The primary diaphragm, a dome-shaped muscle that is directly below the heart and bellows like a parachute, is responsible for 75 percent of all breathing actions. Like any muscle, it is important to exercise the diaphragm to tone and strengthen it. Exercise can increase the diaphragm's capacity to aid your respiration. Simple diaphragmatic breathing exercises bring awareness to the power and connectedness of the diaphragm to the whole body and help sustain healthy, full breathing.
Sync the Three Diaphragms
The primary, pelvic and vocal diaphragms all work in sync to achieve the fullest respiration. On an inhalation, the diaphragm moves down, widening and expanding the belly, and the pelvic and vocal diaphragms spread open. When habitual patterns are performed, like clenching the throat or anus muscles, the full descent of the primary diaphragm is obstructed. Noticing all three diaphragms working together is an exercise to bring awareness to the synchrony of the three diaphragms. Sit on a chair with a tall spine and feet planted on the floor. Breathe and notice the belly expanding and contracting. Then hold your abdomen in as if sucking in your stomach and notice the diaphragm trying to descend. Since there is a blockage in the pelvic diaphragm, the secondary respiratory muscles are working to compensate. Then release and tense the throat as if holding back tears and notice the strain on the diaphragm to ascend fully.
Loosening the Muscle
Sit in a comfortable position on a chair or floor. Bring awareness to your diaphragm; although you can't feel it, the indirect movements of the body infer movement. Place your hand on your belly below your sternum. As if a knee jerk reaction, quickly make a fist with the other hand and notice how the diaphragm clenched too. This exercise illustrates how your diaphragm replies to stress and teaches the difference between free moving or contracted movement of the diaphragm.
Softness Leads to Softness
Our body is an interconnected system. Opening of the diaphragm can be achieved by the softness of your gaze. Place your hand below the sternum and feel the inferred shift of the diaphragm moving with every breath. Focus your gaze on a fixed point, and squint the eyes to hone in on that object only. Your diaphragm may have tightened when your eyes strained to focus. Then relax the eyes and drop the focus from any one thing; as you do so, notice the diaphragm relax. Try the exercise a few times and begin to notice the subtlety and interconnectedness of your vision with your diaphragm. By keeping the eyes soft, you are able to also keep the diaphragm soft to breathe freer and fuller.
Turn It Upside Down
Viparita karani is a basic yoga inversion that deepens the respiratory rhythm and opens the spine, chest and diaphragm. When the body is upside down--as if the feet were standing on the ceiling--gravity make it easier to fully exhale. When upright, gravity works against the diaphragm's full ascension. Inversion exercises strengthen the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, slow the heart rate and decrease your blood pressure, all making the body relaxed to breathe fully.
References
- Diaphragmatic Breathing; Cleveland Clinic
- "The Breathing Book"; Donna Farhi; 1996
