Ep 61: Finding Your Breath: 5 breathing exercises for pregnancy and postpartum

“We can’t necessarily control everything that happens to us, but we can control our reaction.  We can be response-able with our reaction to life.”  As a society that is chronically stressed, it can impact our posture, our ability to take deep breaths, and ultimately impact our overall health.  Add pregnancy and postpartum to the mix and breathing dysfunctions can be magnified.  In this episode I go over 5 breathing techniques that can impact not only our ability to breathe better, but also impact our nervous system function. 

We talk about the parts of the nervous system and do a quick little anatomy overview of the vagus nerve and how it impacts our breath, our digestion, and the sympathetic and parasympathetic parts of the nervous system.  These breathing exercises aren’t just for pregnancy though, and I mention some that are great for kids and families, and I give some alternatives to accommodate for the growing belly. 

Resources:

Episode 31: Why is Nursing Posture Important
Episode 52: What Happens in Vagus: guest interview on the Magic of Mamahood Podcast
Episode 41: BirthFit Prenatal Chiropractic and Leader Dr Ashley Harper
Episode 42: Dr. Ashley Harper’s birth stories and the impact of BirthFit
Backbends and Brews Yoga , Instagram, Facebook

Follow us on Instagram:

Aligned Birth www.instagram.com/aligned_birth

Dr. Shannon www.instagram.com/sunrise_chiropractic_wellness

Doula Rachael www.instagram.com/northatlantabirth
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Transcript

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Hello, hello, you are listening to the aligned birth Podcast. I'm Dr. Shannon. I'm one of the hosts, and today I'm doing a solo episode. And the focus of today's episode is finding your breath, five breathing exercises for pregnancy and postpartum. I'll be honest with you though, these breathing exercises are not limited to just pregnancy and postpartum. I did want to put that in here just because yes, this is the aligned birth podcast. We focus a lot on birth, but the breathing and the breath work that I do with patients in the office is it goes across the board, and I include kids in it. And so I'm going to talk about one of the breathing exercises we do for kids. It's everybody that comes in. But yes, I did want to focus a little bit on that pregnancy and postpartum aspect because it can be slightly overwhelming and we can lose our breath. So what are some ways that we can get that back? So today we're going to go over why breathwork was is important, kind of how we lose the foundations of breathing. Why that happens, the connection to the vagus nerve, of course I'm going to talk about that's my favorite nerve and then again, like I said, we're gonna go over those five breathing exercises that we can do. So let's just jump right in. Why breath work? You know, we can't necessarily control everything. That happens to us, right? But we can control our reaction. We can be response able for that reaction. That's one aspect of why I love the word responsible because you can put that pause in the middle and you can be response able right and so I feel that breathwork is something that we can go inward with, we can control and we can kind of tune in and find our way back to that true self. If things are overwhelming. Things have been overwhelming right the world is is overwhelming and and all of a sense for everyone. There's a lot of stress for a lot of people. And that can impact our breath. It can impact our ability to breathe. And you know, I've done some interviews before with other chiropractors and I'll go through and list those out. Because we've talked about how breath work is like the foundation of where some exercise programs and things start and even some postpartum programs start. They start with that breath work. So I want to touch on that again in a minute. But again, we have that overwhelmed that society so that tends to make it these shallow breaths we breathe just into the shoulders just into the upper part of our lungs. That can be related to our posture, right? If we're sitting all day we have our hunched shoulders, we have our ear in front of the shoulder. We've got that compromised posture, we're compromising the nerves that are coming out of the neck and then it's also impacting our ability to breathe and to breathe deeply and to use all parts of the lungs. Whenever I would do career day at school, I would always have the kids there sitting in their desks and I would have them slouch you know, all the way like they were working on something and then I would have them take a deep breath and it's kind of like you, you can't you can go to a certain point. And you know that you can read more but you really couldn't. So then I have them sit nice, tall. Bring those shoulder blades together, up, down, back and bring the head tall crowd and then I have them take a deep breath and whoa, we can really feel the entire long expand moving into all of the diaphragm. So it is related to our posture. And and I've even done an episode before on nursing posture and how those rounded shoulders impact everything well, it impacts the breath as well. So those are aspects of not necessarily being able to take that deep breath. However, I also want to mention the aspect of moments where we hold our breath. So it's not necessarily that we're it's sometimes we're not even taking that full breath and using the full parts of our lungs but we can have that tendency to hold our breath. Not everybody does this but and this can be related to that clenching of the jaw, right? We've shut everything off. We've clenched that jaw, we're holding that breath. We're waiting and bracing for impact or whatever is to come. Now, I want to tell a little bit about a little story about that as well because I had a mom and recently who

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she has been able to just finally start found an exercise program that she loves. And so she's getting that movement and motion her body which is so key, and she's loving it. But she came in the other day and she had some really bad back pain, some like low back pain that had come and they were doing some like jump squats and jumping exercises or something and so yes, that impact can be important, but after doing, you know an exam on her and kind of saying, Okay, what's going on? I was like, Do you hold your breath while you're exercising? And she kind of looked at me like Well, yeah, I know I shouldn't go and so that can also be problematic, right? If we're you know, doing those exercises and we're jumping and then we're holding that breath when we have that impact that jar is everything and it has nowhere to go it's almost like stuck energy there and so then that can impact the muscles of the low back. It really impacted her so as muscle some of the adductor muscles like all the things so in that aspect, we're looking at not only taking good breath, but let's let's not hold the breath. Let's not clench the jaw that's focused on it. All of this to say let's bring awareness to our breath. Now. I'm going to give a really quick overview of parts of the nervous system because our breath work this is going to be directly related to vagus nerve. And I kind of want to give that overview like if you've heard the vagus nerve and vagus nerve stimulation and how to help with anxiety, mood and all of those things. You may have come across the vagus nerve and I actually talked about this in Episode 52. I did a guest interview on the magic thermometers and I was able to rebroadcast it. We talk about breathwork and vagus, vagus nerve in that episode, too. But sometimes it can get you hear this and you're like, Well, I mean, I know the vagus nerve. But how does this even function? How does it work? Where is it connected? So the vagus nerve, it helps regulate heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, digestion, that's just a few things. It is a cranial nerve. It's the longest cranial nerve. It's the longest nerve of the autonomic part of the nervous system. We'll go over that in just a minute. And it comes from the brainstem extends through the neck and then it goes into chest and abdomen, innervates chest and abdomen there. And it gives information to the brain about what is going on with the neck, the heart, the lungs, the abdomen, it communicates from the gut to the brain. It's amazing and it gets its name. In Latin Vegas means wander. So it's the the wandering nerve, hence, you know, longest autonomic nerve in the body. So, with our nervous system, how is this all connected? We've got our central nervous system that is your brain and your spinal cord central to the body. Next you have your peripheral nervous system. So you have inflammation from the body going up to the brain, that's a ferret nerve fibers, right. Then you have your peripheral nervous system, everything on the periphery outside that central nervous system. Remember, you've got the efferent so that's where it's coming from the brain and it's going to all parts of the body that efferent peripheral part of the nervous system is then divided into somatic and autonomic right So somatic part that's all the motor aspects of like skeletal motor and motion that's you running and jumping and moving your body. Then you have this autonomic part and that of course, is divided into four sections, right? So this is where we have our sympathetic and our parasympathetic, you've probably heard those, but you also have your enteric. So your sympathetic, that's your fight or flight and your parasympathetic that's your rest and digest. enteric is everything to the gut. That's the motor to the gut right now are sympathetic and parasympathetic, those nerves they will go and control that smooth muscle that's the gut muscle that's cardiac muscle that's blood vessel gland organ function, right. So when you see that that is where vagus nerve is part of, and it also sends information up to the brain. It's how the gut communicates to the brain. You can see all how it's all connected, all those beautiful parts and how that breath work can really come in and impact that parasympathetic sympathetic part of the nervous system and then leads its way back into the brain and spinal cord and nervous system function. So again, very, very quick overview of the parts of the nervous system. But again, our breath work is something that we can control and I want people to be able to go back and find that breath and all parts in life, right? And now so when we're taking a kind of a pregnancy, postpartum focus on things

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and dealing with a lot of moms in the office, it's it is a time of unknown right and whether you've been pregnant, you know, one time or five times and you've got five children and you're pregnant again, it's every birth is so different. And so it's navigating that unknown, it's navigating that beards navigating that overwhelm, not only during pregnancy, but then now we have postpartum where we've got this new life in the world that we're trying to help grow and flourish and thrive. And so again, there can be some overwhelmed there too. So let's jump into my five favorite breathing exercises. The first one, I call it, parasympathetic, breathing. This is where you want to make sure that your exhale is longer than your inhale. You got to think if you are hyperventilating, that's very short. exhales and you're just inhale, inhale, inhale, you know and it's it's very that sympathetic fight or flight. Let's go go go. Oh, my gosh, what's happening? Well, we want to flip that we want to make sure that the exhale is longer than the inhale, inhale, I like to count and I like to do a four six count that works well for me. Sometimes you'll you can start with a three, five work into it and then you can kind of really graduate to where you can maybe exhale for a count of eight. Whatever that goal is. But make sure you can start with that inhale, and make sure that it is shorter than the exhale that you have. So that's called parasympathetic breathing. Obviously, it's called that because then we are then stimulating that parasympathetic part of the nervous system, the rest and digest the calming part. of the nervous system. Another one is box breathing. So this one, I usually use a count of four. That just works well for me. But again, you can play around with it. You can start with a count of three see how you feel, but you were going to inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four and hold for four. Now I will say sometimes I'm the hold if I'm not prepared for it, I can get a little I can work myself up. It's like when I go swimming, I guess as a runner, if I go swimming, I can't breathe when I want to, you know, like if you're under the water that sort of thing. It's so sometimes you have to hold your breath and it feels off. I can feel a little panicky. So I will be honest, sometimes this one does that to me, but you'll want to inhale for four. Hold for four exhale for four and hold for four. And then you just continue to do that until you will really feel that heart rate slow down and find that rhythm maybe it's three maybe it's five, you know, find that rhythm play around with it. But that is that's called Box breathing. I have two other ones that are coming up here and these are from a dear friend of mine. Marlo and she is a yoga instructor. And with backbends and brews and I love to take her yoga classes and she usually ends with a breathing exercise I love yoga in the aspect of it really brings like focus and intention to what you're doing. It's not just like, oh, let's just get this test done. Let's just get this movement done. Let's just get this exercise done. Right, it's more of Hotz, right, you pause and kind of feel where you're at you know, there's there's this word Kumbaya and it means it's the pause between inhale and exhale. That was my word of the year, several years ago, because that is the space where you can choose your reaction to things that pause between that inhale and exhale, inhale something has happened. And now I can choose how I react to this right focusing on that pause. I think yoga is a beautiful way to focus on that pause and really focus on the movement and the motions that you're doing and feel your body. And so one thing that she does at the end of class is she'll call it's called alternate nasal breathing. Um, the you I read an article recently was kind of funny because it was like, Have you ever thought about why you'd have two nostrils and not one and I was like, I don't know. I don't know that. I haven't really thought about that. But what she'll have us do is, you'll place your four fingers of your right hand on your forehand, and you're going to use that right thumb and you're going to block that right nostril. So now you are only breathing in on the left side. Okay. And we've talked about and she'll talk about in class how that left side is linked to your calming side to that parasympathetic, breathing.

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And just focusing on breathing it and it's calm breaths, you can focus and you can use the parasympathetic breathing at the same time, you can use the exhale longer than the inhale while you're doing this. But only breathing in with that left nostril and breathing out with the left nostril. You're focusing on the breath through the nostrils, nothing coming out the mouth with this as well. And so we'll hold and do this for a few moments. And you'll notice things sometimes you'll be stuffy in one nostril than the other. It's a lot of different things that you can notice. Then we'll pause. We breathe through both nostrils, and then we come and we use our left hand and replacing our four fingers. Again up that left hand on your forehead, you're blocking the left nostril and now you're only breathing into the right the right is more than that sympathetic, that energetic side of the nervous system. So that's a fun thing. To do, I love I love having that done at the end of the yoga classes, and kind of feeling that difference there too and being aware to again, those differences between the nostrils and how one had the breath might feel different. But again, focus that parasympathetic breathing with that alternate nasal breathing. We're not it's not a fast paced breath while we're just breathing through one nostril. The next one that I like to go over is one that I do with kids in the office. So sometimes I work with kids, and if we've got maybe they've got sensory overload, maybe we have difficulty switching from one task to the other. We get worked up very easily. We don't know how to come down. We're very high strung, whatever those things may be in kids if you're noticing that in your own. Yes, I love chiropractic care for those aspects of things but also focusing on and giving them some breathing exercises can really help as well, too. So again, I like this one, this next one for kids, but it's not just for kids. You can do it as adults too. This one's called Bumblebee breathing. Now, what you'll do is you take your thumbs and you're going to plug your ears and then you'll rest the rest of your fingers on top of your head. And so even doing that you might notice just differences while you're speaking talk while you're doing this, hear how it sounds because one side might be more muddled than the other. One ear might feel different than the other. It's just interesting. Little differences to notice on one side versus the other. Now what you're going to do with this is you're going to take a good inhale, and then again, you want to make sure this exhale is longer than the inhale, but you will hum as you exhale or you can even do the you know the yogi, um, whatever sound you want to do there but Marla has always called it Bumblebee breathing because her kids or you know, said that sounds like a bumblebee. So, but you'll hum and then this is a beautiful way to not only connect with the breath because that inhale is going to be shorter than that exhale. But vagus nerve is also stimulated by the sound that we're producing because it does innervate the voice the voice box, like gargling is one way to impact vagus nerve. So this is a fun one to do. And this is a really good one for kids because it's kind of fun. They can sit and they're nice, you know comfortable, a little posture and then play around with the bumblebee briefing. But I like this one. Just because it has that fun little aspect to it for kiddos as well because sometimes, or they may love the counting with the breathing but that one is called Bumblebee breathing. The last one I have here is called crocodile breathing. This is one I learned while I was in chiropractic school in some of the functional movement and motion classes that I took because again, we take it back to the basics of that breath work. We've talked about already how we've lost the posture, we have the forward, head, the shoulders, everything crunched forward and when we just kind of lose the effort of breathing deeply into all parts of our lungs. And you know, I did an interview with Dr. Ashley Harper. This is episode 41 and 42. So she's a chiropractor as well but also a birth fit instructor. And birth fit really does go over with their pregnancy and postpartum classes. The fundamentals of breathing so we take it back to those basics so same thing with this as well with this crocodile breathing. This is one of my favorite ones. I guess maybe I should have started with this one because I think it gives an awareness of how the body expands with a deep breath. So what you're going to do is you're going to lay on your belly, you're going to have your arms out in front of you, but you'll have like the rest of your wrist and you're going to rest your forehead on your wrists. So they're just kind of like you know, kind of like crossed arms in front of your body there. And then you just want to be nice and comfortable. There. You're not arching the back, you're not doing anything extra with this. Again, this is just kind of feeling things out. But then you will take a deep breath in. Now it's not like a belly breathing where I really want someone to like force the air into the lungs and like push the belly out. This is just take a deep breath and feel the breath move into the abdomen and you will feel your body rise off of the ground. But the cool thing is, is you will actually feel this your sides expand as well. So this is a nice way to really feel where the breath is going because I feel like sometimes too, if you do take a belly breath or you're doing the parasympathetic breathing, from sending out you may not feel the sides expand as much as you will with the craft operating this again to your going away and make sure that the exhale is longer than the inhale. You can count with it as well to kind of combine some of these breathing exercises together. But the crocodile breathing one is, I think a really good way to really feel where that breath is going and then bring that awareness to maybe some dysfunctional patterns. That we found because now you need to go back and notice Okay, well how did this make me feel? Do I actually feel more anxious trying to do this because it's not working right? You know, like, is this bringing up some things or maybe we pause and take it back to those fundamentals and just

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take that count? work a little bit lower, right, so maybe start at a count of three, instead of that count of four. So there's lots of little things that you can do with your breath work here. So I hope that you've learned some new breathing techniques here that you can use not only for you but for your family but also looking at ways to kind of combat that overwhelm and pregnancy and postpartum.

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Now I also want to note that you know, at the beginning of the episode, we've I said that I talk about these fundamentals of breathing with all my patients in the office. So obviously there's going to be some limitations to matter with these breathing exercises. Because sometimes we have people laying down and doing them and so maybe you know laying on your back during pregnancy for an extended period of time is not recommended. So these can definitely be done seated. Crocodile reading what we just went over which again is one of my favorites. Obviously you're not going to be able to lay on your belly for a good majority of the pregnancy. So maybe at the beginning you still can but obviously not recommended for some of the later stages of pregnancy as well. So it's something that maybe you can incorporate a little pre conservatively early pregnancy and then even into that postpartum it's still hard to lay on your belly because chest is a little bit sore belly is still a little bit sore. So ease into that one as well. There could be some modifications because with I like the crocodile breathing because you are on the stomach and like I've already said it puts that pressure there so you really feel it like it helps with an awareness with where the breath is going. But you can also do that seated and almost like squeeze the ribs around the sides, you know holding at your sides there and breathe in and you can feel the sides expands. So this is definitely going to be a little bit more forceful of inhale as you're filling all the way up as much as you can and feel that air expand and then push it all the way out. Then you can even kind of use your fingers to squeeze so not the same thing as the crocodile breathing but something that you can add in to where you can maybe feel some dysfunction. Maybe one side is actually filling more than the other like little things like that to note. So just wanted to preface that and say that I do realize not all of these are going to be conducive to pregnancy. But maybe just to have them in your wheelhouse and have them in your your folder to go back to to say okay, hey, maybe I can work on some of these breathing patterns as you are maybe starting to try to get back to activity again and motion again because again, this is the breath work is a really wonderful place to start with this fundamentals.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai