for the Relaxation Response
Arnold Shapiro, MD
July–August 2020 • Vol 3, No 110
Breathing is something we do every minute of our lives, without having to think about it. We share it with all land animals, all sea mammals, and all other humans. It is vital, like the beating of our hearts. We cannot survive without it. But unlike heartbeats, breathing is amenable to our voluntary control. In this brief article, I would like to focus on a breathing technique that dates back to early Yoga in ancient India—Abdominal Breathing.
If we observe our pets breathing when they’re asleep, the part of their body that is moving is the abdomen. This is also true for humans of all ages. During sleep, the abdomen expands on the inbreath, and contracts on the outbreath. There is a simple explanation for this: the key muscle that breathes for us through the night is the diaphragm.
