Bucks &amp; Oxon


<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1500" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/sat-diaphragmatic-breathing.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-143202" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/sat-diaphragmatic-breathing.jpg 1500w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/sat-diaphragmatic-breathing-800x533.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/sat-diaphragmatic-breathing-1000x667.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/sat-diaphragmatic-breathing-400x267.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/sat-diaphragmatic-breathing-788x525.jpg 788w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" /></figure>



<p>Just like our posture, breathing is one of those areas you might not think about on a day-to-day basis &#8211; but getting it wrong can have severe repercussions on both your mental and physical health. Er, so what exactly are we doing wrong? We spoke to Jane Tarrant (above), breathing retrainer and founder of <a href="https://www.linkbreathing.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LiNK BREATHING</a> in Bicester, to get the lowdown on the mistakes you might be making. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Your tongue is in the wrong position</h2>



<p>There are three typical tongue positions:</p>



<ul><li>Resting in the bottom of the mouth</li><li>With the tip up but the rest relaxed, hanging down</li><li>With the tip up in the roof of your mouth, just back from the front teeth, and the rest of the tongue suctioned to the roof of your mouth, creating an air seal</li></ul>



<p>You&#8217;re aiming for the last one. With the other two, the tongue is hanging slack rather than sealed to the roof of the mouth, so it&#8217;s more likely to fall down into the mouth when you&#8217;re sleeping and cause snoring, for example.</p>



<p>The ideal tongue position makes the airway feel much larger for nose breathing, so if you can train your tongue into the roof of your mouth regularly, you&#8217;ll gradually stop feeling like you &#8216;can&#8217;t&#8217; get enough air when nose breathing.&nbsp; </p>



<p>Even if you&#8217;re nose breathing at rest naturally, you might find that your tongue drops out of the habit as soon as you stand up to do something like tidy the kids&#8217; toys away, so you could be mouth breathing without realising. This is where conscious training comes in.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-breathing-through-your-mouth-rather-than-your-nose">Breathing through your mouth, rather than your nose</h2>



<p>If you&#8217;re breathing through your mouth a lot, it might be because you feel you can&#8217;t get &#8216;enough&#8217; air when breathing through your nose. That could be for a couple of reasons &#8211; for example, people who have been mouth breathing since they were&nbsp;children can actually narrow the shape of their face as a result, as the roof of the mouth pushes into the nasal cavity and reduces the size of the airway.&nbsp;</p>



<p>On the other hand, you might have just gotten into a habit of mouth breathing because it &#8216;feels&#8217; like more air and it&#8217;s more comfortable for exercise. However, the more you do this, the more your body tries to get you to &#8216;over&#8217; breathe because you can no longer tolerate higher levels of carbon dioxide building up through exercise, slow breathing or breath holding.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">You&#8217;re breathing with your upper chest</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="855" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/darius-bashar-xMNel_otvWs-unsplash-855x1000.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-143203" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/darius-bashar-xMNel_otvWs-unsplash-855x1000.jpg 855w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/darius-bashar-xMNel_otvWs-unsplash-684x800.jpg 684w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/darius-bashar-xMNel_otvWs-unsplash-342x400.jpg 342w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/darius-bashar-xMNel_otvWs-unsplash-1314x1536.jpg 1314w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/darius-bashar-xMNel_otvWs-unsplash-449x525.jpg 449w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/darius-bashar-xMNel_otvWs-unsplash.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 855px) 100vw, 855px" /></figure>



<p>Sit or stand in front of a mirror and place your hand on your upper chest. If you can see your hand moving in the mirror, then you&#8217;re likely breathing into your upper chest.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Breathing from this position is naturally restrictive and doesn&#8217;t allow your lungs to expand properly &#8211; if you often feel like your breaths are shallow, fast, or you can&#8217;t get ‘enough’ air, then you might be ‘over breathing’ into the upper chest. This can form a vicious cycle if you suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, but it can be untrained.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">You&#8217;re breathing from the belly button</h2>



<p>Okay, so upper chest breathing is bad. You should be belly breathing, right?&nbsp;</p>



<p>The problem with the term &#8216;belly breathing&#8217; is that it doesn&#8217;t describe where you&#8217;re actually meant to be breathing from. Ideally the breath will come from the diaphragm, which is just below the bra strap. Feel for the squidgy bit between where your ribs split and feel it push into your fingers on the in breath (Jane calls this the D-spot). </p>



<p>Often people have trained themselves into &#8216;belly&#8217; breathing through something like yoga or mindfulness, which is great but doesn&#8217;t fully describe the process. As a result, they&#8217;re breathing from the lower belly, or leading with the belly button, which uses the incorrect muscles and actually restricts your air intake. Again, if you place your hands on your stomach and watch yourself breathe in a mirror, you shouldn&#8217;t see movement in the lower belly or feel it leading from the belly button.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">You&#8217;re taking big breaths instead of deep breaths</h2>



<p>Try taking a deep breath right now. Did you breathe through your mouth? Did your chest lift and your stomach contract? This is often the incorrect perception of a &#8216;deep&#8217; breath. Instead, you should be breathing into the bottom of your lungs &#8211; imagine an upside-down tree. You&#8217;re trying to fill the leafy canopy, but taking a ‘big’ breath with your upper chest doesn&#8217;t get oxygen to all those leaves in the canopy. For the ideal deep breath, you should be breathing through your nose, drawing air down into the D-spot (that squishy spot just between your ribs) and moving your lower ribs outward slightly.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">You&#8217;re snoring or breathing loudly at night</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1500" height="1001" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/pexels-kampus-production-7556643.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-143205" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/pexels-kampus-production-7556643.jpg 1500w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/pexels-kampus-production-7556643-800x534.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/pexels-kampus-production-7556643-1000x667.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/pexels-kampus-production-7556643-400x267.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/03/pexels-kampus-production-7556643-787x525.jpg 787w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" /></figure>



<p>Even if you&#8217;re not doing full-on room-shaking snores, if your airflow is heavy, ‘clicking’ or interrupted at night, you&#8217;re probably breathing inefficiently &#8211; which overall leads to less restful sleep. If you are waking with a dry mouth, bad breath, having got up to wee in the night or needing to drink lots of water before you wake fully, you’re probably breathing through your mouth. Even if you don&#8217;t notice these, but you&#8217;re waking up after a full eight hours feeling like you&#8217;ve not had any rest at all, then your breathing should be one of the first things you address</p>



<p>Interested in knowing a bit more about your breathing (and whether you&#8217;re actually doing it right)? <a href="https://www.linkbreathing.co.uk/">You can book a free online assessment with Jane here</a> &#8211; several of the Muddy team are already total converts.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">More wellbeing tips this way: </h2>



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Snoring, mouth breathing or floppy tongue? 6 bad breathing habits to break

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