9 Free Videos from Sensing and Knowing Your Diaphragm
Just … breathe from your diaphragm.
What does that even mean? Many traditions emphasize the breath in a particular location of the body.
Watch and participate with these nine free videos to preview what you’ll learn. In this course, we explore the sensation, science, meaning of the diaphragm, and massage techniques. Learn more at unwind.thinkific.com
Many traditions emphasize sensing the breath in a particular location of the body.
Stress reduction courses usually ask you to choose any specific place in the body that is prominent and distinct. You may notice a swirling sensation of air at the tip of your nose and train your attention there. You might feel the movement of your ribs under your arms and attend to that. The goal of mindful breathing is to train your awareness to the present moment with a breath that is unchanged in pace or depth.
Yoga instructors may ask you to notice shallow breathing that moves the upper chest or to take a full belly breath. A belly breathing can change your mood, present moment awareness, blood oxygen levels, and/or range of motion in a particular pose. The goal is to willingly change the breath for a specific change to the physiology and/or movement of your body.
Therapists often cite studies on mindful breathing and teach techniques to relieve anxiety or even panic attacks. This is a skill where you voluntarily change the pace and style of breath to shift state of mind.
In this course, we will explore a lesser known location for experiencing both voluntary and involuntary breath: your diaphragm. First, let's see if we can feel the diaphragm in our own bodies.
In this image, can you locate where the diaphragm is?
Try this experience first before reading on:
Feel your bones where you expect your diaphragm to attach to your skeleton.
Keep your fingers there. Notice your breath rise and fall a few times without forcing or changing.
What did you feel or notice? How close to this Western medical description of the diaphragm did you get?
The diaphragm is a sheet of muscle and tendon that originates in a ring roughly at the bottom of the rib cage.
The word diaphragm means across (dia) and fence or encloses (phrag-).
The diaphragm stretches across the middle abdomen.
The diaphragm acts as a fence between the upper and lower abdominal areas.
Image: This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman.
