OVERVIEW
Breathing: You’ve Been Doing it Wrong All Along!
Well, probably not all along.
If you watch a baby breathing, they tend to use their nose (if they’re not crying) and there is a gentle rise and fall of their abdomen, with very little chest movement. Before long, we begin exposure to allergens causing many to have nasal congestion, forcing mouth breathing. We are told to “suck in our stomach” which forces the diaphragm to be rigid and leads to upper chest breathing, or sometimes even paradoxical breathing where the abdomen moves in with the inhale and out with the exhale, opposite to good breathing mechanics.
“Modern” changes in paediatric nutrition and a reliance on processed foods means we don’t develop sucking and chewing with force, causing a lack of good airway development. There is little interest or understanding of good breath mechanics on the part of conventional medicine AND most alternative practitioners, coaches and instructors. All of this leads to a population with very poor functional breathing and high rates of breathing pattern disorders, which negatively affects virtually every aspect of health and performance.