Apnea (cessation of breathing) may occur at a relaxed moment (after a relaxed exhalation), or a very active moment (e.g., when you try to hold your breath as long as possible after a very big inhalation).
Very shallow breathing, which causes only the first few ribs to move, more readily fills the top of the lungs.
The most regular volume exchange occurs while sleeping.
Even if you have exhaled as much air as you possibly can, e.g., coughing several times in a row without inhaling between coughs, there will still be a small amount of air left inside the lungs. This prevents the pulmonary alveoli from completely deflating and “sticking” together during exhalation, which would make it very difficult (if not impossible) to inhale again.
To mobilize the ribs, it is important to exercise the ribs in both directions, especially when you are aware of a tendency to move them only in one direction.
The mouth is not the preferred passageway for air during breathing.
That the nerve endings of the olfactory nerve are stimulate more during nasal breathing, is especially true if you only breath in through one nostril because more air enters the nasal cavity.
Inhalation into the clavicles by raising the top part of the chest is practically nonexistent in people who are stooped over or whose shoulders are bent forwards.
Rectus abdominis is a good muscle to use when “sucking in the stomach” during expiration.
Diaphragmatic breathing is most often practiced while practices while at rest, breathing normally.
The abdomen resists forceful deformation, for example, when you wear tight clothing or a belt or girdle, or when the abdominal muscles are contracted and opposed any movement in the abdomen, or even in the case of obesity.
It is possible to contract the abdominal muscles at different levels because they are enervated by motor nerves from different levels of the medulla.
Instead of deforming the front of the abdomen, you can deform only the back by moving the “water balloon” posteriorly. This gives you the sensation of rounding the back.
Costal inhalation is less efficient from a respiratory standpoint, because it requires greater muscular effort for a smaller air intake.
Costal inhalation leads to a strong increase in muscle tone and can thus contribute to tension and stress.
One way to “de-program” a person who is in the habit of doing paradoxical breathing is to have him or her start working on a abdominal exhalation techniques. This will immediately improve the mobility of the abdomen during the next inhalation.
If repeated too often, paradoxical breathing brings about very strong contractions on the level of the thorax, which can make the area overly rigid.
To exhale in tidal volume or IRV, it is not necessary to work the muscles because this type of exhalation is entirely due to the action of pulmonary elasticity.
The moment which follows an exhalation of tidal volume and that precedes the next inhalation is a time of apnea (without respiratory movement). This apnea is not due to an obstruction or an active movement. It is a time when all the structures relax. Consequently, it is a time when the general body tension relaxes as well.
The voice is produced during an expiratory action.
That some people will arch their lumbar spine to make the abdomen bulge out is why it is important to start working with the back totally “glued’ to the floor.
Avoid starting to inhale again too early, which happens often in coastal breathing and can produce hyperventilation (causing lightheadedness).
During the times of stress, you will have the tendency to shorten the apnea following an exhalation and to start inhaling too quickly again.