You may be breathing wrong – It sounds strange because it’s the first thing you ever learned to do in this world. However, plenty of people suffer from back and neck strain because of surface-level breathing techniques.
In previous blogs, we have gone through the technique of optimal breathing patterns and how to do deep breathing exercises, and we’ve spoken about the myriad of benefits of this.
One of the main aims of this optimal breathing pattern we’ve described is getting air down towards the base of our lungs. You might wonder why this is so important, so here are the 3 main reasons.
Reason 1
We’ve come across a common, problematic breathing pattern over the years with our patients called accessory breathing, or apical breathing. This basically means breathing predominantly into the top of our chest, rather than the base of our lungs.
When we do this habitually, we’re using muscles around our neck and shoulders that aren’t meant to work constantly in that way. These muscles, therefore, get very tight over time, which can contribute to various neck and shoulder problems.
Reason 2
The bottom of our lungs are much better perfused. This basically means that we can extract much more oxygen from the air if we can get that air down towards the base of our lungs instead of just breathing into the top of our lungs.
Reason 3
The lower lung is rich with the parasympathetic nerve receptors associated with calming the body and mind. So the more you’re able to utilise the lower parts of your lungs, the better these beneficial processes can be stimulated.
So feel free to check out our previous blog on optimal breathing technique, showing us the best way to get air into the base of our lungs.