Breathing for Expansion

Breathing is not just about creating length in your spine up and down (which ultimately affects your posture!), but it’s about sideways expansion in your body, in your rib cage.  We all have these muscles called the internal and external obliques and those turn into our intercostal muscles in between the ribs.  These muscles, along with the diaphragm, help us to breathe, BUT if these muscles are tight, they compress the rig cage, not allowing it to expand, lowering our ability to breathe fully. SO think about it…if these muscles on the side of our bodies and rib cage could be warmed up and expand, how much more breath would you be able to take in?!

Simple exercise – Place your hands below your breast area, on each side of your body and focus on breathing in that space. Try to get your hands to move sideways.  This type of breath will strengthen those muscles, warm them up to increase flexibility and ultimately up the amount of breath you’re taking in to feed your body and brain!

​An achievable goal – Once you can reach this place in your body, and this takes A LOT of practice (so don’t get frustrated with yourself if you’re not experiencing anything at first), try taking a big belly breath, then expanding sideways in the middle of your chest, and finish off with a breath in the upper chest, letting the shoulders rise…a full breath, aahhh