What is Diaphragmatic Breathing?
Aside from making sure you have enough oxygen, breathing directly impacts your pelvic floor, core muscle function and back and neck health. Today we’ll talk about what true diaphragmatic breathing looks like and how it benefits you.
We’ll also identify some other common breathing patterns that often contribute to symptoms such as: back pain, pelvic pain, neck pain, and prolapse symptoms (to name a few!).
Learning how to breath differently can be really challenging. If you feel like you need more guidance, working 1 on 1 with a physical therapist can be really helpful to customize what you need.
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The diaphragm is the largest muscle that helps you breathe. It connects all around the inside of your rib cage, 360 degrees. We’ll compare it to an umbrella. When you exhale, your diaphragm sits up inside the rib cage, like a more closed umbrella. As you breathe in, that umbrella should open up/flatten out and expand in all directions pulling the air into your lungs. A true diaphragmatic breath causes your rib cage expand in all directions - forward, sideways, and backward - simultaneously.
Here is an animated video of the diaphragm in motion. Notice how as the diaphragm flattens and opens, the rib cage also moves. This movement – expanding in all directions – is crucial for proper support through your body.
This video shows true diaphragmatic breathing in action:
The Pelvic Floor and Breathing
The pelvic floor is closely related to the diaphragm. As you breathe in and the diaphragm flattens down (the umbrella opens), the pelvic floor should respond and relax down as well. As you breathe out, the pelvic floor should recoil back to its resting position, following the diaphragm up. This reciprocal relationship keeps the pressure in the abdomen relatively stable, which is healthy for your pelvic floor and core.
If we have symptoms (such as back pain, hip pain, prolapse, diastasis, etc), re-establishing this relationship is crucial to support the body. If this relationship breaks down, it can strain the abdominal muscles, increase pressure on the pelvic floor, increase neck tension and back/hip pain, and contribute to several other issues.
Altered Breathing Patterns
Let’s talk about common breathing patterns that can limit the progress you are able to make in your daily workouts or physical therapy.
1. Belly Breathing
Most of the time, this is what’s pictured when someone says “diaphragmatic breathing.” However, it is not the same as the true diaphragmatic breath that we talked about earlier.
With belly breathing, there is limited to no rib cage motion and we see almost exclusively belly motion. The problem with belly breathing: every time you take a breath, you are pushing your abdominal muscles out of the way and making them stretch excessively. This makes it very difficult to make the core muscles stronger and makes the rib cage more and more stiff. If you experience diastasis recti, hernia, or prolapse symptoms, this is not a helpful breathing pattern for healing.
2. Shallow Breathing
In shallow breathing the shoulders come up towards the ears, the ribs flare forward, and the back muscles are activating. This pattern may also cause the neck muscles to tighten up with every breath. The over-activation of small muscles around the neck and upper back (instead of the big diaphragm muscle) can lead to neck tightness, headaches, upper chest tightness, and difficulty taking a deep breath. It also impacts how efficiently your core and pelvic floor support you.
3. Paradoxical or Reverse Breathing
Instead of gentle expansion during the breath in and deflating on the breath out, “reverse or paradoxical breathing” is the exact opposite. The belly is “sucked in” during the breath in, and the belly is “pushed out” on the exhale. As you can imagine, this interferes with those optimal mechanics and does not allow for proper core support or proper pressure management in the core. Just like belly breathing, if you experience diastasis recti, hernia, or prolapse symptoms, this breathing pattern can hinder healing.
