breathing

There are two kinds of breathing: thoracic and abdominal. In thoracic breathing the chest expands in inhalation and shrinks in exhalation. We use thoracic breathing when we inhale with our arms up and exhale when we put our arms down. In abdominal respiration the stomach expands in a manner similar to a rabbit’s breathing. If you look at babies carefully when they are sleeping, you see their stomach rather than their chest moving up and down; this is abdominal breathing.

You may think that people breathe with their chest because of the location of the lungs. Actually, abdominal breathing, the kind practiced by babies, is more natural and healthy. If a person’s shoulders go up and down when he breathes, or if his chest is moving, it might indicate that he has a problem with his lungs, and therefore the breath cannot go deeper than his lungs. It is also possible that he has abdominal dropsy or a swollen stomach, so the breath cannot go all the way down. This kind of breathing is unhealthy.