Yoga Anatomy: Diaphragm
Explore the Key Muscle for Breath Control in Yoga Practice.
The diaphragm is the muscle used most in Pranayama and yogic breathing but is the most overlooked. A yogic perspective on what you can learn from your anatomy.
If the most important food for yogis is air, and the most important key to our survival is breath, then it logically follows that our most important muscle is the diaphragm, which serves in the function of breath control.
The Diaphragm’s Role in Respiration
Imagine a hammock tied off at the base of the sternum, the floating ribs and spine. The diaphragm separates the chest cavity from the abdomen. When relaxed after an exhale, it is dome-shaped, floating upward into the chest. Contraction of the diaphragm flattens the muscle, and creates space in the chest and lungs while expanding the rib cage, and pushing the belly forward.
The lungs rest on top of this muscle, and having no muscular control of their own, they rely on its contraction to regulate breathing. When the diaphragm contracts it draws the lungs down with it creating space inside the body. Inhalation occurs on the principle of diffusion when the air rushes to fill the space. As the diaphragm relaxes and resumes its dome-like shape, we push air out of the shrinking chest cavity to exhale.
This principle action of changing the shape of the abdominal and thoracic cavities is the key to breathe.
The Diaphragm as a Muscle
In yoga, we are used to thinking of our muscles as those striated, skeletal, voluntary ones that we stretch, the ones we challenge to the point of shaking. Perhaps while considering our abdominal organs as a succulent twist, we will consider our smooth, involuntary muscles in a nondescript visceral mass. Even less frequently will we think of those special cells designed for the heart’s continual drumbeat, though we listen to our cardiac muscle’s handiwork.
The diaphragm is technically a skeletal muscle; however, it holds the distinction of being the only muscle controlled both voluntarily and involuntarily.
This function must be involuntary, or we would forget to breathe while asleep. Sensory organs monitor the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood, and with increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide, the respiratory center at the base of the brain triggers an increased respiratory rate – both in frequency and depth of breath.
All yogis know that we are able to control our inhalations and exhalations as we coordinate them with our movements. Particularly during Pranayama – effectively definable as finely tuned voluntary control of the diaphragm.
Diaphragm in Yoga Practice
“Yogis describe the breath as lying precisely at the boundary between the body and the mind…. [The breath as a bridge] is hardly surprising. We have all experienced the breath as a direct link to some aspect of our inner world. … the shallow breath of terror, or the long deep sighs of melancholy….” - from Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Steven Cope
Simply by virtue of being a muscle that is under both involuntary and voluntary control, the diaphragm is a link between the unconscious and the conscious.
Floating between the navel and heart chakra centers, the diaphragm is the communication device for our gut to speak with our heart. Our intuitions and emotions are able to connect with one another in the muscle, and with our intellect through act of respiration and the breath. To cut off or restrict the breath is to cut off or restrict access and communication between feelings and conscious mind.
Breath is not only our link to time, and the present moment, it is our constant connection between the external world around us, and our own particular internal worlds. Prana is the spiritual energy, the life force that surrounds everyone and every thing – connecting us through air and breath.
With our breaths, we inhale to draw this spiritual energy into us, and exhale to express what is inside us out into the world.
