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By Dr. Artour Rakhimov, Buteyko breathing teacher and educator

Part 11. Life style factors that matter
(Why do we breathe too heavily?)
J. What about poor posture and tense muscles?

Poor posture results in stress and tension in various muscles. Tense muscles distort our natural grace and elegance. That is a normal response to hyperventilation. Tense muscles help us to prepare for physical activity during the fight-or-flight response.

Many modern people have muscular tension, especially in the neck-jaws-shoulders-chest muscles. That usually results in slouching, especially while sitting.

Why is slouching unhealthy? Consider a person with normal breathing (60 s CP) who starts sitting in a slouching position. The diaphragm becomes compressed and almost immobile. Normal diaphragmatic breathing is impossible and chest muscles get involved in the breathing process. However, this chest breathing is deeper (usually by about 50-80%) than previous diaphragmatic breathing and the CP of a healthy person is likely to drop down to at least 30-35 s. This is the reason why old movies and photos have many people with perfect posture.

Sick people also experience similar effects. They have deeper breathing and shorter CPs when they slouch. Normal breathing requires that we have a straight spine during all daily activities.