Breathing is one of the things we generally do without thinking about it. Most of us probably do not even register how we breathe. Go for a fast walk up a hill or a fast run and you soon notice your breathing rate getting faster and it may be getting harder to catch your breath. When you get to the top of the hill, it may take you a good few breaths and a bit of time to recover but you will probably notice how you feel.
How do you breathe when you take a breath? Are you generally a nose breather or do you use your mouth mostly for breathing? Research shows that breathing through your nose at rest helps to utilise your diaphragm better for breathing and benefits core and spine stability. Your nose also filters out dust and other particles from the air and it can also warm the air before it reaches your lungs. When you breathe through your nose, it slows your breathing rate down compared to mouth breathing and is better for your health.
With mouth breathing many people will breathe with the upper chest and shoulders and can be a cause of neck tension, also breathing faster than when nose breathing, which can cause over breathing better known as hyperventilation. It can cause you to feel anxious and feel harder to take in a normal breath and can affect your sleep.
But saying that breathing is complex and being able to talk requires you to use your mouth as air passes over your vocal chords and in eating breathing is carefully synchronised or we could end up coughing/choking on our food. If you run or play sport and you have to exert yourself, you may require more air than what your nose can supply directly so you would automatically switch to mouth breathing. The way you breath may also be affected by your mechanics, stiffness around your ribs and trunk may determine how you breath and move. If you are trying to change your breathing these areas may need to be mobilised as well.
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So now you are probably trying to work out how you breath? Often we would observe you breathing to see if you a chest and mouth breather, a belly breather which may just be you moving the stomach in and out, or whether you can breathe laterally into your ribs, or using a combination of nose and mouth to breathe. Together with this information we would also get you to fil in a health questionnaire which may give us further indications on how you breathe.
NOTE
People with a breathing or medical conditions should always seek medical advice first as they may have to breathe in a certain way due to their condition. If you've had a broken nose, this can also affect the way you need to breathe.
Adding some breathing exercises into your daily routine may benefit your health, recovery or performance at all levels. We breathe in excess of 14.000 times per day and although doing some breathing exercises may not seem very exciting to do, they can, have a definite impact on your health and training. We incorporate breathing exercises into our classes. As an athlete or runner you may well benefit from breathing exercises.
Breathing exercises have often been used by singers to help get that long note hold or by divers going deeper into the ocean which takes considerable training. Surfers also practice breathing exercises to be able to hold their breathe longer when they get swept under a wave.
Breathing exercises can be done almost anywhere, sitting, going for a walking, going for a run but you may have a perception that you must sit in a meditative pose to do these breathing exercises. At first you may have to take things slow and learn breathing exercises in a static position like lying on your back with knees bent, but then you may be able to the exercises standing, walking or running.
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