Ready for this one? I know a lot of people will relate so let's dive in!

Who in this audience has done yoga before?? Or been told that doing yoga would help your mobility? Even if you haven't or have no interest in yoga hang with me, you can relate it to trying to stretch pain away and there is something here for everyone!

You gear up for yoga (or insert other activity with here)…Then only to get to class and sweat through the tightness and inability to get into positions? Have instability when trying to balance and just cannot get your footing it feels like?

I know I have! 

As I was forcing myself to right my pigeon pose on the right side during class a thought smacked me like a ton of bricks. And well, this theory has proven time and time again to be fact for both rehab, yoga and any practice where you’re using your body. 

Did you know your breath, a major part of yoga practice helps to unlock your body and range of motion and well as can stabilize your body for movements like lifting and squatting?

Most of my patients don’t know this either until we begin working together. I know I sure didn’t. It wasn't until around 8 or so years ago when I started lifting more often and in school when I began encompassing the full diaphragm breath into practice that I had this realization. 

I always knew breathing could deepen the stretch, but knowing what that felt like to get a full true abdominal (not just belly breath) was a game changer especially for helping manage my pain.

Why does breathing help so much?? In short, the breath allows your body to relax into a state of less tension. If we breathe truly into our diaphragm not only does your total body tightness and mobility improve but it helps reduce pain and the stressed state of your nervous system.

Because we live in an overstimulated, constantly stressed state of society, a lot of us especially after C0VID have adopted a stressed state of mind without even realizing it! With the bombarding of information, choices, devices, etc nowadays, it's not surprising for folks like myself to know that rates of disease are going up. If you felt any reaction to that statement in your body, this is what I am talking about.

The 'stressed' state is also called sympathetic state and is actually a good thing. When I am preparing to 'run from the bear' I need this state. Shoot if anything is chasing me I need to shut out all of the other everything and get out of there! Am I right??

When I am preparing for this, my body tenses and my senses are on high alert so I can sprint away when I need to and at the drop of a hat. But that is not how our body was meant to actually live day-to-day. And for my current patients, we have come full circle! 😂 They will recognize this phrase.

Breathing into our diaphragm fully allows our body to and initiates the parasympathetic state otherwise known as 'rest and digest' and allows us to down-regulate (or reduce) that overactive stressed response. This reduces tension in the body, your secondary muscles of respiration (neck and shoulders) won’t work as much to help you breathe, and can help you better regulate ALL processes in the body including pain. This is actually a major key in beginning to reduce pain and one reason why I focus on breathing from Day 1.

So now back to the yoga class: We may find ourselves in stretches, exercises or even resting with pain. Everyone struggles sometimes and even me in yoga, you bet I am shaking, sweating and sometimes struggling with certain positions, have pain in some cases, or sometimes I lose my balance. And even though I have practiced this breathing into the pain or stretch for years, there are times I still struggle with this; especially if I have been immobile, am dehydrated, lacking sleep or any combination of other things that would contribute.

I get to the point of “stretch so good pain” and when you do, you must remember to breathe like I’m going to show you in the video below. Especially remember this next time you find yourself stretching away tension. You can try this breathing technique on its own or in the position (like me in eagle or pigeon) allowing your body to lengthen and expand to accommodate the range you’re capable of at the time.

In short, this is one major tool we can begin to use to open up new mobility, flexibility and reduce pain. And a tool that anyone can learn to utilize. We can also use the breath for explosive power and strength in sport; but that is a post for another day.

What if you have some pain with or without stretching or yoga?? I like to tell my patients “touch the pain” during activity and release. In other words: don’t blow through it and don’t freak out about it; graze it and breathe into the position, go to your tolerance then go back to the resting position slow and steady throughout. Expand the rib cage on all sides and allow your body to accept the challenge during the movement and especially when you reach your end range. You’ll be glad you did and it will help you lower sensitivity overall especially in the areas of new recognition. You may even find you can stretch further or move more which is almost always what we find during treatment in the office.

If you need help with this technique, feel free to reach out or text breathe to 251-316-0850 and I'll send you 2 additional videos that will help with this!

Click here or see below for the Full 360 breathing tutorial taught by yours truly!

And find more videos on our channel being uploaded periodically.

Want to see an exercise or have a topic you want us to go over? Send us a message!