Belly Breathing vs Diaphragmatic Breathing: A Feldenkrais Perspective on Natural Breath

Most of us have picked up rules about breathing, e.g., breathe into your belly (belly breathing), use your diaphragm (diaphragmatic breathing), or breathe through your nose and not your mouth. The rules might have come from a yoga teacher, a physical therapist, a meditation app, or a video about calming the nervous system. Perhaps you strive to breathe correctly, but the striving itself adds strain and reduces your sense of ease.

The rules are the problem. Breathing changes with what you’re doing. As Moshé Feldenkrais said:

All ways of breathing are good provided they fit the needs of a person’s body and aren’t compulsive habits. Always having to breathe a certain way is not breathing; it is compulsion. A healthy body breathes differently in each situation.¹

For example, you breathe differently when running up a hill, lying on your stomach, swimming, singing, or sleeping. Each requires something different from your ribs, your diaphragm, and your belly. There is no one right way to breathe.

In my Feldenkrais® lessons, I don’t teach breathing techniques. Breathing is a movement that we can improve through learning. Learning happens by noticing what we already do and finding options we didn’t know we had.

This article is about increasing your ease and comfort, not diagnosing or treating a breathing condition. If you are having a problem with breathing, e.g., ongoing shortness of breath or chest pain, see a doctor first.

Belly breathing and diaphragmatic breathing are the same thing

You may have heard the terms belly breathing and diaphragmatic breathing. They describe the same event from different angles. Diaphragmatic breathing names what the diaphragm does when it contracts. Belly breathing names what you see from the outside when the diaphragm contracts. Either way, the diaphragm contracts and the chest cavity gets larger. That reduces air pressure and causes air to flow into the lungs.

There are no muscles attached to the lungs

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Many of my clients are surprised when they learn how the lungs work, and I use this model to help explain how breathing works. The glass case represents the chest. The stopper with the hole in it is our throat. The two balloons are our lungs, and this, this is the diaphragm. So how does this work? When the diaphragm contracts, the container gets bigger, and that reduces air pressure inside the container. Nature doesn’t like a vacuum, so air comes in through here to increase the amount of air in the container, and that expands the lungs. And when the diaphragm releases, the container gets smaller. That increases air pressure and causes the air to leave the container to be equal to the air pressure outside the container, and that causes the lungs to deflate. And what’s so interesting here is that this is all happening through air pressure. There are no muscles attached to the lungs. The main driving muscle is the diaphragm.

Many of my clients are surprised when they learn how breathing works. In this video, I explain breathing using a model. The glass case represents the chest. The stopper at the top is the throat. The two balloons are the lungs, and the sheet across the bottom is the diaphragm, i.e., the dome-shaped muscle under your ribs.

The lungs don’t pull air in on their own. They fill because the air pressure around them changes, and air flows to equalize the pressure. When the diaphragm contracts, it pulls down and the volume of the chest cavity gets larger. The pressure inside drops, which draws air in through the throat, and the lungs fill. When the diaphragm releases, the chest gets smaller, the pressure rises, and you exhale.

Though the model does not show it, there is a second way to make the chest cavity larger. You can lift and spread your ribs. This will also cause the air pressure in the chest cavity to decrease, and air will flow into your lungs.

One client told me:

“Expansion causes breath” has become my mantra. It was a big thing for me, and it meant that my diaphragm and rib cage could open up, and breath would just happen, as opposed to my sucking it in through my nose and my mouth.

She could relax and just let the breath flow.

Case study: Jill’s arms over her head

Jill had ACL surgery. She came to me after lots of physical therapy because she still did not trust her leg. At the start of one lesson, Jill was lying on her back. I noticed that she kept moving her arms up over her head.

I asked Jill if she could breathe more easily with her arms over her head. She was surprised that the answer was, “yes.” She agreed to spend the lesson exploring how she could breathe more easily with her arms at her sides.

Clarifying how breathing worked

First, I brought out the same model I used in the video above. It doesn’t include the ribs, but it gave her the key idea: air comes in when the chest cavity gets bigger. Once that was clear, Jill could see why letting her chest expand easily mattered.

Using imagination to enhance curiosity

In the lesson, I wanted Jill to be curious about how she was breathing. A movement, like breathing, that you’ve done your whole life is hard to feel. A novel one is easier to feel.

So, I asked Jill to imagine she could follow the air being inhaled into her nose, down her throat, and into her left lung. We started with this side because breathing into her left felt easier than the right. First, we explored breathing just into the top of the left lung, then just into the lower part, and finally into the whole left lung.

This allowed Jill to pay careful attention and to feel where her chest on the left side expanded easily, and where there was constriction. When she stood up, she said the left side of her chest felt huge and the breath came more easily into that side.

Exploring the right

Jill lay down again, and we did the same exploration with the right lung. Jill noticed that the right lung felt “stuck” and “refused” to expand. Jill focused on this sensation, paying careful attention to the feeling in her chest and “inviting” the lung to expand.

After a while, the right side of the chest began to expand more easily. Jill noticed that she didn’t want to put her arms over her head anymore. Her ribs were lifting without them.

More secure on her leg

At the end of the lesson, Jill stood up. She had more choice about how she breathed, and she felt more secure on her leg.

Try it yourself: a balloon in your belly

Sit or lie down somewhere comfortable and imagine a balloon inside your belly. As you make the movements outlined below, go slowly and use no effort. Let each movement be small. If a direction doesn’t happen, leave it and go on to the next one.

• As you inhale, let the balloon expand forward. Do that a few times, slowly.
• Then try expanding the balloon to the left.
• Then the right.
• Then toward your back.

Pause briefly after each direction. You are not trying to breathe correctly or make anything happen. You are simply noticing which directions are available and which are less available.

Work with me in my Kirkland studio

Interested in learning what your own breathing is doing? Lessons are in person, and clients come to the studio from across the Eastside and Seattle.

Questions people ask me about breathing

Am I breathing right?

I don’t think in terms of there being a right or wrong way to breathe. I look at whether your breathing adapts to what you’re doing.

Is this a treatment for breathing conditions?

No. Feldenkrais® lessons are movement education, not medical care. Anyone with a diagnosed respiratory condition should work with their doctor. Ongoing shortness of breath or chest pain should be checked by a doctor.

What’s the difference between belly breathing and diaphragmatic breathing?

There isn’t one. They name the same event from two vantage points, so there’s nothing to choose between them. The belly-breathing name does mislead in one way. No air goes into your belly. It goes into your lungs, and your belly moves because the diaphragm is pressing down on what’s underneath it.

Should I push my belly out when I inhale?

That’s a different movement. Air comes in when the chest cavity gets bigger, and pushing the belly out isn’t what makes that happen. People who purposely expand their belly often tell me breathing feels like more effort, not less.