Monday Move: Dedicated to the Diaphragm

Last week I started a Monday Moves Series on the breath.  This series was inspired by the studies that Mike Reinold used in his blog post about breathing disorders.  The first study he quoted basically showed that the muscle activity of the neck increased while the muscle activity of diaphragm and the abdominals decreased while performing a simple daily activity like typing.  Breathing with increased neck muscle activity and decreased abdominal muscle activity leads to shallow breathing.  Since shallow breathing was designed to be more useful to us when a bear is chasing us, it stimulates the sympathetic nervous system (aka - the fight or flight response).  Although this is subtle, being in a constant state of fight or flight can have other effects on our overall health and well-being.

Now that you have observed your breath a couple times in the constructive rest position (see last week's blog post) let's name some of the players in the breathing team.  The diaphragm is definitely a major player.  This muscle transverses and divides the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity.   It is almost as though it has double sided tape on it, sticking the neck and belly cavities together.  When it contracts on the inhale it expands and pushes down on the belly cavity below. On the exhale it returns to its relaxed position which is a concave, parachute looking position.  This video gives an excellent 3D view of the movement of diaphragm.

So as you can see in the video, the diaphragm is a muscle.  It is part of the inner core unit.  We just tend to forget about it's function because we don't think about breathing (until we see studies that tell us we have adapted to our daily activities in a way that might be leading us to breathe in a less optimal way).  Also, we tend to forget about this muscle since we don't see the direct movement of this muscle like we can see the direct movement of other muscles. For example, as you perform an arm curl you see  the effects of the sliding together of our bicep muscle filaments because forearm gets closer to the upper arm.  However, as we have seen in the video due to the relationship it has with the cavity below it does push the organs downward during an inhalation.  Through contraction of the diaphragm fibers, the diaphragm lowers and the pelvic floor and stomach muscles widen (more to come on these players in future posts) in order to receive the organs.

Eric Franklin says "Breathing is the simplest thing in the world until you start thinking about it and analyzing it."  Which I find is so true!  The goal of today's move is to just visualize the movement of the diaphragm.  Return constructive rest position.  Set your cell phone timer for 3-5 minutes.  And as you close your eyes try to visualize the movement of the diaphragm.  When you breathe in, the muscle filaments slides together contracting the muscle which pushes down on the organs below.  When you breath out, the muscle filaments slide apart the diaphragm stretches and widens.  Do this visualization exercise for 10 to 12 breaths.  Then forget all breathing visualization and just feel the breathing until the timer goes off.

Monday Move: Full commitment to the Exhale

Life has been pretty unsettled over the last few months, but now I have reached a slower season and am returning to my Monday Move blog posts.  My imagination was ignited to post about the breath when I saw this posting on Mike Reinold's webpage about breathing pattern disorders.  Yoga is all about movement and the breath.  The third principle of Alignment Yoga is "full commitment to the exhale."  The two studies that Mike quoted in his article about breathing pattern disorders show that for us Westerns this principle of full commitment to the exhale is lacking in our daily life activities.  Here is Mike's review of the two studies:

• Two studies that document the correlation between breathing and some of our daily activities.
• In one, the study examined typing on a keyboard and showed that EMG activity of the scalenes and trapezius increased and thorax and abdominal activity decreased while typing.  Perhaps this is a primitive reflex but it causes us to breathe more shallow, with less diaphragm, and with more upper chest and neck.  Since we all likely spend a good chunk of our day typing, this is very prevalent.
• In another, the study showed that people held their breath, increased their respiratory rate, and experienced sympathetic arousal when sending AND receiving text messages.

After reading about the first study Mike mentioned and thinking about how much I sit at the computer made be want to jump start those breathing muscles that might not be fully turning on during my daily activities.  So for my next few Mondays - I am going to be dedicating some serious time to the breath. 

First things first.  Let's start today with just observing the breath. The first action is non-action. Lie on your back in Constructive Rest Position (see above picture).  Start here for 3-5 minutes.  Try not to manipulate or control your breath.  Evaluate and observe the breath, just as a physician evaluates a part of the body that might not be working properly, observe your breath. What body parts move as a result of the inhale?  What part moves as a result of the exhale? Where does your grounding come in this position?  Can you tuck your shoulder blades underneath you more to get more connection with the earth, or grounding, through your shoulder blades?  No crazy tricks of the trade today...just breathe.

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