If Breathing is so Easy, Then Why Can't You Do It Properly?

You might recall the "Stress = Pain = Stress" blog series from the middle of the year, a 10 part-er looking how stress, pain and breathing all relate to each other.

In a nutshell here's how it works:

1 - Our working/busy culture of today pushes out bodies and minds to the limits

2 - Over time all these what seem like small stress events accumulate fatigue and the body needs to down regulate energy expenditure as it's in a state of threat. Think buying up cans of food in the event of Armageddon. This down regulation of energy expenditure mostly presents itself in 2 ways.

3 - The brain perceives your current fatigued position as a threat and needs to decrease energy output so it decreases ranges of motion at the hips and shoulders as a decrease in range of motion means less calorie expenditure.

4 - The brain also moves to a sympathetic (fight) state which alters your breathing patterns. Instead of inhaling and exhaling full breathes through the diaphragm like you do in a parasympathetic (rest) state, you shift to taking shorter, harder breathes through your neck, shoulders and back.

5 - The vital part here is that diaphragmatic breathes circulates great volumes of oxygen all throughout the body where shoulder/neck breathing barely circulates any of that breathe at all, let alone oxygen. You're basically taking a small amount of air in and and pushing that same air back out again, taking no oxygen in whatsoever.

6 - When you're body tips "over the edge", those the niggling little aches and pains you normally don't feel, come with a rush and you are at a greater risk of injury as the body's defense system is "down". That nagging knee and back pain you have for no reason? That's not an injury, it;s a stress response for the body to slow you down and as above, decrease energy expenditure.

During the week I has a young lady come in for her first Be Activated treatment with me. She'd had a small taste from a friend before but never the full treatment.

The full treatment takes about 40mins and various activation points, in sequence, all over the body.

The aim of the treatment is make the body initiate everything, breathing and movement specifically from the inside out, not the outside in.

First up we activate zone 1 which is the diaphragm, psoas and glutes - the 3 most important muscles of the body.

When you are ins sympathetic state, these muscles can shut down and then other muscles take over - muscles not equipped to do their job and that is what leads to overuse and breakdown of muscles and joints.

So 5mins into the session this is what her breathing stated at and shifted to:


Notice how the diaphragm/belly area uses the muscle to release to increase her inhalation - she has pretty much tripled her oxygen intake in 5mins!

I also came across this image today also showing the importance of breathing;

And the link between cancer and lack of oxygen have been around for 80 years.

If you want to improve your breathing then a Be Activated treatment is just what you need so contact me to make a booking.