How Good Breathing Underpins Good Health

My top 10 benefits of breathing well

• You will feel more relaxed … a good start.

• You will have more energy from more oxygen in your system

• Your adrenalin levels drop as your blood oxygen increases – calm AND relaxed!

• Digestion improves as the gut organs are massaged by the diaphragm

• Digestion also improves because you digest better (in terms of hormone secretion and absorption of nutrients) if you are more relaxed

• Your immune system can work more efficiently as lymphatic fluid is moved around the body by full movement of the diaphragm and white blood cells can get around to where they are needed more easily

• Elimination of digestive waste is helped along by the diaphragm

• You might find you have a clearer head from better oxygen levels and better fluid movement in the body (veins and lymphatics) and elimination of waste

• You may feel like you have more time

• You may find it easier to make decisions…or make better decisions… or do less but feel like you’ve got more done…..and....you may simply feel better.

So what does good breathing look like?

If you look at a baby or young child, chances are that you will see their belly moving as they breathe. This is a good thing! It is a sign that they are using their diaphragm well when they breathe, and that this is massaging all their abdominal organs as it moves. This in turn helps their digestion and elimination of waste, because it helps move it all through the gut.

It also means that they are using the lower part of their lungs to breathe from, and this means that they will be taking up oxygen and eliminating carbon dioxide more efficiently than we do from our upper lungs. This is due to air pressure gradients and how they influence the take up and release of our blood gases – it is most efficient (easy) in our lower lungs just above the diaphragm.

How to breathe well:

• I suggest you try and do this exercise morning and evening. In the morning perhaps best to get up first and do before/after breakfast; in the evening this is a good way to relax before going to sleep.

• Begin either sitting or lying down; relax (drop) your shoulders and make sure you are straight without being tense.

• Put a hand on your belly button and begin to push your hand out with your tummy as you breathe in through your nose for a slow count of four. Direct your breath to the space you have created in your abdomen.

• Pause briefly

• Begin breathing out through your mouth for a slow count of seven. As you do so, follow your belly back towards your spine with your hand. If you feel any tensions (e.g. in your shoulders and neck) try to let them dissolve away as you breathe out.

• Pause briefly and repeat 9 more times, or more once you’ve got the hang of this.

When you first try this you may find it quite difficult and feel as if there’s an “argument” going on in your body about what to do. If so, perhaps try breathing out first, and then try breathing in – you may find that it helps you relax into it better.

If you would like to see if osteopathy can help you, give me a call on 020 7993 8116 and I’ll be delighted to talk to you.

Osteopathy and Health

Of the people I saw this morning, two had waited a couple of weeks before coming to see me. That’s very normal – we are all used to having occasional aches and pains and a lot of them just go away on their own after a few days. Those that don’t clear up on their own are the ones that people bring in with them. And the question here is “why not”? almost more than “why do they happen in the first place?”

As osteopaths our philosophy is to “find the health”. (Andrew T aylor Still, who discovered osteopathy, went on to say “anyone can find disease”…). What he meant was that it’s usually pretty easy to see what’s wrong, and perhaps give it a name. The challenge is how to help the body resolve the problem. Our role as osteopaths is to help the body do this using its intrinsic resources.

Part of “finding health” is to look at the problem in the round. How long has it been there, what brought it on, is it getting better or worse, what makes it better or worse… and more besides. Beyond this we can look at whether a person is happy in their life, what strains and stresses they are under, and what can be done about them. One of the joys of having an hour with each person or parent and child is being able to spend some time discussing possible contributing factors, and working out what changes might be beneficial. It sometimes takes a minor crisis to wake us up to bad lifestyle habits we have developed like going to bed too late or drinking too much coffee.

Recently I spent a weekend on a course with fellow osteopaths looking at how to support health in a patient’s system itself. Here we get a bit more esoteric – is health a substance?? Well not exactly, but…you might not surprised if I said that stress is a factor in a lot of patient presentations and that stress is a physiological phenomenon. Symptoms of stress in adults, babies and children alike include digestive problems, inability to relax and sleep, and headaches . We have receptors for hormones on each cell of our body , so we really do feel our emotions in our whole body - see www.cadacepert.com and below. A stressed body cannot repair easily or well – it finds it difficult to connect with its health, as if the stress gets in the way. So my job is to help the system “de-stress” by using calming techniques to facilitate more ease, and then support the health that is present despite the presenting problem . We always have health in reserve, it’s what keeps us going!

So to help healing we need to focus on supporting health? I would say so, yes . After 19 years in practice my reverence for the inner wisdom of each body is ever increasing. We are all individuals and our individuality is expressed through the healing journeys we make, both internally and externally. “ Life is always trying to express health” .** My job is to help get them to the place from which they can heal themselves.

Candice Pert, Molecules of Emotion; Why you feel the way you feel. New York Scribner 1997

** Rollin Becker, p11 Life in Motion . Stillness Press LLC, Portland. Oregon 2006