The Muscle We Don't Use Enough (And Why It Changes Everything)
We take roughly 20,000 breaths a day. What if most of them are only doing half the job?
Most of us never think to question it. But there's a good chance our breath has been selling us short.
Take a moment right now and notice your breath. Where does your body move when you inhale? If your answer is your chest, you're in good company. Most people breathe from the chest all day, every day. Shallow. Quick. Incomplete.
Now, chest breathing isn't inherently bad — your sympathetic nervous system exists for a reason. You need it to get out of bed in the morning, meet a deadline, or react quickly in an emergency. The issue isn't that this state exists; it's that most of us are stuck there by default, all day long, without ever shifting out of it. A body that can only rev up but never wind down loses its flexibility. And that flexibility — the ability to move fluidly between activation and rest — is exactly what good vagal tone looks like. Meanwhile, your diaphragm — the large dome-shaped muscle sitting just below your lungs, designed specifically for the job of breathing — is largely sitting this one out.
When you breathe diaphragmatically, something remarkable happens. As the diaphragm descends on the inhale, it increases intra-abdominal pressure — and that pressure has nowhere to go but outward. This is what I love to call the 360 breath: your belly, your sides, and even your back all expand simultaneously, like a balloon filling in every direction at once.
That full, three-dimensional expansion also physically stimulates your vagus nerve — the long, wandering nerve that connects your brain to almost every major organ in your body. That stimulation sends a signal to your entire system: you're safe. You can rest. You can repair. It's one of the most direct ways you have to consciously shift out of fight-or-flight and into the parasympathetic state — what I like to think of as your body's natural healing mode.
The research backs this up, too. A 2021 study published on PubMed found that diaphragmatic breathing at 6 breaths per minute for just 10 minutes, twice a day over 4 weeks, significantly reduced blood pressure, lowered heart rate, and decreased anxiety in hypertensive individuals. A separate randomized controlled trial found that 8 weeks of diaphragmatic breathing training led to measurably lower cortisol levels compared to a control group. Six breaths per minute. Ten minutes. That's a pretty accessible prescription.
This is where I love to begin with classes and one-on-ones, because the feedback is so immediate. Lie down or sit comfortably and place your right hand on your belly, just below your navel. Inhale through your nose for 4 counts and feel your hand rise — notice if you can also feel your sides and back gently widen into that full 360 expansion. Then exhale through your nose for 6 counts, letting your hand fall as your belly draws gently inward and empties completely.
The longer exhale is intentional. It's what tips the ratio toward the parasympathetic and actively tells your nervous system to downshift. Aim for 6 of these breaths per minute for 10 minutes. You don't need a timer or an app — just slow down, feel your hand rise and fall, and let your breath do what it was designed to do.
In my therapeutic yoga work, I come back to the 360 breath again and again because it's foundational. Before we ask the body to move, stretch, or open, we need the nervous system on board. When students start to feel that full three-dimensional expansion for the first time — belly, sides, back, all at once — there's often this quiet moment of recognition. Oh. This is what my body has been waiting for.
It really has been.
If you'd like to experience diaphragmatic breathing in a supported, therapeutic setting, I'd love to have you in one of my two class offerings at Updog Yoga — or we can work together privately. You can find all the details at bodyunwound.com. Let's breathe together!
