Core Breath: why this postpartum breathing technique is important for everyone

Breathing is under-rated.  People who lift weights understand that it is important to breath when actually lifting the weight, since holding your breath can increase blood pressure or potentially cause a hernia.  It is important to breath with exertion to control the increase in abdominal pressure that happens.

Women who work with a pelvic health physiotherapist after they have given birth learn to master core breathing, which is the same exhalation with exertion, but adding a pelvic floor muscle contraction with every exhale.

“Core Breathing” is using your breath when you properly contract your pelvic floor muscles with movement.  You want to inhale, expand your belly and relax your pelvic floor, then when you exhale, lift and engage your pelvic floor muscles.

Try these two exercises:

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The 5 Essentials of Healthy Desk Work

  1. Sitting posture is key! We all know it’s not a great thing for the body to sit for many hours every day, so at least have most of that time with minimal stressors on your body.  Sit with a supplemental lumbar support so that your spine can easily maintain the natural inward curve in the lower back that is present when you stand.  When you correct from the bottom, it helps to align everything higher up.  More than that, keep moving around in your chair—rock your pelvis forward and back or side to side every now and then—just keep things moving a bit.  
  2. Breathing is underrated! If you’re sitting in a slouched posture for long, you aren’t able to take in a maximal breath to expand your lower lungs.  Not cool.  As soon as you sit up straighter, it allows the lowest part of your lungs to expand fully when you take a deep breath—this is important to bring oxygen to tissues, calm your nervous system, and help blood flow.
  3. Your desk set-up is important: the ergonomic design of your work station should keep your head neutral looking straight ahead, your shoulders relaxed so that your elbows are bent to ~90 degrees and you can still reach the keyboard and mouse, and your chair height allows your knees to be at or below the height of your hips.
  4. Move your body: sitting properly is WAY better than not, but it’s still not great to stay there for hours on end.  Move! Strategize to stand and move around your area when you take a phone call, or schedule a walking meeting, or drink enough water that you regularly have to get up to use the bathroom!
  5. Drink enough water: ideally we want about 8-12 cups of fluid per day in order to replenish our body’s store of fluids. These fluids help with all bodily functions:  blood regulation, digestion, breathing, muscle and joint function, and brain activity. Keep it in you!

If you’re not sure about your desk ergonomic set-up or how to use a lumbar roll to sit, speak with your physiotherapist, or check out an earlier post here

 

Restoring Your Breath After Baby

We’re not talking halitosis here!

 

Breathing is something that happens naturally all day and night, right?  Not necessarily. We often think of the “core” as just the abs and back muscles, but really it is the pelvic floor group at the bottom and the diaphragm at the top too.  As we take in breath, the diaphragm descends (to allow space for the lungs to expand), the rib cage expands, and both the abdominal wall and pelvic floor relax. When we exhale it’s the opposite:  the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles increase tension, the rib cage contracts, and some of the back muscles contracts to help with support.

 

When pregnant, the body has put on a good amount of weight in a short amount of time, fascia has lengthened, and sometimes after giving birth the body can almost “forget” this natural breathing pattern.  Before any return to exercise, your physiotherapist needs to ensure that the sequence of core function with breathing is normal and proper.

 

Faulty breathing patterns will slow down the return of your pelvic floor and the rest of your core to normal function! If there is a Diastasis Recti (i.e separation of abdominal muscles after childbirth), performing pelvic floor and abdominal exercises to help close this will not be effective.  Bad breathing strategies can lead to increased abdominal pressure that can impact both your abdominal muscles and your pelvic floor.  Not cool.

 

What to do?  Your Physiotherapist needs to ensure proper function with breath of the diaphragm, pelvic floor, abdominals, deep back muscles, hips, and lower back. If they’re not behaving properly, then cuing, visualization, and different exercises are prescribed to restore the proper movement.  Once the “normal”, functional breathing pattern is back, other exercises can be prescribed and progressed to help with strengthening the pelvic floor, helping any diastasis recti, and returning to regular activities.

 

But it all starts with the breath!