Every breath you take affects how you move. Here’s how to fix both

By Dana Santas, CNN

(CNN) — If you’ve been dealing with persistent tension, poor posture or nagging pain, it’s worth checking in on your breathing. How you breathe not only reflects your movement quality — it also holds the power to change it for the better.

Most people understand breathing’s role as a life-sustaining function with stress-relieving properties. (Think — deep inhale, deep exhale.) But the way you breathe can also reveal how efficiently and effectively you move — and improving your breathing can help your body break out of a bad cycle of tension, imbalance and strain.

When breathing becomes shallow and rapid, it doesn’t just affect oxygen exchange — it disrupts the foundation of how your body functions. That’s why much of my work in professional sports focuses on teaching the fundamentals of breathing biomechanics. I’ve seen firsthand how poor breathing patterns lead to mobility limitations, posture problems, chronic pain and increased risk of injury.

In today’s high-stress, screen-focused world, these same dysfunctional breathing patterns are common across all walks of life.

But you can address faulty breathing by developing a better awareness of your patterns and practicing proper technique for a few minutes every day. Here’s how to unlock your superpower.

How stress and screen time change your breath

Breathing is one of the body’s most fundamental movement patterns — occurring on average more than 23,000 times a day — and the diaphragm’s contractions play a key role. Under stress, however, your body naturally shifts into the nervous system’s sympathetic or fight-or-flight mode, driving faster, shallower breaths from the upper chest. Over time, especially with chronic stress, this becomes the default breathing pattern. Your breathing becomes more vertical — up in your chest and neck — rather than expanding your lungs and rib cage horizontally.

This upper-chest pattern bypasses your diaphragm, forcing muscles in your neck and shoulders to take over the work of pulling in each breath. When your diaphragm isn’t functioning properly, it can’t fulfill its secondary role as a postural stabilizer because true core engagement requires this large muscle to work in harmony with your deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles.

Because the diaphragm attaches to both your rib cage and your spine, poor engagement creates core instability and shifts your rib cage position. As your rib cage moves out of alignment, your spine and head follow, and because your shoulder blades glide over your rib cage, your shoulder position and function are also affected.

Forward head posture develops as your neck extends and your rib cage lifts and flares. Moreover, rib mobility decreases, which restricts mid-back rotation and extension — essential for healthy movement patterns. Overall, mobility suffers and injury risk increases as your body reacts to increasing core instability by creating protective tension and muscular compensations — often straining the lower back.

This creates a vicious cycle: Your breath affects your posture, your posture affects your breath, and both affect how you feel and move.

People frequently try to address these problems with stretching or strength work alone, but without changing your breathing mechanics, you will remain stuck in dysfunctional patterns.

How to assess your breathing patterns

One of the simplest ways to evaluate your breathing is by lying on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor. Place your hands on your lower ribs on either side of the area where your rib cage splits below your sternum.

Spend a few moments taking some deep breaths, noticing where the movement happens. If you experience tightening or movement in your neck, upper chest or shoulders, or your ribs barely move, those are signs you may be breathing shallowly and not using your diaphragm effectively.

Rather than focusing on so-called “belly breathing” — a term often used to encourage relaxation but biomechanically misleading — focus on rib mobility and diaphragm function. The slight expansion of your abdomen is the result of increased intra-abdominal pressure, not air filling your belly. Overemphasizing belly movement can inhibit proper rib cage expansion and diaphragm mechanics over time.

Try taking a few more breaths, directing your breath into the lung space under your lower ribs. With each inhale, feel for lateral expansion of your ribs under your hands. With each exhale, feel your rib cage move down and your lower ribs move in, promoting a natural core engagement to support the movement.

Why the length of your exhale matters

If you identified potential issues with your breathing pattern, the next step is learning to retrain it. While many people focus on taking deeper inhales to improve breathing, the real key to breaking dysfunctional patterns lies in how you exhale. It’s the exhale that plays a pivotal role in regulating your nervous system, restoring diaphragm function and improving your tolerance for stress — both physical and emotional.

When you exhale fully and slowly, you stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system, the branch responsible for calming your body and promoting recovery. A long, complete exhale also helps reset your diaphragm position, allowing it to contract more effectively on the next breath.

Although oxygen tends to get most of the attention, this process is closely tied to carbon dioxide tolerance. CO₂ is what triggers the urge to breathe. But when you chronically overbreathe — taking in more oxygen than your body can use — you reduce CO₂ levels too quickly. This can make your chemoreceptors, the specialized sensors in your brain stem and arteries that monitor CO₂ levels in your blood, overly sensitive, causing feelings of breathlessness even when oxygen levels are adequate.

Training yourself to tolerate slightly elevated carbon dioxide levels through long, slow exhales can improve your respiratory efficiency and build stress resilience.

Try this extended exhale technique

Sit comfortably with your hands on your lower ribs to monitor and guide movement.

Inhale through your nose for a count of four.

Exhale slowly through your nose or mouth (whatever feels best for you) for a count of eight.

Pause briefly for a count of two at the end of the exhale.

Repeat this pattern for 10 to 12 breaths, keeping your face, jaw, neck and shoulders relaxed.

Practice this daily, gradually increasing to a 5:10 or 6:12 ratio as you build tolerance. This breathwork helps restore diaphragm function and rib mobility while retraining your nervous system to stay calm under pressure.

Integrating better breathing into movement

The awareness and proficiency you develop through a regular breathwork practice becomes even more powerful when applied to physical activity. Integrating improved breathing mechanics into your daily life will make your movement feel more fluid, connected and efficient.

Here are ways to apply better breathing during workouts:

• Warm up with conscious breathing to create postural alignment, activate your core and increase focus.

• Exhale on exertion: In strength training, exhale during the effort phase to engage your core and stabilize your spine.

• Guide mobility with breath: During rotational or flexibility drills, use inhales to create space and exhales to deepen movement.

• Breathe nasally during light to moderate cardio to improve oxygen utilization and maintain better breathing patterns.

• Elongate exhalations to recover: Post-workout, practice the 2:1 exhale-to-inhale ratio to downregulate your nervous system.

Remember, your breath isn’t just a background function. By restoring proper breathing, you support better posture, deeper core strength, smoother movement and a more resilient nervous system.

So the next time your neck feels tight or your shoulders ache, don’t immediately try to stretch it out. Check your breath first. It may be telling you exactly what you need to know.

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