Breathe Better With These Nine Exercises
“You can’t be truly healthy unless you’re breathing correctly.”
To clear congestion try this breathing exercise: Sit up straight, gently inhale and exhale through
the nose, then pinch both nostrils shut. Shake your head up and down or from side to side until
you feel the need to breathe. Take a slow breath in through the nose, or through pursed lips if the
nose is still congested. Breathe calmly for 30 seconds to a minute and repeat five more
times.Credit...Brown Bird Design
By Kelly DiNardo
July 18, 2020
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Breathe. We do it roughly 25,000 times a day, but until recently few of us gave much thought to
this automatic bodily function.
“If there’s some good to come out of Covid, it’s that people are paying more attention to how
they’re breathing,” said James Nestor, author of “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art,” which
explores how we breathe, how that’s changed and how to do it properly. “You can’t be truly
healthy unless you’re breathing correctly.”
How we breathe affects us at a cellular level. Research shows changing the way we breathe can
influence weight, athletic performance, allergies, asthma, snoring, mood, stress, focus and so
much more. You can learn to breathe better and these exercises can help.
Shut your mouth.
About half of us are chronic mouth breathers, a practice that can irritate the lungs, increase the
risk of respiratory infection and sap the body of moisture, and has been linked to bad breath,
sleep apnea and other health conditions. Breathing in and out of the nose filters, heats and treats
the air. It helps us takes fuller, deeper breaths. It also allows us to absorb more oxygen and raises
the intake of nitric oxide, a molecule that opens the blood vessels, which increases circulation
and allows oxygen, blood and nutrients to travel to every part of the body. Immune function,
weight, mood and sexual function are all influenced by nitric oxide.
For the nearly 40 percent of people who suffer from chronic nasal obstruction because of
allergies, sinusitis, a deviated septum or any of the other many causes, shutting the mouth can be
a challenge.
The first step is to clear congestion. “There are sprays and neti pots,” Mr. Nestor said. “I put
eucalyptus oil under my nose.
CONGESTION CLEARING An exercise in “The Oxygen Advantage,” by Patrick McKeown,
may help decongest the nose: Sit up straight, gently inhale and exhale through the nose, then
pinch both nostrils shut. Shake your head up and down or from side to side until you feel the
need to breathe. Take a slow breath in through the nose, or through pursed lips if the nose is still
congested. Breathe calmly for 30 seconds to a minute and repeat five more times.
Take some deep breaths.
The average adult engages as little as 10 percent of the diaphragm, the jellyfish-shaped muscle
under the lungs primarily responsible for respiration. Shallow, chest breathing can overburden
the heart, strain the neck and shoulder muscles and keep you in a constant state of low-grade
stress. Diaphragmatic breathing, also known as belly breathing, can retrain you to breathe more
deeply, allow the lungs to soak up more oxygen and reduce stress.
Image
Credit...Brown Bird Design
BELLY BREATHING To begin, lie flat on your back with your knees bent. Place one hand on
your chest and the other on your belly, just below your rib cage. Breathe in slowly through the
nose so your stomach expands against your hand. The hand on your chest should not move.
Slowly exhale through the nose or pursed lips and feel the belly move down to its original
position. Repeat for five to 10 minutes. As you get more comfortable with the technique, practice
sitting or standing.
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Grab a ball and roll away.
When you breathe into the chest, muscles in the neck, shoulders, upper chest and back try to help
out and can become tight. And, when muscles of the upper body are chronically tight, they can
restrict normal breathing. Massaging the upper body with a tennis or massage ball can break this
cycle and help loosen, lengthen and relax the muscles. (Note: Avoid using a lacrosse ball for
these stretches. Its hard rubber may cause more pain than good, particularly when it comes to the
neck muscles.)
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Credit...Brown Bird Design
PECTORAL ROLL Stand facing a wall and place the ball under your collarbone at the
sternum. Lean against the wall and slowly roll the ball back and forth, side to side, along the
valley below your clavicle several times. Repeat on the other side of your chest.
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Credit...Brown Bird Design
INTERCOSTAL ROLL Stand with your side to the wall and raise the arm closest to the wall
overhead and place the palm on the wall. Put the ball under the armpit at the top of your ribs,
lean into the wall and gently rock back and forth. Lower the ball an inch and repeat. Continue
down your side, massaging the intercostal muscles between your ribs, until you reach your lower
ribs. Repeat on the other side.
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Credit...Brown Bird Design
UPPER BACK ROLL Turn so your back faces the wall. Place the ball at the top of your
trapezius, the upper back muscle, and lean into the wall. Gently roll the ball along the outer edge
of the shoulder blade by bending and straightening the knees and then lifting and lowering the
heels. Think about tracing the line a tank top strap would make. Repeat on the other side.
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Credit...Brown Bird Design
NECK RELEASE Come down onto your back with a yoga block or thick book under your
head. Turn your head to the right and place the ball on your upper neck behind your ear. Take
five deep breaths here. Then gently nod yes three or four times, shake your head three or four
times. Switch sides.
Stand up straight.
Poor posture restricts the diaphragm and slows down activities like blood flow and digestion.
These exercises stretch the legs, lengthen the back and open the shoulders helping to draw the
shoulders back and decompress the spine.
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Credit...Brown Bird Design
CAT/COW Come into a tabletop position on the floor, with hands under shoulders and knees
under hips. As you inhale, drop the belly, press the chest forward and look up. Exhale, tuck the
chin toward the chest and round the spine. Flow between these cow and cat yoga positions for
three to five breaths, following your breath.
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Credit...Brown Bird Design
WIDE-LEGGED FORWARD FOLD Stand with your feet wider than hips distance, typically
about four feet apart. Turn your toes in. Interlace your hands behind your back. Inhale, open the
chest and bring the palms closer together. As you exhale, fold forward and allow your arms to
hang overhead. If it’s uncomfortable to hold your palms together, hold on to a towel or yoga
strap. Stay here for five to 10 breaths.
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Credit...Brown Bird Design
SUPINE SPINAL TWIST Lie on your back, hug your knees into your chest and take a few
breaths. Then, extend your arms out in opposite directions making a T shape. As you exhale,
lower your knees to the right, keeping both shoulder blades on the floor. You can deepen the
twist by looking over your left shoulder. Take several breaths here, inhale and move the knees
back to center, exhale and lower them to the left and take the twist in the other direction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/at-home/coronavirus-breathing-exercises.html