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Take a deep breath…. When you inhaled did your belly inflate? If so, great! You were breathing through your diaphragm. If not, you are among the many and all too common chest breathers. Throughout our lives many of us start using our chest to breathe. Stress, poor posture, excess weight and many other reasons, encourage the use of our anterior neck muscles and pectorals. When we breathe using our chest we make small, shallow movements which tighten these muscles instead of our big diaphragm muscle, which it was intended for.

A good practice I tell my clients is to lie on your back (if physically possible… if not, you can be in any position to do this), relax and put one hand on your belly and the other on your upper chest. Take a deep but comfortable breath in.  As you breathe in your belly should rise but your chest should remain quiet. Then exhale and your belly should deflate. Take a minute several times through the day to practice this simple but important exercise.

The hard part is trying to do this all the time. Don’t get discouraged, as with most things you have to start small. The idea is to get you informed and to start practicing. I find this particular technique great for people to reduce stress. You know the saying… “Stop and take a deep breath…” well now you know how!

Caroline Iwasaki, RMT