Stressful Breathing

Many of us are actually causing more stress responses in our body because of the way we breathe. The rising and falling of our chest, feeling the ribs expand up into the collarbone is a secondary mechanism for breathing. This uses much smaller muscles like the inner-costal muscles to create space in the rib cage area to let the lungs expand. But this does not even come close to how efficient the diaphragm is at facilitating breathing. When we breathe into our chest, we mimic the hyperventilating breath that occurs when we're stressed. Your body understands small, shallow breaths as a response to stress and therefore releases cortisol to help you battle or flee from the threat. A constant