Our MUST TRY breathing exercise.

If I said to you I’ve got this amazing thing that can

...Improve blood circulation...Increase the health of your organs...Slow down your ageing process...Give you more energy...Reduce stress levels...Boost your immune system...Increase cardiovascular ability...Help digest food...Strengthen your pelvic floor

...would you be interested?

Well, that thing is BREATHING. Just a few minutes a day of paying attention to how and where you are breathing can create so many health benefits.  

At the Pilates Station, we teach members how to breathe, we queue breathing during movement, and vice versa, we facilitate movements to create good breath.

It's no exaggeration when we say we are OBSESSED with the interaction between the diaphragm, pelvic floor and feet. It might sound mad, but it's so important.

Unless you are lucky enough to be part of a great Pilates studio or have an amazing yoga teacher, it's unlikely that people give breathing much thought. We take it for granted until it goes wrong, or until we tune into it.

The best start is to create space in your ribcage so that your diaphragm moves down when you breathe in. Lots of times due to trauma or injury the diaphragm does the opposite.

I see this all the time in the studio and it’s easily altered with a few creative breathing exercises. Here's my favourite...

Our Favourite Breathing Exercise

1. Sit somewhere comfortable where you can place your feet on the floor.

2. Have a small hand towel rolled up like a sausage shape and sit on it sitting bone to sitting bone.

3. Place one hand on your chest and one lightly on your lower abdominals.

4. Breathe in a normal size breath and see if you can breathe equally into both hands. Don’t be discouraged it might take time to find it. Breathe in through your nose if possible.

5. Make sure your head is back in line with your pelvis and ribcage the best you can without creating tension. Do this for about a minute.

6. Now remove the towel and sit back on your chair and notice the difference in the pelvic floor. Magic.

7. Now repeat, but this time sit on the towel from pubic bone to tailbone so you are stimulating length through the pelvic floor. Don’t forget to check in afterwards and notice the change.

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Most importantly, throughout your day take time to notice your breathe, have a few minutes outside breathing gently in through your nose and out through the mouth. Take in your surroundings and be present in your day. And be sure you are freeing up your ribcage and releasing your jaw, as this affects your breathing.

If you ever need some motivation to incorporate better breathing into your day then think of the looong list of health benefits above.

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