The free movement of the diaphragm, a large and powerful muscle, depends in part on the quality of our breathing. Reviewing what factors are limiting you helps you breathe more consciously.

The diaphragm (a muscle that separates, as if it were a roof, the thoracic cavity, that is, the air cavity, from the abdominal, the liquid) is partly responsible for the quality of our breathing. Paying attention to factors that may be limiting or impairing this muscle – and exercising it – can help us breathe better.
Why does the state of this muscle influence our breathing so much? The heart sits on the diaphragm and receives a massage with each breath. When inhaling, the diaphragm contracts and lowers, bringing the heart down; When exhaling, it relaxes and rises, pushing it slightly from below. This constant contact also occurs with the lungs and organs of the abdominal cavity.
In fact, the diaphragm does not have its own shape, but adapts to the shapes and pressures it receives from the organs; That is why, when you eat too much, your breathing feels less free and light, because the stomach swells and squeezes the diaphragm from below.
BREATHING THROUGH YOUR NOSE OR MOUTH
By breathing through the nose regularly, we breathe better quality air.
- The hairs and enzymes in the nasal mucus are filterers: they trap dust and eliminate bacteria.
- The olfactory nerve at the top of the nose warns if there are any other potentially dangerous products.
- The mucosa also humidifies and warms the air.
- The mouth does not dry out. But sometimes it is essential to breathe through the mouth, when for example an intense physical activity is done, when singing or playing a wind instrument, because the oxygen demand must be met quickly; Because the mouth passages are wider and the path from the mouth to the lungs is shorter, breathing through the mouth punctually is natural.
1. WATCH YOUR BREATH
Before performing actual breathing exercises, it is helpful to observe and study your breathing patterns. You can sit on the floor in the lotus pose or in a chair, with your hands clasped on your lap or resting one on your chest and one on your abdomen.
How do I breathe? Do the abs move with the breathing rate? Is there a small pause after each exhalation? Do you feel that breathing occurs without any effort? Is it relaxed, regular breathing?
Keep in mind that observing and exercising the breath can have different goals:
- Create respiratory awareness.
- Synchronize breathing with movement.
- Stretch the respiratory and postural muscles.
- Change breathing patterns or attitudinal habits.
- Prepare for a stressful or painful situation.
- Relax.
- Expand lung capacity or perform pranayama.
- Prepare for meditation.
2. OPEN AND CLOSE THE RIB CAGE
This exercise is performed standing and keeping in mind the objective of synchronizing movement with breathing.
- With a deep inhalation, extend the spine and open the palms of the hands towards the sky to increase the degree of stretch in the pectorals. Also extend one leg, keeping the foot in the air, to expand the extension of the spine. But attention: do not stretch the spine too much or drop the head back, but maintain an integrated alignment of the head with the rest of the spine.
- With the exhalation, hug yourself to stretch the posterior intercostal muscles and flex your spine and knees.
3. STRETCH YOUR NECK
- Exercise the accessory respiratory musculature
Thoracic breathing, linked to stress, is associated with excessive use of the cervical accessory respiratory musculature: scalenes and sternocleidomastoid. These muscles tend to shorten due to inadequate habits, both respiratory and postural.
Sit comfortably with your spine upright, bring your left shoulder and arm back, and rest the back of your hand on the sacrum. Tilt your head to the right by directing your nose towards your armpit. Pull your left shoulder down and exhale deeply. To intensify the stretch, place your right palm just below your collarbone and gently pull the skin down.
This gesture will further stretch the myofascial tissue. Repeat the exercise to the other side.
- Mobilize the anterior aspect of the neck
The hyoid muscles are also often shortened by inadequate postural and respiratory habits. Roll up a towel and place it around the back of your neck. With the spine erect, extend the cervical.
Close your mouth tightly (but without clenching your teeth) and make deep exhalations. When exhaling deeply, the first two ribs go down increasing the stretch of the scalene muscles.
To intensify the stretch, hold the towel with only one hand and, with the palm of the other over the top of the breastbone, pull the skin gently downwards. This gesture will further stretch the myofascial tissue. Do not stay longer in the postures than you are comfortable and never do them if any annoying symptoms appear.
4. STRETCH BOTH SIDES
Stand next to a wall or tree. Separate the nearest arm from the body until the elbow is at shoulder height, inhale and, lengthening the sides of the torso, rest on the wall or tree the forearm of that arm and the palm of the other hand.
To increase stretching, breathe deeply to the side of the stretched chest, follow with a 3-second apnea (close the throat, glottis, to retain air and relax cervical and shoulders) and finish with an exhalation even deeper than inhalation. Repeat the exercise to the other side.
5. STRETCH THE PSOAS
The psoas-iliac, a key muscle for the hips and lumbar, shares tendon with the diaphragm. To stretch it next to the diaphragm, sit sideways on a chair, as in the photograph.
Keep the knee in front with a 90º flexion, the back leg as extended as possible, and the arms, behind the back, clinging to the back of the chair (to intensify the stretching of the rib cage).
Exhale deeply to allow the diaphragm to rise, pull your tendon up, and stretch the psoas even further.
6. STRETCH DIAPHRAGM AND PELVIS
The pelvic floor, sometimes called the pelvic diaphragm, contracts and rises with each exhalation. Lie on your back in the butterfly pose or with your soles resting on the floor, and place a rolled-up blanket or cushion under your spine. This extends the spine, which opens the rib cage and stretches the intercostal musculature.
Another option is to place the cushion under the pelvis, to raise it and lighten it from the weight of the organs. Extend your arms back and with a deep exhale introduce your abs inwards.
Pay attention to your breathing again; Note if its volume, breadth, and depth have changed.
7. LAUGH
Laughing is a great diaphragmatic and abdominal exercise. In laughter or laughter there is a strong and repeated exhalation caused by intense contractions of the abdominals and diaphragm. In addition, endorphins are secreted. A natural analgesic!
THE FORCES THAT AFFECT THE RESPIRATORY GESTURE
To perform its function, the diaphragm needs some freedom of movement. Its central and relatively flexible position means that each organic or postural change can influence its state and, consequently, since it is the protagonist of breathing, in this and in the quality of life. Its optimal functionality depends on several factors:
- Psycho-emotional state: the vital attitude affects body posture, which directly influences respiratory volume.
- Postural hygiene: the way the body is used when standing, sitting or doing any other daily activity affects muscle balance and the position of the joints in relation to the axis of gravity and, therefore, respiratory capacity. Many of us spend hours in front of the computer with our spine semi-flexed and our shoulders forward. This imprisonment of the rib cage does not allow the diaphragm to descend freely with inhalation and, to compensate for the limited oxygen input, we increase breaths per minute, which often leads to a hyperventilated, moderate but chronic type of breathing.
- Myofascial elasticity: it is the one that affects the inspiring and expiratory muscles, and their fascias, the tissues that surround them and connect them with other structures. The freedom of the diaphragm depends on many muscle groups, some powerful and main and others smaller. Some are part of muscle chains that are often overused by poor postural hygiene.
- The airways: nose, trachea and larynx must allow air to pass through them. Allergies, a flu or asthma affect the mucus and, therefore, its opening.
Apart from these factors, there are others not always considered relevant but which are just as important. Toxic habits, such as smoking obviously, or even environmental pollution, affect the mucus of the airways.
Insomnia reduces the level of energy in the body and can impair postural hygiene. This in turn leads to the establishment of respiratory reflex patterns in the nervous system that hinder any change.
Tight clothing can limit breathing, but so can high heels. These misalign the body in front of the axis of gravity, which causes a constant contraction of the entire posterior muscle chain and misaligns an essential muscle of the body: the psoas-iliac. The diaphragm intertwines with the muscle fibers of the psoas-iliac and, therefore, can lose its positional balance.
Finally, the emotions that contract us – anger, sadness, dissatisfaction or jealousy – which are usually chronic when one does not take care of oneself psych emotionally, also affect respiratory quality. If they become chronic, they become physically limiting and painful.
The respiratory act is, therefore, a complex activity. If breathing depends on so many factors, what is our role in proper breathing? Or better reflected: is there adequate breathing?
WHAT IS FREE BREATHING?
As a therapeutic yoga teacher, I often receive students who comment to me in an intimate tone: “I breathe very badly”; A sincere and courageous observation. To my request to describe how they do it, they return a common answer: “I breathe only towards the chest, I breathe little, quickly and superficially”.
Without having any pathological respiratory involvement, many people have the feeling that they do not breathe in an adequate way. But what is proper breathing?
It occurs when breathing in everyday life matches the demands placed on the body, from taking a walk in the park to climbing stairs with shopping or doing aerobics activities such as dancing and swimming.
That is, that breathing is consistent with what the body requires to function optimally at every moment of the day. It is true that free breathing has some characteristics.
It is multidirectional (the entire rib and abdominal cage oscillates anterior and posterior), fulfills the law of minimum effort and is regular and rhythmic. But there is no one proper way to breathe. Everything depends, as we have seen, on many factors.
Seeing breathing as a phenomenon that emerges, given by different conditions, can serve to appreciate breathing as a process, as an indication of the general state of the organism. If you feel yourself breathing shallowly, the solution is not to breathe deeper.
The interesting thing would be to go to the origin: look for the answers in your psycho-emotional state and in your body alignment. Because when you regularly stretch the respiratory and postural muscles, and cultivate a body, respiratory and psycho-emotional awareness, it is when the breath is freed from the factors that limit it.