or a stressful moment, not to do the job all day. Overuse them and you’ll often feel it as neck and shoulder tension, fatigue and a sense of being “on edge”. Upper-chest breathing ends up being tiring instead of restorative.

Learning to breathe for performance

I was working hard to get into backbends and headstands, which didn’t come naturally to me, and I was told I needed to sort out my breathing before my body would let me get there. That’s when I learnt that changing how I breathed could change how I performed and how I felt.

There are two patterns I teach most often:

• Belly breathing. Your tummy gently rises as you breathe in and falls as you breathe out, with the chest staying quiet. It feels natural and soothing, it’s easy to learn, and it’s a great first step for calming yourself down quickly because it takes the load off the neck and shoulders.
• Diaphragmatic (rib cage) breathing. The diaphragm widens the lower ribs to the sides and back as you breathe in, and they ease back in as you breathe out. It’s harder to learn, and if you get it wrong it can drift back into upper-chest breathing, but done well it’s calming and builds a stronger, more efficient breath.

Try this today

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent, one hand on your chest and one on your belly.
2. Breathe in gently through your nose and let the hand on your belly rise while the hand on your chest stays still.
3. Breathe out slowly through your nose, a little longer than the in-breath.
4. Keep it quiet and easy for 3–5 minutes. This shouldn’t feel like effort.

How I use breathing in treatment

I now include a breathing assessment and breath-awareness work in my treatments, and I use it in my own training every week. I’m a certified Oxygen Advantage coach, and my Performance Breathing sessions are dedicated to assessing your breathing and building a program for your sport, your stress levels and your sleep.

If you’d like to find out how you breathe and what to change, book online or send me a message.