Stress comes in many forms, especially at this time of the year we can be worried about money, job security, family pressure, exams and end of study pressure or just feeling really busy as many festive season events start to fill up our calender.
In one journal article, authors Varvogli and Darviri 1 listed Diaphragmatic Breathing as one of eleven methods for stress reduction shown by research to be effective.
Diaphragm breathing is something I use myself a lot. As a singer and public speaker it’s an awesome technique to make your voice more powerful and long lasting but it’s medical effects are also useful for our body as a stress reduction technique. It’s even now considered evidence based medicine.
Breathing from your diaphragm is something that’s easy to learn. Once you've practiced it, it’s quite simple to initiate in any stressful situation as well as a general practice to use to improve health.
Diaphragm breathing is the way babies breathe. If you've ever watched a new born baby breathing while sleeping you’ll usually see their abdomen moving up and down as they lie there peacefully. Your diaphragm is a big muscle – imagine a jellyfish attaching to all the bony parts across the middle of your torso – the lumbar spine and your lower ribs. It separates the lungs from the rest of your abdominal contents.
It’s easy to see the diaphragm in action although we cannot directly see or palpate very much of this muscle.
When you breathe with your diaphragm your chest should not rise up and down, rather your belly will push out when you breathe in.
As a singer, I've learned lots of techniques to learn for diaphragm breathing. The best one to get started is to lie flat on the ground or bed and start to expand your belly as you breathe in. You can put an object you can see on your abdomen – if your doing it correctly your object should go up and down as you breathe in and out.
Diaphragm breathing helps you oxygenate your body more effectively and uses one muscle – the diaphragm as opposed to lots of other muscles which are located around your shoulders and neck to pull your chest up or expand your rib cage (the intercostal muscles). Diaphragm breathing kind of gives these muscles a rest!
You can Google other diaphragm exercises or ask your health care practitioner to show you some Diaphragm breathing exercises.
REFERENCES:
1. Varvogli L, Darviri C. Stress Management Techniques: evidence-based procedures that reduce stress and promote health. Health Science Journal. 2011;5(2):74-89.
