Breathing Affects WHAT?
Breathing Does So Much More Than Taking in Oxygen
Yeah, we're talking about breathing again.
I'm sure you're thinking
"WHY THOUGH?"
I get it. We breathe every day.
It's kind of that thing required to sustain life.
But let's get geeky for a second.
First let's look at the role of breathing. What does it do for our body beside providing the obvious life sustaining oxygen.
How we are breathing can affect or influence:
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motor control
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postural stability
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our stress hormones
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regulation of intra-abdominal pressure
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our pelvic floor
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Abdominal muscle function
Okay okay so this is a lot of things breathing can affect, and its not even the exhaustive list.
Lets break down a little anatomy to look at how this is true.
Breathing takes about 8 muscles to inhale, and actively exhale. Biggest muscles for inhaling is the diaphragm. Now the diaphragm is a big dome shaped muscle. That sits right under the ribcage that separates the chest and abdominal cavity. The sides of the diaphragm connect to the bottom 6 ribs. They also intersect where transverse abdominus (TVA) attaches to the ribs.
TVA is our deepest core muscle. It is also directly attached to the pelvic floor muscles.
Are you starting to see the connections here with how our breathing can directly affect our pelvic floor and core?
Now when we inhale, we want a deep diaphragmatic breath.
BUT too many times, people are coached to "Belly breathe".
In belly breathing, you are only expanding the front of your belly, and then being told to "suck in belly button to spine". This can definitely affect a diastasis recti. All the pressure is being pressed out into that linea alba, or connective tissue, that was already stressed a lot during Pregnancy. AND this kind of breathing isn't activating your diaphragm.
For a good deep breath the side of your ribs should expand like a bucket handle. Think back to where your diaphragm attaches: those bottom six ribs. It makes sense that they should move when the diaphragm does.
When we have our diaphragm moving properly we are encouraging natural movement in the core and pelvic floor. This can SIGNIFICANTLY affect core dsysfunction, and pelvic floor dysfunction. Think diastasis recti, prolapse, leaking pee during coughing or laughing or exercising.
THIS is why breathing is the FOUNDATION. I'll preach it in every class. I'll come back to it time and time again. This likely won't be the last you hear of it from me!
When we are optimizing our breathing, we are optimizing our whole system.
Want to start learning more about how to optimize your breathing to get the most out of your core work? Check out our Breathing and Core Basics. We break it down and provide great starting exercises so you can build that mind body connection and make the most out of your movement and healing.
I've also attached the link to a couple of articles to back up what I'm saying. We love evidence-based practice here. I always want to do right by you by following peer reviewed reputable research.