THE DIAPHRAGM & STRESS
Have you ever felt anxious, a sense of dread for no reason whatsoever?
Although there are many factors that contribute to a heightened stress response, have you considered your breathing pattern to be a factor?
Diaphragmatic breathing or deep breathing from the chest is essential for reducing your body’s fight or flight response (sympathetic nervous system), and increasing your body’s physiological relaxation response (parasympathetic nervous system). Abnormal patterns of breathing can increase your body’s physiological stress response instead, making you feel like you are constantly under some sort of threat.
So what is diaphragmatic breathing? The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle under your rib cage that should stretch downwards as your chest cavity fills with air during inhalation. Correct inhalation looks like:
Your belly bulging out
Lower ribs expanding outwards to the side like a bucket handle.
Upper ribs expanding forward like a pump handle.
Bottom two ribs also expand downwards & back.
Diaphragmatic breathing
What I often seen in clinic instead is:
Reverse breathing: where people hold their stomachs in during the in-breath, so that their abdominal muscles are hardened. This type of breathing can be associated with anger.
High costal/accessory breathing: when people can’t inhale with a normal lowering of their respiratory diaphragm, they find alternative ways to make space for expanding the lungs by lifting their shoulders & ribs instead. This could also be one of the reasons for chronically tight shoulder & neck muscles. This type of breathing can be associated with emotions of fear, anxiety & panic.
As these abnormal breathing patterns are adopted over time, the diaphragm becomes tight because it doesn't stretch as much as it normally should during normal inhalation. The decreased stimulation of the stretch receptors in this muscle then sends information to the brain (via the vagus nerve) that you are threatened or in danger. If abnormal breathing is normal for you, it makes sense that your brain is constantly getting information that you are in danger, despite there being no immediate threat.
By releasing the tension from the diaphragm as you would a muscle, it is possible to restore a normal pattern of breathing. This can also be reinforced by cues to retrain your motor pattern of diaphragmatic breathing.
On the other hand, stress from external sources such as daily stressors, major life events or traumatic stress can also play a part. Because of the fast pace and stressors that come with modern day living, the higher centres of our brain (hypothalamus, limbic system & cerebral cortex) are constantly receiving information that there is a threat in the form of meeting deadlines, sitting in traffic, replying to emails etc.
These then affect the respiratory rhythmicity centres in the brain stem which control your pace & pattern of breathing.
If we can encourage a physiological relaxation response in your body, the higher centres in your brain tell the respiratory rhythmicity centres in the brain stem to activate a correct breathing pattern.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, this then has a flow-on effect to let your brain know there is no immediate threat and that you can relax.
Craniosacral therapy is able to elicit a physiological relaxation response in your body through gentle mobilisations of the cranium and sacrum, which are key components of the central nervous system. As a result, those higher centres of your brain send signals to your body that it can relax. This then naturally encourages the correct use of your diaphragm.
Hence we can encourage diaphragmatic breathing through:
Reducing your body’s heightened perception of external stress from the environment (through craniosacral therapy) &
Reducing physiological stress from incorrect breathing patterns (through diaphragm release)
At Kai Health we use myofascial release (a gentle effective type of manual therapy) to release diaphragmatic tension as well as the psoas & iliacus which have an intimate relationship with the diaphragm. Combined with motor control exercises & craniosacral therapy, we can encourage & maintain a proper pattern of breathing to shift your body out of a chronic stress state.
If you would like to have your breathing pattern checked & treated, you can book online under Physiotherapy, or Craniosacral for craniosacral therapy treatment.
If you have any questions, or would like to share your thoughts, please comment below!
References
(2021). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.ddfsocialelearning.com/control-anxiety-abdominal-breathing/how-to-breathe-deeply-2/
AnimatedBiomedical. (2012). Diaphragm - 3D Medical Animation || ABP © [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23-KAubf-js
Martini, F., Nath, J., Bartholomew, E., & Ober, W. Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology (10th ed., pp. 897-898). Pearson.
ROSENBERG, S. (2017). ACCESSING THE HEALING POWER OF THE VAGUS NERVE (pp. 22, 101-102). Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books.
