what happens when you get air knocked out of yourself?

Question

Like falling off the monkey bars in school, what’s the actual mechanism of that god awful feeling

In: Biology

Answer 1

Imagine you have a plastic bag that you pressed flat against a table. When you open the bag, air will fill the now-empty space inside the bag. Your lungs work similarly – they open up and get filled with air as long as your nose and/or mouth are also open. The muscle responsible for opening your lungs is called your diaphragm and it’s what separates the inside of your chest from the inside of your abdomen.

When you fall flat on your back or get hit hard in the chest, sometimes that causes the diaphragm to spasm. If the diaphragm is spasming then it can’t be used to draw another breath, so you feel like you “had the air knocked out of you.”