what’s happening in your body when you breathe with your stomach?
In: 6
The diaphragm (a muscle) separating the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity gets pulled down into abdomen, correspondingly increasing the volume of the chest cavity. This leads to air being pulled into the lungs by the decreased pressure.
As opposed to Intercostal muscles, located between the ribs, pulling them outward and increasing the volume of chest cavity more directly.
You inhale as a result of physics: your body uses muscles to expand the lungs so that, relative to the air outside, there is less air pressure in them. This automatically “pulls” the inhale in to equalise the air pressure.
The main muscle that does this is your respiratory diaphragm, which is like a jellyfish sitting between the lungs and your belly organs (note: belly or abdomen is the whole region; stomach is one of the organs in that region!). The lungs are “stuck” to this jellyfish via surface tension. To make the lungs longer / bigger, the diaphragm pulls down into the belly cavity, stretching the bottom of the lungs down with it, squashing the belly organs out of its way. Voila! It works, you inhale, and the diaphragm floats back up and your abdominal organs go back up and in to their resting position.
Fun fact: The little massage this gives your abdominal organs is part of maintaining their health and good function!
Fun fact 2: While the diaphragm is the primary breathing muscle, you have LOTS of secondary breathing muscles, from ones that lift the upper chest to ones that expand the side ribs, even to tissues in the pelvic floor and the hips, which then are affected by movement patterns everywhere from your head to your toes. Breathing is a full-body exercise 🙂
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