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Welcome to Breathe Deeper - Level 1.

In this free yoga tutorial you will learn a 9-step breathing technique for attaining perfect posture, effortlessly.

Yes, you read that right: perfect posture — effortlessly.

No more stretching for temporary relief. No more needing to massage the back of your neck at work. No more tight chest and hunched shoulders.

1 deep breath. That’s all you need. Seriously.

How is this possible, you ask?

The shortest possible explanation is this: breathing directly affects your body’s volume, energy flow, and electromagnetic field. And these are the main factors contributing to your poor posture.

The longer explanation is described below, and in the accompanying video.

By the way, this is not “woo”. As you’ll soon find out, when you fix your breath, you have to fix your posture. It’s basic biomechanics and straightforward logic.

But please don’t take my word on this. Watch the video, learn the techniques, and fully test them for yourself.

Only then will things actually make sense.

Enjoy,
- Ethan ॐ

(Note: it could take hours of practice to perfect the technique as it is taught. But it will happen. And when it does, your posture will maintain itself perfectly — I promise. Keep in mind, your health is your responsibility! I’m a passionate yoga teacher, not a doctor. Nothing I say constitutes as medical advice. Please consult your physician before starting new health protocols.)

Step #1: Plunger Breathing

Poor posture is caused by four main factors:

1. Front-body tension.

2. Back-body weakness.

3. Incorrect angle of the hips.

4. Mental Stress

Let’s address the first factor on that list — tension.

Flex your abs for me. Superrrrr tight. Contract, contract, contract.

Good, now while flexing, try to breathe into your belly.

Flex your abs and breathe into your belly.

Your diaphragm is your main breathing muscle. If I had to estimate, I’d say it’s responsible for ~75% of your inhale.

Therefore, it’s very, very important that you learn how to use it correctly (think more oxygen, greater relaxation, faster recovery, and improved exercise performance — to name just a few benefits).

Your diaphragm is a jellyfish-shaped muscle. It’s a dome that separates your lungs from your stomach, liver, intestines, etc. It’s the muscle that spasms during a hiccup.

When the diaphragm does its job — i.e. when it contracts — it flattens. AKA it moves downwards towards your organs, hips and legs. When this happens, air is dragged through your nose and down into the bottom of your lungs.

This is difficult to visualize, so check out the GIF below. When it contracts down, it’s an inhale. When it relaxes up, it’s an exhale.

Unlike your lungs, your internal organs are static in volume (unless you eat a meal or drink some water). This means that in order to truly use your diaphragm, you have to get your internal organs out of the freaking way! Otherwise they will block your inhale.

And how do you do that? How do you get your organs out of the way? By relaxing your entire abdomen, lower back, obliques and pelvic floor — the muscles surrounding your lower torso.

Try that now. Inhale and try to move the breath in 5 directions: the belly (forward), the low back (backwards), the right oblique (right), the left oblique (left), and the anal muscles (downwards).*

Basically you’re breathing everywhere but “up”.

It can be helpful to imagine the diaphragm as a plunger with its rubber head flipped inside out — a “reverse plunger,” if you will.

In this analogy, when you “pull the handle” (when you decide to breathe in with your diaphragm), the head flattens, suction-cups the lungs and, in turn, drags air in! Voilà!

Further, I suggest initiating your breath from your sphincter and anal muscles. It will feel a bit like a “reverse kegel,” or like bearing down when using the toilet, but it will bring in far more air, and begin removing the tension stored in your hips.†

* This is why I often repeat “where you breathe, tension must leave.” It is mechanically impossible to breathe into your stomach when your abs are fully flexed. The same is true of your body: tightness in a particular area means breath is not moving into it! Therefore…if you can learn how to breathe into your own tension, then that tension will release immediately, because the laws of physics dictate it. You’ll learn how to direct your breath into tight areas in Level 2.

† We are a society that idolizes tight, sucked-in tummies…unfortunately that is affecting the depth of your breathing. No more! Let your big Buddha belly fly!

Mastery Checklist

▢ You can maintain a relaxed abdomen while breathing deeply

▢ Your belly expands effortlessly in all 5 directions without strain

▢ You feel your anal muscles relax and open during the inhale

▢ You can breathe into your lower abdomen without your chest rising first

Step #2: Accordion Breathing

While your diaphragm technically pulls in the most amount of air, it’s not your only breathing muscle.

You also have “intercostal muscles”.

Inter = in-between. Costals = ribs. Intercostals = the muscles in-between your ribs.

You have two sets of intercostal muscles: the internal intercostal muscles and the external intercostal muscles. The former is on the inside, the latter is on the outside. See below.

When your external intercostal muscles do their job (i.e. when they contract), they lift and spread your entire ribcage. When your internal intercostal muscles do their job, you will forcefully exhale (think sneezing or coughing).

A great way to visualize how your intercostal muscles work is by imagining an accordion. There is nothing on the inside of the accordion that pushes out, right? Rather, an external force manually spreads the accordion, and (as a byproduct) pulls air into the instrument.

The same principal applies to you: there is nothing on the inside of your lungs pushing outwards to create your inhale. Instead, the surrounding muscles in your torso activate to do the work.

Try three breaths with me to understand that idea better. Do one breath while by placing your hand on your sternum and taking a huge breath. Feel how the entire chest plate moves forwards and towards your chin.

And then take a second breath by placing your hands on the sides of your ribcage. This should feel like a tug-of-war — a slight movement left and right.*

And now a third one while directing your hands to the backside of your ribcage, which can also expand outwards.

* Breathing with your ribcage also causes your heart to expand. This has an interesting effect: when you inhale, your heart will speed up (bigger heart = more blood = faster pumping), and when you exhale, your heart will slow down (smaller heart = less blood = slower pumping). Levels 2 and 3 explore how you can use this to manually adjust your own blood pressure.

Mastery Checklist

• [ ] You can feel distinct movement in your ribcage during breathing.

• [ ] Your ribs can expand in all directions (forward, left, right, and backwards) during inhale.

• [ ] You can maintain this expansion without shoulder tension.

• [ ] You notice your heart rate subtly changing with your breath cycle.

Step #3: Syringe Breathing

Your lungs can get pretty big (between 4.5L and 6L in the average adult).

Even while completely exhaled, though, they still span from the bottom of your ribcage all the way up to your collarbones, and then behind you into scapulae and traps.

What does this mean practically?

Well…so far you’ve learned to breathe down using your diaphragm, and left, right, forwards and backwards using your intercostal muscles.

Now we can start to breathe up using your “accessory muscles” — your chest, shoulders, neck and back.

Imagine a syringe: someone places the needle in a cup of water and pulls the handle. What happens? The pressure differential causes liquid to be sucked into the tube.

Now imagine this syringe handle overlayed onto your shoulder line. When you inhale, the syringe gets pulled and drags air into the top and backside of your lungs. When you exhale, the syringe drops back down and air falls out of the accessory muscles.

Try 3 breaths like this. (1) Start by very subtly hiking your shoulders up on the inhale. (2) Then try breathing behind you — into shoulder blades and deltoids. And (3) finally, try both at once: upwards and backwards.*

* There is a very fine line between inhaling with your shoulders, and simply creating more tension in your neck and jaw. It’s a delicate balance that requires attention and practice.

Mastery Checklist

[ ] You can direct breath into your upper chest and back without strain

[ ] Your collar bones gently spread without creating neck tension

[ ] You can feel breath moving into your shoulder blades

[ ] You maintain relaxed jaw and facial muscles while breathing up