When was the last time you paid attention to how you breathed? It’s one of those autonomic body functions that we take for granted until we find ourselves in a situation where that very function is put at risk, such as during a taxing exercise, when we are under duress, or when we realize we’re not as good of a swimmer as we thought. Most people can’t maintain consciousness without breathing for a few minutes, and yet one can go about their entire day without having to think about breathing.
There are, generally speaking, two types of breathing: chest breathing and abdominal breathing (technically there’s also reverse breathing but we’re not going to talk about that today). If you watch adults breathe, their chest tends to puff out or their shoulders will rise while the abdomen stays still. This is chest breathing: this form of breathing is, sadly, fairly common in this day and age due to either long periods of sitting, high stress, and poor posture. Chest breathing doesn’t utilize the full capacity of our lungs, and this can lead to poor oxygen circulation and/or light headedness.
Abdominal breathing doesn’t come naturally for many adults, but if you observe how children breathe you see they do it naturally. Watch how their stomachs move when they are asleep or taking a nap, and you’ll see it rise and fall with every breath. By focusing on taking in the air through our diaphragm, we can fully utilize our lungs and thus draw in more oxygen with every breath. Also, and this is anecdotal for me, it’s hard to have bad posture while breathing abdominally.
In martial arts, one of the first things a new student learns to do is to abdominally breathe. More specifically, how to exhale: the kihap, or yell, trains students to exhale in such a way that forces them to inhale, and if done properly, the kihap originates from the abdomen. Click here for my article breaking down the definition of the kihap. There are also times when we meditate, either at the beginning or end of class, providing an opportunity again to work on abdominal breathing.
As one who works a desk job, I try my best to keep in mind not only how I sit, but also on how I am breathing. When I am under stress, I find that I tend to do chest breathing vs. abdominal breathing, and I need to remind myself to adjust and change my behavior. Abdominal breathing has a way of calming one’s mind, since we are making a conscious decision to control our breathing and not let our body’s stress response take over. Take time to pay attention to how you breathe, and you may learn that you have more control over your situation than you thought you did.
