Now take a deep breath...

I know most of you out there in the real world complain of Upper Back and Neck pain and stiffness. There's one thing I tell every one of these clients, I tell them to breathe.

Most of us breathe like a scared rabbit. We are stressed, which suppresses the parasympathetic nervous system and kicks in our Fight or Flight mechanism, causing us to breathe shallow breaths all day, never allowing for a full deep relaxing breath.
If we take the time to remember how to breathe the correct way, with our diaphragms, we will take the strain off of all those little neck muscles working overtime.
The neck muscles should only be last minute helpers, secondary muscles, when inhaling, yet most of us use them as the primary muscles when inhaling, so these poor little muscles get tight and strained. The Diaphragm should be doing all the work, but for most of us it’s more dormant than it should be.
The diaphragm is a large muscle located directly below the lungs. When we inhale the diaphragm should contract, pulling the lungs down, like a bellows, and pushing the belly out. When we exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and the lungs empty of air.

The good news is you can re-learn to breathe this way.
Find a place to lay down. Put one hand on your belly and one hand on your upper chest or even on your lower neck where you can feel your neck muscles. Take a deep breath. The hand on your belly should rise up. You should not feel your neck muscles contract under your other hand.
Likely on your first try, you felt your neck muscles contract. Don’t worry, with practice you’ll learn to relax those guys.
Practice belly breathing whenever you think of it. At red lights, in traffic, when you pour yourself a glass of water, during commercials when your watching tv, right before and after exercise, when you’re in bed right before you fall asleep. Any time you think of it.
The perfect time is right before you go to sleep. Lay there and take 10 deep belly breaths. This usually knocks you out, it’s like a natural sleeping pill.

Another benefit of belly breathing is its efficiency at lyphatic drainage of the abdominal organs (up to 60% of all lymph nodes are located just under the diaphragm). The diaphragm is your only full time pump for the lymph system (other pumps for the lymph system include Massage & Dry Brushing). If you are breathing with your upper chest and neck instead of your diaphragm, your lymph system has no pump.

And since this is likely the first you’ve heard of belly breathing, I’m sure your neck and upper back are tight and in need of a good massage. Come into the spa and see me, we’ll loosen them up so they can start learning to relax.

Here’s a pretty good video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpXstUTg_Rc

Breathe and live Happy.
~Brooke

*Brooke is a massage therapist here at Le Reve. Book your next massage with her today!