How does posture affect your breathing

Are they using their chest and neck muscles to drive their breathing pattern, or do you see their belly cylindrically expand?

Gibbons described an anatomical link between the diaphragm, psoas, and pelvic floor and Jones summarized the integrated structure as follows;. The spinal column is part of this cylinder and runs through the middle, supported posteriorly by segmental, attachments of lumbar multifidus and anteriorly by segmental attachments of psoas to the abdominal muscles.

When any of these central structures are out of position or alignment, i. For instance in a patient with an elevated rib position their scapulae will not sit in an optimal, mechanically advantageous position and the glenoid fossa will be affected which affects how the humerus tracks in the glenoid.

When a patient has an increased anterior pelvic tilt or increased lumbar spine lordosis we all know of the stressors placed on the spine and hips during activity that lead to pathology. This negatively influences normal diaphragm function, inhibiting abdominal breathing and encouraging an upper chest or apical breathing pattern.

This can lead to neck pain, rounded shoulder posture and resulting rotator cuff or thoracic outlet syndrome symptoms. As you see everything is connected and not all pathologies originate at the point of pain. Often there is an underlying cause somewhere else in the kinetic chain that leads to the patients presenting symptoms.

By no means are proper diaphragmatic breathing patterns the end all be all but it is certainly an often overlooked component to the treatment plan of care and subsequent rehabilitation. Now you may be asking how will this affect my practice and how can I quickly and accurately assess breathing patterns, core bracing and neuromuscular control?

Roussel et al have reported that more than half of patients with chronic non-specific low back pain exhibited altered breathing patterns during performances in which the trunk-stability muscles are challenged. This is because the movement of your diaphragm will be limited in this position…. In the slouched position your tummy contents will limit the downwards movement of your diaphragm, limiting the ability of your lungs to fill properly.

Remember the diaphragm is the biggest and most important muscle when it comes to breathing. A slouched posture can encourage overuse of the muscles in the top part of the chest. These muscles may kick in to compensate for the lack of movement at the diaphragm. This can be problematic for those who have a breathing pattern disorder, as overuse of these upper chest muscles leads to an imbalance in normal breathing mechanics and can create symptoms of shortness of breath for example. You can read more about breathing pattern disorders HERE.

So many people have been thrown into a world of working from home over the last year. Our ergonomically assessed workstations and chairs disappeared overnight, to be replaced with balancing on stools at the kitchen table! And many people are likely to continue to work from home for a little while longer, perhaps even permanently, so now is the time to make sure your home set up is supporting your posture so you can maximise your comfort and support your optimal breathing.

This is all about making sure your workstation is set up in the right position for you. You should also sit on an adjustable chair that can be moved up or down to the right height for you. Sitting in one position for a prolonged period of time can take its toll on your posture. Working from home has exacerbated this problem with many of us moving around even less than we did when we were commuting. We can do this for short periods of time when stressed but we are not designed to be on alert all the time.

When we take shallow breaths, we over-breathe oxygen and breathe out too much carbon dioxide stressing our body and telling our nervous system to stay on red alert. In contrast, breathing in a calm pattern that activates the rest digest and recovery part of our nervous system requires us to lengthen our exhale and slow down the number of breaths we take a minute. But this is where posture can cause us further problems.

People with poor posture rounded shoulders, tight pectoral muscles, forward heads tend to have trouble establishing a good breathing pattern.

Diaphragmatic breathing is difficult for these people and even their shallow breaths are inefficient because of the restrictions around the chest. The implications are severe. To reset your posture you need to find ways to release these bad breathing muscles that get short and tight from overuse.

Stress-related illnesses, sleep problems, respiratory problems, immune system weakening , and high blood pressure are all symptoms of long term shallow breathing.

Posture affects our health and how well we perform in all areas of life. For example, people with rounded shoulders, hunched backs, and necks that force their gaze towards the floor, generally do less well at interviews , are perceived as less attractive, and have a gloomier outlook on life. Your phone is a big part of the problem. Kids spend years hunched over books and computers at a desk. Constantly being bombarded by messages and social media activates our stress response dumping cortisol and adrenaline in our blood, mobilising our body into action.

No wonder it is hard to switch the brain off and sleep at the end of the day after being on social media or working at a computer. Younger populations are the most affected as millennials live their lives through their devices but older enthusiastic phone adopters also feel the effects. Yes, the hunched position we adopt for scanning our Instagram feed creates tension in the postural muscles. But indirect causes such as stress, anxiety, loneliness and depression contribute too.

Depressed, stressed people do not generally walk with confidence or sit with straight backs and open shoulders. Overuse of phones can also lead to sleep disturbances, which has the chain reaction effect of lowering our immune system, impacting our posture, and increasing levels of stress and depression. Our posture affects our mood and emotions, which affects our health, which changes our breathing pattern, which changes our posture again. And so the cycle continues.

The good news is by changing your posture you can help break the cycle, shifting your emotions, making it easier to access your optimal breathing muscle, the diaphragm. Be honest with yourself. Do you slouch? Check how you stand in a mirror and be critical — the importance to your health is at stake. Better still, ask a friend particularly one with the ability to be direct to evaluate your posture. Better again, get a physiotherapist or other health professional to review your posture and give you an analysis of the muscles that are tight and weak.

And in some cases, the damage is irreversible. This is the one time a physiotherapist is going to ask you to slump and slouch only if it is pain free. Now in this position try and breathe in. Your body will want to get air in still so it can replenish its oxygen stores.

To do that it has to recruit its back up breathing muscles around its neck and chest to help inhale, expanding the rib cage to get air travelling down into the lungs. These neck muscles are not very efficient and are not designed to be used for the 17, breaths we take on average per day. They get tired, fatigued and we create muscle trigger points that can generate headaches, jaw and neck pain.

Deep tissue massage can tone and stretch the diaphragm with pressure point work, breathing exercises are essential and various cardiovascular workouts can do the same, however, moving straight into cardiovascular work without addressing the underlying issue is an inefficient approach.

If you think this article applies to you then please do not hesitate to contact Amanda on For a FREE 20 minute assessment. Remember to 'like' our facebook page as well to keep up to date with all of our latest news! You will be given rehabilitation exercise and advice with every treatment so you will have knowledge to help you stay pain free.

Call or Text: Intulo Health Blog Articles. Now sit up straight, take a deep breath and give your body what it really needs For a FREE 20 minute assessment Remember to 'like' our facebook page as well to keep up to date with all of our latest news!