Relearning to belly-breathe like a baby optimises uptake of a vital nutrient — oxygen
You do it naturally all day, every day: breathe in and breathe out. If you did not, you would not be alive. However, like most people, you probably also breathe shallowly much of the time. You are “chest breathing”, which is not ideal for optimum fitness because it is not the best way to fill the body with lifegiving oxygen.
I catch myself breathing shallowly often, especially when sitting at my desk, hunched over a computer. Doctors now call sitting “the new smoking”.
I call not breathing properly the new smoking.
Physical therapists say chest breathing starts at around the age of four. That is when voluntary control of the muscles in the thoracic region, or the chest, starts developing.
Before then and as a baby, people would have naturally done “diaphragmatic breathing”. To improve fitness levels diaphragmatic breathing has to be relearnt.
It fills every part of the lungs with oxygen. During diaphragmatic breathing, the abdominal area expands, ribs expand sideways and the diaphragm contracts. During exhalation, the abdomen pushes in and up, the lower rib cage contracts inward and the diaphragm expands, forcing the air out.
However, just as important is nasal breathing — in and out through the nose. Many people don’t even realise they are not breathing nasally.
Who says so? Well, I was chatting to a dentist friend in Sydney, Australia, the other day, and he says so.
Dr Steven Lin is a graduate from Sydney University, with a background in biomedical science. Lin’s focus is on the nutritional basis of dental and whole-body health. He says that what people eat shapes their teeth, mouth and whole body. He has written a book on the topic, The Dental Diet.
Nearly all problems he sees in his dental practice stem from people not feeding themselves the right nutrients, Lin says. And the most important nutrient the body needs to survive is oxygen.
And as a dentist, Lin sees the most common sign of longterm improper breathing all the time: crooked teeth.
When people don’t breathe nasally and correctly, the effects echo throughout their bodies for their entire lives, he says.
Lin sees mostly three main types of patients who are not breathing correctly:
Children with long faces and open mouths, who don’t concentrate well in school, who snore, have allergies and digestive problems;
Underweight females, with small mouths, and short necks, who don’t sleep well, have digestive problems and suffer from anxiety and depression; and
Overweight middle-aged males who snore loudly and stop breathing at night.
They are not breathing correctly. Consequently, they have serious health problems, Lin says.
There are other types, of course, his list is not conclusive.
The nasal passages are designed to deliver oxygen, he says. During mouth breathing, the body is deprived of oxygen.
The nasal passages are also designed to warm and humidify air. During mouth breathing cold, dry air is received from which the lungs cannot extract much oxygen.
The nasal passages boost levels of nitric oxide, too. That gas increases blood flow and hence oxygen absorption in the lungs. “Without it, you don’t get as much oxygen,” Lin says.
Many people have chronic issues with congested, inflamed airways, such as blocked sinuses, asthma and other allergic reactions. Nitric oxide is also antibacterial and antimicrobial and seems to assist the body’s immune system, he says.
Once people are in the habit of breathing nasally, Lin tells them how to get started with diaphragmatic breathing.
First practise breathing deep into the belly (abdominal area). Lie on the floor, put one hand on the belly and breathe so the hand lifts. The belly should rise and fall.
Visualise the breath going into the diaphragm, not the chest or lifting the shoulders.
Tongue position is also important. Keep it close to the roof of the mouth. This opens the airways and conditions the muscles to hold the airways open.
Lin advises a two- to threeminute exercise: putting the tongue behind the front teeth and pushing the back of the tongue to the roof of the mouth. If it feels like exercise, it is not being done correctly, he says. That is because important muscles in the mouth and airways are being used.
Remember to keep the lips closed. “This helps you to breathe through your nose by habit,” Lin says.
Finally, why proper breathing is so important for fitness: “When you exercise, your muscles need oxygen to work optimally,” Lin says.
Breathing in poor-quality air starves the muscles of oxygen too. So, try to breathe in clean air as much as possible.
People who are mouth breathers might feel as if they are “suffocating” by keeping the mouth closed at first.
They may have nasal restrictions, in which case they should see an ear-nose- andthroat specialist.
For people who are not in the habit of deep, slow, nasal breathing, Lin suggests that they start out walking, slow breathing and building up to a jog with mouth closed. Once they have conditioned themselves, their bodies will feel calmer and perform better because they have given it more oxygen.
Breathing affects the whole nervous system, Lin says. During inhalation, the sympathetic nervous system is activated. Breathe out, and the parasympathetic nervous system is activated. Therefore, deep, slow exhalations mean the heart rate will not rise as fast and people will not feel as fatigued.
Naturally, Lin practises what he preaches: he performs exercise with sealed lips. The calming effect of proper breath is almost immediate, he says. “The long-term effects stick around for life.”
Of course, people should not be fanatical about breathing in.
As a sage once said: “In the end, it’s not about how many breaths you took. It’s about the moments that took your breath away.”