Inhale through your . . . ?
I was fortunate to be able to “attend” a livestream of T-Phase with Z-Health this weekend. It is a course I’ve taken before that covers breathing, dermal/fascial work, neuromechanics, and lymphatics, among other things, and I’ve found the information very beneficial for myself and when working with clients. And, as is common with Z-Health courses, I learn something new every time, even if it’s a course I’ve taken multiple times already!
This time, the new information related to breathing. There is a lot of research out there on the importance of nasal breathing for good health, but at times, when we are talking, singing, or in the midst of some intense physical activity, mouth breathing is necessary due to the activity and/or to increase oxygen intake. While I knew this, it never occurred to me to observe clients’/students’ breathing patterns while doing different combinations of nasal/mouth breathing. What might be a biomechanically efficient breath pattern when inhaling and exhaling through the nose, might become very inefficient when inhaling through the mouth, for example. But if I have a student who will ultimately need to mouth breath at the end of a 10-minute high-intensity dance performance, they need to have good breathing mechanics the entire time — there’s no benefit to having unnecessary neck tension or dysfunctional rib cage movement when you’re in the middle of heavy physical exertion.
Try it for yourself, using your phone to record your body from a side or front view. Place one hand on your bellybutton, and one on the top of your sternum. Then, take two regular breaths and two deep breaths with each of these patterns:
Inhale through the nose, exhale through the nose
Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth
Inhale through the mouth, exhale through the nose
Inhale through the mouth, exhale through the mouth
When you watch the video, notice what is moving in your body. Ideally you want to see movement in the abdomen but not the sternum in the normal breathing, and movement in the abdomen initially with a little outward movement of the sternum at the peak of the deep inhale.
What do you notice about your breathing with these different patterns? Let me know in the comments below!