The coronavirus was a dividing line between our old normal and the new one. Now we are adjusting to a life in smaller spaces. What can we do to stay healthy and fit?
As I see it, our first priority is to manage our mental state so that we don’t spend too much time in panic mode. I’ve been hearing from people all week that their anxiety levels are building, and it’s affecting their ability to sleep.
A Powerful Tool
One of the best ways to do this is to practice diaphragmatic breathing as often as possible. This is a subtle but powerful tool to help us spend more time in the parasympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system. It helps distance us from the “fight, flight or freeze” state, and promotes more “relax, restore, repair” functioning.
Diaphragmatic breathing can actually be a lot more difficult than you might think! Literally millions of reps each year of the same movement mean that we usually have some re-learning to do of what may have been a less-than-optimal way of breathing.
Practical Cues for Diaphragmatic Breathing
The first thing is to realize that “belly breathing” is a bit of a misnomer in that the diaphragm is actually a 360-degree muscle. Instead of expanding into the front of the belly only, it should expand sideways and into the back also, more like a parachute opening or a jellyfish blooming.
One practical tip to activate it is to pretend that you are drinking a bubble tea, and there’s a bubble stuck in the straw, so you need to inhale sharply to get it out. You can also give yourself an external target by encircling your hands, or maybe a loosely-tied scarf or lightweight band along the outside of your bottom ribs.
This is often most easily accomplished in one of two positions: 90/90 or crocodile.
90/90 breathing can be a little easier to set up. It’s basically just lying on your back, with your shins supported on a chair. If you carry your head forward, you may need some support such as a rolled-up towel under your neck (not under your head – we want to promote good head posture even in this position).
Crocodile breathing is, not surprisingly, face down. My own tweak to the FMS method is to add support such as firm mats or yoga blocks so that we are supported from the collarbones down to the hips at least. This helps prevent hyper-extending the neck, which can quickly translate down into low back discomfort.
Once you’ve accessed the diaphragmatic breathing more easily, make sure that your upper back posture is good. We want the shoulder blades to remain anchored low (depressed), with the collarbones as well as the shoulder blades staying low rather than riding up toward your ears.
Low and Slow
Finally, slow down that breathing rate. We move so easily into shallow, fast, upper-chest breathing, which ties in with the sympathetic (“fight, flight, or freeze”) sympathetic branch of our nervous system. Instead, a much slower rate of breathing will help to bring us into the parasympathetic state (“relax, restore, repair”).
I typically suggest aiming for six inhale/exhale cycles over the course of a minute. I find that a slow four-count inhale and exhale is a great place to start. If these don’t seem attainable to you immediately, that’s okay, just aim to slow down as much as you can. Also, this is a much slower rate than most people can hold onto once the outside world starts to intrude again, but the more time we spend with focused practice, the more easily we will be able to access it at times of stress in “real life.”
Bonus Points
An added bonus to practising diaphragmatic breathing is that once you can access it easily in a relaxed manner, it will help you get stronger too. It’s part of the optimal strategy for spinal stabilization for lifting heavy weights.
Diaphragmatic breathing will help you set the scene for better sleep, which is one of the cornerstones of health and lets you then move on to build up your health and fitness in other ways.
For more help with it, check out my YouTube video, or get more personalized input by signing up for one of my on-line classes or personal training.