Are You Breathing Right?

by William R.Morrow, D.Min.,LMFT . Email to:wmorrowmft@embarqmail.com

I try hard to follow instructions, so when I went in for a medical check up, I marched through the routine obediently. After a few preliminaries, the doctor donned his stethoscope, and said, “Take a few deep breaths” while he listened to my lungs. I guess I passed that hurdle without any heavy breathing in his face, because then he commanded, “Now, breathe normally!”

Although that bit of instruction seemed simple enough, I was confused, because I know that “normal” isn’t what it used to be.

My confusion was because I know the history of human breathing. It has definitely evolved from the days before anyone was really self-conscious about it. The Primitive Human Breather was basically pretty relaxed about in-and-out, unless, of course, he had to fight or flee. But aside from those stress times on the heart and lungs, our guy knew instinctively just what to do, and how to breathe.

In this modern era, we have to restore the God-given natural inspiration/expiration, and learn how to breathe properly.

What we know as the autonomic nervous system had evolved nicely from reptiles to upright mammals. The more oxygen required for the bigger brains of the human types, meant the more our heart/lung function had to work efficiently 

I recently added a new chapter in my understanding of how we breathe from Dr. Louis Damis, a health psychologist, who helps people with headache pain. He presented his findings at a weekend conference of the Florida Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

According to him, many of the pain problems of the upper body are a result of improper breathing. The upper body is connected to the brain by the vagal nerve system. And poor breathing is systemically connected to poor heart function. This can add up to trouble, especially for people who have been subject to excessive stress.

But fortunately Clinical Hypnosis, as a health profession, is geared to restoring healthy breathing through teaching relaxation. Relaxation is already an essential part of hypnosis, (along with inner focus and suggestion). Pain relief is a result of relaxation.

So, if the goal is to promote relaxed breathing, then we have to learn what that looks and feels like. Here’s the spoiler: in the bluster of 21^st century life, WE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BREATHE CORRECTLY. What I used to think was normal breathing was actually chest breathing. The greater stress of everyday living has trained us into this maladaptive mode for getting oxygen and staying loose and relaxed.

The human body was not designed for continual chest breathing. In order to deal with pain, and the anxiety often connected with it, we have to train ourselves in STOMACH BREATHING or diaphragmatic breathing.

Stomach breathing is associated with the calming effect of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The PNS is essentially the relaxation response of the general nervous system. Proper breathing actually turns on the PNS. But people have to learn this, I should say RELEARN this, since, way back, we once came by it naturally.

The treatment for many upper body pains is learning and practicing diaphragmatic or stomach breathing, employing the diaphragm muscle and the stomach. Follow this link for step-by-step instructions.

http://tinyurl.com/U-Breathe

You can practice this for use in pain problem situations as well as other anxiety effects on the body. After daily practice sessions, of ten repetitions each of the deep breathing, your ongoing regular breath can eventually become more of a stomach breath.  Who knows, you may evolve into the way we were originally meant to breathe. It is easiest to practice lying down on your back.