Your whole body breathes, and your whole body is positively affected by your breath when you breathe right. So first, let’s talk about your back (the spine and muscles that accompany it—see figure 6), and then we’ll move on to the front (your digestive organs and everything related to breaking down food, from the cellular to the mechanical).
Breathing with the lower part of your body—Horizontal Breathing—is essential to your back health. Dysfunctional breathing causes neck and shoulder pain, mid-back pain and tightness, and can cause lower back and pelvic-floor discomfort, as well as bulging and herniated discs.
Figure 6
Your diaphragm and back are irrevocably linked, as the diaphragm’s ligaments connect to your spinal column at both the thoracic (T12) vertebrae and your lumbar (L1 and L2) vertebrae, joining it to both the middle and the lower back. The ramifications of associative problems are extensive. A study in the Clinical Journal of Pain concluded that breathing problems increased the risk of back pain and vice versa.41 Stress in the body raises cortisol in the muscles and therefore places strain on the back through excess diaphragm tension. What this means is that negative emotions (sadness, anger) hurt your back.
Stop scowling! A study conducted by Daniel McIntosh and his colleagues in the journal Cognition and Emotion purports that facial expressions can alter the volume of air inhaled though the nose, which in turn influences brain temperature and affective states.
Conversely, research shows that low-back pain has a drastic impact on how you breathe; it reduces the size of the diaphragm and raises it in the chest cavity so that your breath becomes shallower. In fact, the diaphragm is much more easily fatigued in people with back pain, causing faster, shallower breathing, contributing to overall fatigue, and trapping you into a loop of pain and fatigue.
Breathing dysfunctionally restricts the body flexibility that keeps joints lubricated and muscles supple (through flexion and blood flow). The spine doesn’t get the requisite movement, pressure, and support of the breath with every inhale and exhale (which is why you keep feeling as if you need back support from a chair back or compressive garments). The muscles of the pelvis and the pelvic floor are restricted in their range of motion, which leads to pelvic-floor imbalance and lower-back discomfort.
The concept that tension—both physical and emotional—causes back pain (and disease) is not new. Dr. John E. Sarno has given the name “Tension Myositis Syndrome” to the pain that comes when cells and tissues get less and less oxygen and therefore experience pain.42 There is a tightening from your chin down to the bottom of your pelvis, with an accompanying domino effect in dysfunction. Better inhales and exhales are part of the solution; addressing stress levels (and even deeper, subconscious emotional pain) is a big part of the cure.
Vertical Breathing means you’re overusing neck and shoulder muscles (front and back of body), which then throws the balance of muscles off all the way down your body. And it really does throw your balance off—your natural center of gravity is right below your belly button. You aren’t imagining it; the feeling of being more balanced when you breathe low is real; your center of gravity gets lower, you are both physically and emotionally more balanced as a consequence.
Moving the pelvis to jut out the belly is a slightly less expansive breath than keeping the back flat on the floor. I’ve found that the sway that comes with that movement helps dismantle the rigidity in the middle of the body that has been caused by a Vertical Breath.
Try these two subtle but advanced exercises.
The self-massage that comes with the wavelike motion of breathing with your entire body is not only beneficial for gastric peristalsis, but has a very precise calming effect on your neurological system.
So now that you know how to include the lower part of your body in your breathing, go back to lying on the floor and doing Diaphragm Extensions. Finesse the move: On the inhale, soften your glutes, hips, pelvic floor, and thighs. Notice how naturally your hips tip. Exhale, give your lower abs, pelvic floor, and glutes a little squeeze, and notice how your hips tip under and the space between your lower back and the floor narrows. Then exaggerate the rhythm. You’ll find that the movement in your hips, though subtle, is quite natural and goes along with the breath.
Once you feel as if the hip movement is really solidified in your head, try leaving your back completely still and flat against the floor, not moving your hips, and just expanding your belly to inhale and exhale. Notice how different this feels.
With both exercises, you’re focusing on the front of your diaphragm. Our long-term goal is to have your diaphragm stretch all the way around (it is in fact, roundish!). Use your sides (the parts you stretch in Intercostal Stretch here) and back (the part you stretch in Child’s Pose and V-Back Opener here). After working on these stretches and exercises, you’ll be able to widen your entire body (not just take a front belly breath) without moving your shoulders (and with no popping-out of your belly, which can make you self-conscious). Your inhale will be wide, and your exhale will be narrow, but the movement will be all the way around your body. It’s advanced stuff that will take time, but just keep it in mind as a long-term goal.
How your breathing affects your stomach, your digestion, and pretty much all your intestinal functions has both a cellular and an anatomical component. You need oxygen to digest nutrients at a microscopic level, and you need to breathe well—horizontally, with your diaphragm massaging the organs underneath—in order to have your digestive organs work effectively.
Figure 7
Inhale
Figure 8
Exhale
First, let’s review the cellular component. At the cellular level, food must be broken down to its chemical components, which include a range of energy-building molecules. Digestion occurs in the digestive tract, and also occurs on a smaller scale within the cell’s specialized organelle, the lysosome. Digestion breaks apart the larger molecules such as polysaccharides, fats, and proteins into monomer subunits of sugars, fatty acids, amino acids, and nucleotides, but what does it need to do this well? You guessed it, oxygen!
Second, there is the anatomical component. In a nutshell, breathing with your diaphragm will mean fewer GI problems (such as acid reflux, GERD, constipation, and IBS). Why? Well, if you breathe vertically, your diaphragm doesn’t massage the organs directly underneath it—your stomach, colon, liver, and kidneys. Switching to Horizontal Breathing means that you’re giving your internal organs, especially your digestive organs, a massage with every breath. It’s called “peristalsis,” the wavelike squeezing motion of the intestines that promotes digestion and elimination. Now, the body already does this normally without any prompting; however, it does it better with help from above (the diaphragm—see figures 7 and 8). If you’re breathing with your shoulders (vertically), your diaphragm is barely doing what it should when it comes to digestion. Apart from what you’re eating, the biggest factor affecting your digestion of food is how effectively the muscles of your stomach are working. And you guessed it—food isn’t getting digested the way it should if you’re only running on two cylinders.
Maybe you have a doctor who says, “Ah, irritable bowel! Well, yes, it is a common disorder that affects the large intestine, causing bloating, gas, diarrhea, and constipation, but I can tell you that the main cause is stress.” And they might mention that you should learn about diaphragmatic breathing. If they do mention breathing, it’s likely because, as you now know, the diaphragmatic breathing helps your digestive muscles do their job, and also because taking Lower-body Breaths makes you calmer.
Fortunately, if you’re holding this book in your hands, you’re learning all about diaphragmatic breathing, so let me add to your information bucket and take you on a picnic that will help your digestion.
• Pause before you start eating (you might consider giving thanks for your food).
• If you are about to talk, stop, put your fork down, and talk.
• Chew each mouthful at least five to ten times (if you can do twenty, even better). No gulping.
• No food or drink that is acidic; e.g., citrus fruits, wine, beef, pickles, processed cheese, or tomatoes.43
• Instead of going right to bed after eating, grab a piece of gum, and go for a short walk.44
• Consider sips of aloe drinks throughout the day.
The body uses breathing to manage pH, or the balance between the levels of acid and alkaline substances in your body. When your body fluids become too acidic, low-level acidosis causes, among other things, fatigue and pain, while higher ranges cause organ damage or even failure. At the other end of the spectrum, a buildup of alkaline substances in your fluids causes alkalosis, which causes numbness, muscle spasms, and dizziness at low levels, before causing seizures, heart arrhythmia, and coma. It’s scary-sounding stuff, but the underlying mechanisms of your body are solidly built in order to keep you functioning well on a pH balance. Those mechanisms rely not on expensive alkaline water, but on your breathing.45
According to several studies, you should chew soft foods five to ten times before swallowing, and denser foods (certain vegetables and meats) up to thirty times before swallowing. “Mindful eating,” which has roots in Buddhist teaching, advocates that you should spend ten to twenty minutes gazing at your food before grabbing that fork.
FAQ: Can breathing affect the acidity of my body? Yes, because chronic ventilation (over-breathing) at low levels results in an imbalance of carbon dioxide and oxygen. Put some time and effort into your exhale.
Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. This process sounds simple, but the details are actually quite complex. During the process of breathing, humans convert sugar into energy. Carbon dioxide is a waste product of this process. Carbon dioxide is released into the blood, travels to the lungs, and is exhaled. Because carbon dioxide is a weak acid, the more carbon dioxide in the blood, the more acidic the blood becomes. Still confused? The super-simple version is that if you don’t exhale well, you will become too acidic.
Carbon dioxide gets bad press. It’s not noxious; in fact, the primary control substance of your body pH is carbon dioxide in the form of carbonic acid and bicarbonate, which equalize the acidity and alkalinity, respectively. The cellular metabolic processes that produce energy require oxygen, which promotes alkalinity, but those energy processes produce carbon dioxide, which is an acid. In order to balance the system, the circulatory system moves the carbon dioxide to the lungs for exhalation.
In application, if the body doesn’t get enough oxygen it becomes acidic. Studies show that breathing rates increase as the body attempts to correct pH, and, as a result, blood pressure rises, heart rate elevates, and plasma concentrations of stress hormones surge. The quality of our breath is the key factor in maintaining optimal system balance and preventing both acidosis from not breathing and alkalosis from hyperventilation.
FAQ: Can I test my own acidity? Yes, get yourself some acidity test strips at the drugstore and test yourself throughout the day. Get an average for both urine and saliva, since readings can fluctuate.
Did you know that stress gives you belly fat? (Even baboons get muffin top when they’re stressed out in the wild!) Stress very well might be the reason for the plateau in your diet. Yes, you and your best friend may both be following a new diet, yet your friend will be losing pounds and you will slowly, painfully, be losing ounces. Then you hit that dreaded plateau of eat less, work out more, and get stuck at the same weight. Sound familiar? The one factor you haven’t taken into account is your cortisol level. If you have a higher level of that stress hormone in your body than she does, it’s going to be harder for you to lose weight.46 That “stress weight” tends to accumulate and stick like glue to your middle. And again, maybe you can’t change the stressor, but you can change your reaction—that is, your breathing, which will tell your body to calm down.
Four pointers to help you on your way:
1. The body awareness you gain with meditation and breathing means better control of cravings and impulse eating. How often have you suddenly become ravenous, then made really bad food choices? Quite a few times, right? Your new body awareness will send up red flags to keep you from finding yourself at a drive-through with a lap full of something greasy that’s going to guilt you for the rest of the day.
2. You’ve heard that folks find it hard to differentiate hunger from thirst. Ever heard of “air hunger”? If you don’t breathe well, you’ll experience a sensation of not getting enough air into your body. Breathing exercises can help you feel satiated, and thus be instrumental in helping you develop healthier eating habits. While breathing can’t get in the way of a full-throttle binge of devouring an entire pizza or quart of ice cream, it can start chipping away at the feeling of “wanting more” that often spearheads bad food choices.
3. The second biggest receptor site for serotonin—that “feel good” neurotransmitter that we all need—is your gut. So if you’re bumming and eating for emotional reasons, the solution is to address both your symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as to adopt a diet/exercise plan so that you can experience success, not yo-yo dieting. While you may consider medication and therapy, meditation and breathing calms your body within minutes.
4. Finally, breathing exercises give you a stronger core, and the result is stronger abs and less shame around your belly. More self-love and less self-hate means you will find it easier to feed yourself in a way that is more thoughtful and loving.
41 Several recent studies (e.g., Catherine Woodyard, “Exploring the Therapeutic Effects of Yoga and its Ability to Increase Quality of Life,” International Journal of Yoga 4, no. 2 [2011]: 49–54) have shown that breathing exercises, when combined with yoga and meditation, reduce pain and emotional symptoms 2.5 times more effectively than physiotherapy exercise even with additional counseling and therapy. Breathing, yoga, and meditation were 1.5 times better at returning mobility to chronic low-back pain sufferers.
42 Sarno is a leader in recognizing that musculoskeletal disorders are frequently caused by a complex interaction between the mind and the body, and his Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection is a New York Times bestseller.
43 For a comprehensive chart of acidic food by degree, go to http://greenopedia.com/alkaline-acid-food-chart/.
44 This is not your grandmother’s remedy. See B. Avidan et al., “Walking and Chewing Reduce Postprandial Acid Reflux,” Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics 15, no. 2 (2001): 151–55.
45 The rhythm and quality of our breathing affects blood pH levels, making it more alkaline or acidic, and altered pH can correlate with affected pH levels. It is the long-term patterns of respiration and pH level that are of concern. (Maria Perri, “Rehabilitation of Breathing Pattern Disorders,” in Rehabilitation of the Spine: A Practitioner’s Manual, ed. Craig Liebenson. [Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007.])
46 Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky explores other fascinating effects of stress. The PBS special, “Stress: Portrait of a Killer” highlights his research, which was conducted on baboons in Africa. It is viewable on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs.