posture and breathing
By: Damien Michel
“Sit up straight, and don’t slouch”! If your life involves hours of continuous sitting, then you’ve probably heard this phrase more times than you can count. Now, your family, friends, co-workers, or whoever is telling you to fix your posture has nothing but your best interest in mind, but they’re missing something.
It is true, poor posture can cause a whole slew of problems ranging from muscular imbalances, jaw, neck, and or back pain, and much more. What we are going to focus on today however, is how your posture can affect the way you breathe. But wait, that doesn’t make any sense, how can the way I sit or stand affect how I breathe? Believe it or not, your posture has a lot to do with the quality of your breathing. When you sit for long periods of time every day you begin to form poor postural habits (i.e. rounding your shoulders forward, collapsing your chest). Essentially, this poor posture makes you a shallow breather, in which the breath comes from the chest or even the throat. When breathing like this occurs your body mimics a state of stress which causes a whole mess of other problems:
This is the kind of breathing your body performs when it’s in a fight or flight response, also known as stress. One technique to help manage your stress responses is called diaphragmatic breathing or deep breathing which is a full, deep inhale and exhale from your diaphragm (a muscle in your belly). Give it a try:
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One way to help ensure you’re doing it correctly is to place your hand on your stomach while you breathe so you can feel it rise and fall. If you need more guidance, you can follow along with this guided breathing exercise.
Once you get the hang of it, this can be a great meditative and stress relieving tool. If you’re ever feeling overstressed and tense, take a step back and just breath. Sometimes the simplest things in life, like breathing can make a huge impact. |
Want to learn other techniques to manage your stress? Stop by our office and schedule an appointment with Cherilyn in Owls Care.
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