Breathing is an involuntary and fundamental action lungs take roughly 12,920 times per day. That’s a lot of repetitions of a movement if you aren’t doing it correctly. So, how could you mess up an action that is so automatic and basic? The majority of people with pain, stress, injury, or breathing dysfunctions breathe apically (when shoulders rise during a deep breath) by over-using accessory breathing muscles of the neck and chest instead of diaphragmatically (when stomach extends out because of the pulling action of the primary breathing muscle, the diaphragm).
It’s important to breathe properly for many reasons: decreased stress, improved oxygenation, mobility of the spine and ribcage, increases metabolism, and so on. Check out this website (http://www.healthcentral.com/chronic-pain/coping-162182-5.html) for further details on how proper and improper breathing can affect your whole body. How you breathe is extremely important so that the body works efficiently, effectively, and with the least amount of strain possible. For a quick view of how diaphragmatic breathing looks, be sure to watch the video on proper breathing in the preceding post or ask your physiotherapist to help. Remember, if you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.
