The more bodies I’ve touched, the more I understand the feeling of anxiety in someone’s tissues. The body is braced in certain areas, specific to the person and their holding patterns, which can make it challenging to take deeper breaths. My focus in these situations is to relax the person’s nervous system, so deeper breathing comes naturally.
Releasing another muscle or 3 can also get a similar response.
Shallow breathing, or breath mostly in the chest naturally sets your system into fight or flight. Your body bypasses using the diaphragm, which is the strongest breathing muscle. It chooses instead to use accessory breathing muscles that are designed to help the diaphragm. These muscles are tiny and lift the upper ribs to allow oxygen into your system. The unfortunate response in the process, is fight or flight with cortisol flooding your system.
Cortisol is a steroid hormone that regulates our response to stress. It’s created in the adrenal glands that sit on top of our kidneys. Cortisol lowers inflammation, regulates blood pressure, and regulates how our body uses glucose (sugar) for energy.
So how can we tell if we use our diaphragm or not?
Well, take a breath and see what part or parts of your body are moving. You may be overly focused on your chest not moving, so note if your head is getting involved and trying to force what you want to be. If you feel like you can’t get out of your head, do something you normally do like wash the dishes or fold a blanket. While you’re doing it, notice where your breath is.
I usually cue breath as inflating the belly on an inhale and relaxing the belly on an exhale. This gives room for the diaphragm to lower into the abdomen as you breathe in, and tuck back under the ribs as you breathe out. I give more visual cues and a slightly deeper explanation of what happens in optimal breath in this month’s video. You’ll feel the most movement in the lower part of the ribs and the belly with a slight rising and falling of the chest.
If things are feeling stuck for you or it’s hard to access your breath in this way, grab a tennis ball and watch the video. When working with a part of the body that directly affects your nervous system, we want to be gentle. We’re wanting to move away from fight or flight and bracing. If things feel too intense for you to release while staying relaxed, back off. Let’s aim to be at about a 3 or a 4 on a scale of 1-10.
I also want to note that we’re always in flux. We aim to understand our body and its cues so we can pivot when it’s supportive to. There is an ebb and a flow and we do what we can with what we have.
There are other ways to access more of the diaphragm’s capacity too! If you’ve mastered breathing through the belly, see if you can inhale to expand through the sides of the ribs and let everything come back to center as you exhale. Once you’ve done that, see if you’re able to expand into the back as you inhale and let everything come back to center as you exhale. If you’d like to focus on relaxing you nervous system and you’re willing to be consistent, 10 breaths through each of these 3 compartments will be a great practice to bring you back into your body and out of those anxious thoughts.