Your Guide to Belly Breathing: Benefits, Techniques, and More

I’m 62 years old and have taken about 500 million breaths. Recently, I learned that most of these breaths were done improperly.

Why do we breathe? We take in oxygen for our metabolism to generate energy. We exhale CO₂ (metabolism’s byproduct) to expel it from our bodies.

Given the vital necessity of breathing, we’ve evolved a complicated, sometimes redundant breathing mechanism. It involves a multitude of muscles that expand the lungs (to inhale) and natural elasticity that contracts them (to exhale). The muscles involved are:

• In the neck
• In the shoulder girdle
• In the chest wall
• The diaphragm (one big muscle that lines the bottom of our lungs and depresses)

These muscles make up the redundant anatomy, which we use in different combinations.

Different Forms of Breathing

There are two types of breathing: chest breathing and belly breathing.

Chest breathing is the predominant type and involves the muscles on the sides of the rib cage, in the neck, and in the shoulder girdle.

Belly breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing, relies on the diaphragm to depress the lungs into the abdominal cavity and enlarge them.

How Breathing Develops

As newborns and young children, we default to belly or diaphragmatic breathing. It’s more efficient — bringing the diaphragm down expands the lungs more efficiently than chest breathing.

Because of the functioning of our nervous systems, most of us transition to chest breathing at some point in life. As we become more anxious, we become more sympathetically driven (i.e., the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight) in how our autonomic nervous systems coordinate our breathing. We tend to take more shallow, rapid breaths with our chest walls.

Belly breathing is more calming. It involves a more parasympathetic (i.e., rest and digest) tone that consists of the diaphragm coming downward.

The Cycle of Stressful Breathing

Improper breathing creates a vicious cycle: We breathe improperly because we’re stressed, and our breathing mechanism becomes more stressed (sympathetically driven) because we breathe improperly.

So, how can we escape the cycle?

We can retrain our bodies to use distinctively diaphragmatic breathing like babies do. Watching a baby breathe, you’ll see the tummy move up and down. That’s the kind of breathing you want to mimic.

Retraining Your Brain to Breathe Right

The autonomic nervous system is a two-way street. It causes us to breathe a certain way; however, if we consciously breathe a certain way, we can rebalance our autonomic nervous system.

This rebalancing begins with consciously recapturing (or relearning) diaphragmatic breathing.

Benefits of Diaphragmatic (Belly) Breathing

Studies show many benefits associated with belly breathing. The most common are:

• Increased parasympathetic tone, which can lead to:
  • Increased heart rate variability
  • Reduced anxiety
  • Reduced cortisol
  • Reduced blood pressure
  • Reduced heart rate
• More effective and efficient breathing:
  • More oxygen is taken in
  • More CO₂ is expelled
  • Increased athletic performance
  • Improved cognition
• Reduction in GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease)
• Reduced neck stress
• Improved posture

Organs below the diaphragm and muscles above it work better with belly breathing. People who belly breathe experience less stress in their neck and shoulder muscles and also have less gastroesophageal reflux.

How to Practice Belly Breathing

Although breathing is an unconscious process, we can reprogram our default (how our unconscious breathing works) through conscious training.

To apply this training, follow these instructions for five to 10 minutes, three to four times daily:

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and a pillow under your head, or sit upright in a chair with your torso upright and your feet flat on the floor.
2. Place one hand on your upper chest and one on your abdomen, slightly below your ribcage.
3. Inhale slowly through your nose.
4. Focus on feeling your abdomen rise under your hand.
5. The hand on your chest should be still.
6. Exhale through pursed lips. You should feel your abdomen fall, and your chest should remain still.
7. Repeat for 5–10 minutes.

Let your hands guide you. If the hand on your chest moves, you’ve got it wrong. Correct your inhalation so only the hand on your abdomen moves.

You’ll have to think about every single breath. Eventually, this technique will lead to a shift in your automatic breathing.

As-Needed Breathing Techniques

We all deal with stressful situations in which focused breathing can help us relax. These techniques will help you do just that, and plenty of literature supports their efficacy.

Box Breathing

Box breathing is perfect for improving focus and marshaling your resources when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Don’t think of it as just another hippy-dippy, granola-loving new-age practice. Navy SEALs and tactical police officers use it in high-stress situations.

Here’s how to start:

1. Inhale for a count of four.
2. Hold your breath for a count of four.
3. Exhale for a count of four.
4. Hold your breath for a count of four.
5. Repeat.

4-7-8 Breathing

When you’re feeling anxious or stressed, the 4-7-8 breathing technique can help. Many people also find it useful when they have trouble falling asleep.

Here’s how to practice it:

1. Inhale through your nose into your belly (use belly breathing) for four seconds.
2. Hold your breath for seven seconds.
3. Exhale slowly through pursed lips for eight seconds.
4. Repeat.

Today’s Takeaways

After so many blogs chronicling stress’s adverse effects, I’m happy to offer practical, cheap, operational techniques to tip the scales in the other direction.

Try paying attention to how you breathe. See if making a conscious effort to revert back to belly breathing improves your life.

Identifying the latest science-backed ways to improve your health is a huge part of what we do at Banner Peak Health. If you want to learn how we can help you improve yours, we’re just a phone call or email away.