This breathing technique has been studied for a number of conditions, from lowering blood pressure and other measures of stress to reducing the number of hot flashes experienced by menopausal women.  (5 minutes morning and night reduced hot flashes by 50%!)

     If you watch a baby breathe, you will see we all were born knowing this technique, but we have forgotten over time.  The idea is that the diaphragm, the muscles sitting under the lungs, is meant to push downward, pulling the lower part of the lungs down when we take a breath.  This circulates the air best in the lower segments of the lung.  When this happens, it pushes down on the intestines and the belly puffs out.  Amazingly, simply breathing this way can have a profound effect on stress levels.  Unfortunately, this is the opposite of how most adults breathe; we try to suck our bellies in as we take a deep breath.  But we can re-learn. . .

Lie on your back , placing one hand on the abdomen and on the chest. Breath deeply, and observe what moves, the chest or belly.  One of the easiest exercises to begin relaxing the abdomen and breathing from the diaphragm is to imagine breathing into a balloon in the belly – you inflate the ballon when you take a breath in.  Another option is to place a weight or a heavy book on the abdomen.  Push the weight up on the inhale and allow the belly to relax and fall back toward the spine on the exhale.  If you have trouble with this (about 1/3 of our patients do), try lifting your arms and lacing your fingers behind your head; now when you breath, notice your waistband.  In this position it is difficult to breath with anything other than the diaphragm.  One of our patients also noted that abdominal breathing in the bath will cause her to float up and down with her breath, whereas chest breathing allows her to sit like a rock.