Welcome to Lesson #1 of Deeper. Slower. Easier. Level 1.
Your diaphragm is your main breathing muscle. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s responsible for ~75% of your inhale.
Therefore, it’s very, very important that you learn how to use it correctly (think more oxygen, greater relaxation, faster recovery, and improved exercise performance — to name just a few benefits).
Your diaphragm is a jellyfish-shaped muscle. It’s a dome that separates your lungs from your stomach, liver, intestines, etc. It’s the muscle that spasms during a hiccup.
When the diaphragm does its job — i.e. when it contracts — it flattens. Aka it moves downwards towards your organs, hips and legs. When this happens, air is dragged through your nose and down into the bottom of your lungs.
This is difficult to visualize, so check out the GIF below. Breathe with it a few times to understand how the diaphragm contracts and relaxes.
inhale = contraction = flattens = moves down ↓
exhale = relaxation = domes = moves up ↑
Unlike your lungs, your internal organs are static in volume (that is, unless you eat a meal or drink some water). This means that in order to truly use your diaphragm, you have to get your internal organs out of the freaking way! Otherwise they will block your inhale.
And how do you do that? How do you get your organs out of the way? By relaxing your entire abdomen, lower back, obliques and pelvic floor — the muscles surrounding your lower torso.
Try that now. Inhale and try to move your breath in 5 directions: the belly (forward), the low back (backwards), the right oblique (right), the left oblique (left), and the anal muscles (downwards).
Basically you’re breathing everywhere but up.
It can also be helpful to imagine a plunger with its rubber head flipped inside out — a “reverse plunger,” if you will.
In this analogy, when you “pull the handle” (aka when you decide to breathe in with your diaphragm), the head flattens, suction-cups the lungs and, in turn, increases its volume! Voila!
Further, I suggest initiating your breath from your sphincter and anal muscles. It will feel a bit like a “reverse kegel,” or like bearing down when using the toilet, but it will bring in far more air, and begin removing tension in your hips.
It’s not enough to intellectualize this material, so if you’re still confused, or if you need more guidance (and you already watched the video above) please either download the summary guide (bottom of page) or check out “Plunger Breathing” in the practice section below.
Otherwise, I’ll see you in the next lesson.
– Ethan ॐ
P.S. This is why I often repeat “where you breathe, tension must leave.” It is mechanically impossible to breathe into your stomach when your abs are fully flexed.
The same is true of your body: tightness in a particular area means breath is not moving into it!
Therefore…if you can learn how to breathe into your own tension, then that tension will release immediately, because the laws of physics dictate it. (We’ll cover how to breathe into these areas in Lesson #8).
P.P.S. We are a society that idolizes tight, sucked-in tummies…unfortunately that is affecting the depth of your breathing. Let that belly fly!
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13
practice
audios
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- accordion breathing
- syringe breathing
- spherical breathing
- part the white sea
- coasting
- radiating
- sponge breathing
- scrubbing
and much more...
- accordion breathing
- syringe breathing
- spherical breathing
- part the white sea
- coasting
- radiating
- sponge breathing
- scrubbing
DSE | level 1
summary
access all of DSE | Level 1's images, practices and concepts in one PDF.
