General - Breathing

Why is your Breathing important?

Your breathing keeps you alive and is the foundation of all movement and emotion.

 

Your breathing muscle, also known as your diaphragm is at the top of your core.

Your pelvic floor is the base and your abdominal muscles form the sides of your core.

The core is the foundation of your posture.

 

Breathing, is a handy accessible link between your mind and body.

You can use breathing to access your relaxation response and reduce stress.

You can also use breathing as the foundation of pelvic floor / core relaxing or retraining.
 

Chronic pain, pelvic organ prolapse, bladder and bowel control and emptying problems are core problems.

People with core problems, excessive stress or anxiety often have unhelpful posture and breathing patterns reducing movement flow thorughout the body.

Rehabilitation of all these problems can start with attention to your breath.

 

It is important that you maintain quiet Umbrella Breathing when you do pelvic floor muscle and core training. 

This will prevent you from ‘bearing down'.

'Bearing down' or straining is associated with bladder emptying problems and pelvic organ prolapse.

 

How To Do Umbrella Breathing

Positions

Technique

• expand ribs sideways and belly rise on the inward breath and then
• return to rest on the outward breath (ribs and belly naturally deflate.)

As a general guide you could consider creating moments of this sort of quiet mindful breathing 4-5 x/day for 1-2 minutes, but feel free to fit it into what works best for you (ie less/more often, a few breaths or up to 10 minutes).

How to use Umbrella Breathing in Everyday Life  

Practice this for a few minutes before commencing your home exercise program or practice for longer using the the audio track above.

Continue Umbrella Breathing as you practice your pelvic floor or rehabilitation exercises and go about your daily life.

You will learn to recognise and create a relaxed state.

This will help you respond calmly to stressful body sensations and thoughts.

Pelvic Floor, Posture and Prolapse

Through practice you can permanently change inefficient posture patterns which are thought to affect your pelvic floor.

A tightened and shortened pelvic floor is associated with pelvic pain, sexual pain, bladder and bowel emptying problems and bladder and bowel urgency.

An overwhelmed pelvic floor is associated with pelvic organ prolapse and bladder and bowel leakage due to greater downward pressures.  When you use umbrella breathing more throughout the day it is likely to spread the pressure of breathing throughout the chest and abdomen better.  

Bladder and Bowel Control

If you experience an urgent need to urinate or empty your bowels you can use this breathing to calm the body sensations.

Remain still, relax your abdominal muscles and breath to reduce your urge and immediately do a moderate to strong pelvic floor contraction.

Pain

If you experience pain and the unhelpful thoughts about pain, you can use this breathing to calm the body sensations.

Remain still, relax your abdominal muscles and shift your attention to your breath again and again.

You can use this breathing whilst doing myofascial release on trigger points on your abdominal, your pelvic floor or any other muscles.

Anxiety

If you experience anxiety and unhelpful thoughts, some people find this breathing helps calm the body and mind.

Remain still, relax your abdominal muscles and shift your attention to your breath again and again.

Bladder emptying

It is important that you maintain quiet breathing when you empty your bladder. 

This will prevent you from ‘bearing down'.

'Bearing down' or straining is associated with problems such as incomplete bladder emptying and pelvic organ prolapse.

Bowel emptying

This breathing technique is helpful when emptying your bowel.  Your therapist may suggest a "moo to poo" strategy that builds on the skill of umbrella breathing.