Breathing

Breath is so important--it keeps us alive!

Breathing is one of the most basic tasks we do as humans. It’s important for every activity. From just staying alive to swimming, to running, to singing. Yet so many breathe “incorrectly”. Below I made some quick videos on breathing to aid this post!

I put this in quotes because if you’re alive, you are breathing correctly. But perhaps not as efficiently as you could be. Breathing should come from below the diaphragm, deep in the stomach. Most of us when nervous, working hard, or just not thinking as we tackle the stress of the day, breathe from a shallow place, up here, moving our shoulders.

Shallow breathing

This type of breathing is very easy to fall into!

While swimming this morning, I was so desperate for oxygen, I was gasping on my side, not taking purposeful breaths when I broke the air. I also find it especially difficult when I’m running a speed interval workout. I’m often truly heaving with effort and taking in only small amounts of air. Recently, I’ve tried in those moments to drop into the “correct” breathing form I was taught as a child in choir and vocal lessons. Deep, diaphragm breathing.

What deep breathing looks like and where it lives

When I remember this, it actually makes the intervals feel easier! We need oxygen to move blood, to move faster. We need to breathe! Fully, deeply.

If you have trouble with this, a trick I learned is to lay on the ground with a book on your stomach, it’s easier to get the air flowing “properly” and you can see the results as the book moves.

Book exercises and also me trying to find the “stop recording ” button

This kind of intentional, focused deep breathing is helpful for lowering your heart rate, falling asleep, and public speaking.

I’ll confess though, I don’t breathe this way all the time! There are people who train and practice and do, but it’s ok if it takes focus. I have to remind myself to breathe properly when warming up to sing or speaking on stage. I’m working on reminding myself otherwise do it while running.

There are tons of hacks and tips and tricks to improve your performance these days. I’ve heard that breathing is perhaps the next frontier. And why not? Breathing is free. Breathing deeply isn’t cheating. It’s a skill that can be trained and learned. And it’s how we were made. I can’t promise that breathing “properly” will make running faster easier, but I can report I feel less panicked and more in control of a hard effort when I sink deep and breathe fully.

So breathing fully might be worth throwing in your tool kit for your next adventure!