Diaphragmatic breathing is natural breathing. Only taking about 10 natural breaths brings our awareness to where your breath is flowing. No pushing or changing. Just bringing our awareness to it helps relieve stress and depression. This will automatically slow our breath down and further bring awareness to the breathing practice. Breathing with awareness stimulates the whole nervous system through Prana flow and improves the brain functions. It quiets the mind and brings us to the present moment.
Diaphragmatic breathing is good for rheumatism, arthritis, high blood pressure, any addictive disorder, digestive problems and mental disturbances of any kind. It is useful for removing energy blockages in the joints and therefore results in a freer flow of energy throughout the body. It helps improve self-awareness and self-confidence. The reason we teach these exercises is because most people have lost the natural ability to breathe healthily. Working in an office and being stagnated in one position the whole day, constricts the flow of the air and being confronted with stressful situations tenses up the abdominal muscles and restrains the diaphragm from working normally. People get stuck on a sympathicus activation which affects their well-being in their lives both at work, as well as outside of work. So how to get back our natural and healthy Diaphragmatic breathing?
One should learn to breathe correctly. To learn to relax by using the correct way of breathing, you start by lying down on your stomach, then cross your arms over the head, and rest your forehead on the lower arms. Let the arms be closer to your body so that your upper body is a little up and your head can hang down relaxed and your neck is straight.
Keep your legs apart, heels facing inward, toes outward, the inner rim of your feet touching the ground.
Bring your awareness to the place where you are right now. Be aware of your whole body-space and relax your body from head to toe. Gently become aware of the flow of your breath and let it flow freely. Allow the breath to flow through your whole body.
Focus on your stomach and navel area and start breathing more deeply against the ground. Feel how your body is lifted up as you inhale and slowly move down as you exhale. Try to keep your breath even and slow, let there be no pauses in your breath, neither between breathing in and breathing out nor between breathing out and breathing in. Make sure you do not engage your abdominal muscles in the exercise, let the movement only come from your diaphragm, your main breathing muscle.
Feel how your abdominal organs get squeezed as your diaphragm contracts and move down with inhalation. Observe that you exhale consciously and with full awareness and let your diaphragm relax bit by bit and release the pressure on your abdominal organs.
Increase the movement of your diaphragm with every breath that you take and allow your breath to slow down and deepen more and more.
Now, very slowly, turn over to your left side and roll over onto your back and lie down in Shavasana. Arms alongside the body, a bit apart from the body, resting on the floor with the palms up. Bring your feet comfortably apart and relax completely, let your toes drop towards the sides. Breathe in the same manner as you were breathing before. Feel the gentle rise and fall of your abdomen. Observe the slow contraction and relaxation of your main breathing muscle.
Place your right palm just above the navel centre and your left palm on your chest, arms relaxed on the sides of the body. Keep breathing slowly and smoothly. Observe the movement of your right palm. You can feel that the left palm is not moving as your breath is flowing freely and deeply.
Question. I have been practicing diaphragmatic breathing for half a year now and there are still three problems I cannot solve. When I breathe deeply in Macarasana, the second half of the inhale is jerky, while the exhale or the breathing in Shavasana is very smooth. And also my arms become numb after some time in Macarasana, no matter how I place them (there are not so many options and sometimes my lower back starts hurting until I release the arms. The closer I place the elbows to the chest, the better the numb arms and the worse the lower back. Is there anything I can do?
Answer – The jerks are normal when the diaphragm is not so strong yet and we breathe in fully. It’s the muscle shaking. If it’s not the muscle itself then it comes from the upper vertebrae and the nerves from the neck. This is where the numbness in the arms also comes from. From the upper thoracic vertebrae that connect with the neck. The whole shoulder belt is involved. You can do more shoulder opening and the evil hand on the wall exercise to release more. As the lower back starts hurting more with the elbows closer to the body it seems to be an over lordosis that you react to. Then more spinal asanas are good to stabilize the spine and bring more space between the spinal discs.
If you only want to work on the breath and the back pain is disturbing you can find other positions for your arms also. As long as you can breathe against the ground your diaphragm will be trained.
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When in Makarasana I was really pushing my stomach to expand. It cost a lot of effort to do. Is that the right way?
No, the stomach and all abdominal muscles should remain relaxed. Just by breathing deeply the belly expands, with no effort in the muscles. But the strong effort in the diaphragm. It takes some concentration to remove that habit but just tries to keep your belly as soft as possible.
During Makarasana breathing I practiced breathing deeply. Afterward, it gave me a feeling of strong nausea for several hours. Afterward, I had a strong emotional thing going on. Maybe it is because of the strong breathing? Did I do something wrong? Is it energetical?
That can happen when you breathe right and bring the prana to flow in your belly. Cleaning out can happen very naturally. All Pranayamas clean the Nadis and Makarasana breathing especially detoxes the abdominal organs. We store a lot of emotions and memories there. Chemical and energetical blocks removed.
Nausea can happen when we breathe in too much or out too much when the breath is not balanced. But that should subside very fast. Staying for a longer time points more to an emotional cleaning process.
Just observe how things develop. The Yoga Nidra also helps to clean out, so effects can increase with more practice also.
My inhale is always shorter than my exhale. So, in a way this makes me rush a little on the exhale. How can I solve this?
With more Makarasana the capacity of the lungs will increase and you will inhale deeper. Of course, that takes more time to exhale also. Make sure you do not tense the belly in exhalation and that there is really NO pause after exhalation. That it should balance out.
When I breathe in more, I have the feeling that I use my belly also… How can I only use the diaphragm and not the belly?
The answer is more Makarasana. The muscle has to be trained. When it’s stronger it will become easier.
Try to sit up and apply pressure on the lower rib cage, then you breathe against your hands. Not against the belly but only where the diaphragm is
Just give it some time to develop. I even had pain when breathing diaphragmatically while sitting. Every day it will improve more.
Belly breathing is diaphragm breathing isn’t it? I mean pumping air right to your belly instead of chest lifting abdomen is what I have been practicing. We call it diaphragm breathing, some people call it belly breathing because the belly moves up and down.
The belly moves passively!!!! No pushing out as then you would use your abdominal muscles. I only took a short look at the video but exhaling completely also uses the abdominal muscles. Just breathe out relaxed until you inhale again. You also do not PUMP the air in, you just breathe as deeply as possible, no forcing, just awareness.
Many people refer to it as belly breathing or abdominal breathing as the belly moves but sometimes it is misleading people to push the belly out. Better to become aware of the muscle and train it, so the breathing process can be natural again.
