Proven Breathing and Mobility Exercises for Pain
Inflammation can cause pain as swollen tissues push against nerve endings. That’s why it’s important to work to decrease inflammation in our bodies if we struggle with acute or chronic pain. In this post, I’ll go over a few breathing and mobility exercises for pain.
You can do these exercises as soon as you get out of bed in the morning or before going to bed at night. I’ve had a lot of clients who have incorporated these techniques into their daily routine and freed themselves from pain. They’re able to fall asleep or move through their day without having that pain nagging at them over and over and over again.
How do breathwork and mobility exercises help with pain?
We need to be mindful of how we’re breathing into our body to promote a rested, relaxed state.
Often when we are in pain, our body goes on guard and activates the sympathetic nervous system. Our flight or fight response is activated.
For example, if someone scares you, you inhale sharply. Being in that inhalation phase is going to activate the sympathetic nervous system, release cortisol (a stress hormone) in your body, and ultimately keep you in pain.
We can harness our breath to help us activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us rest and relax. This is the complementary part of our nervous system that calms us and promotes a “rest-and-digest” state.
Breathing techniques to reduce pain
Let’s get into some breathwork to reduce inflammation and pain.
Start off lying on your back. (Do note you can also do this sitting up in the car or at work, or anywhere else.)
Rest your hands on your lower rib cage area. Take a slow inhale for about 4 seconds and feel your hands expand away from each other. Your rib cage is going to expand out to the side, up, and back.
Then breathe out for 8 seconds slowly through the mouth like you’re blowing out of a straw. This strengthens and retrains the diaphragm while tapping into your parasympathetic nervous system to increase fluid motion (this decreases swelling) and decrease pain.
As you continue to practice this type of breathing, you can just breathe in and out through your nose instead of incorporating the mouth and this will increase nitric oxide, which will open up your blood vessels and deliver more oxygen to your body.
You can combine this breathwork with some mobility techniques.
Mobility exercise 1: Open Book
For our first exercise for reducing pain, lie on your side with one leg crossed over the other, gently holding your knee in place with your opposite hand. Reach across your body with your other arm and breathe in through the nose, then twist open as you breathe out through the mouth on a long exhale. The exhale should be about double the time as the inhale.
You should get a nice stretch across the chest while opening up the upper back. I recommend doing 10-15 repetitions on each side.
Mobility exercise 2: Hugging the thigh
For this next mobility technique, lie on your back and grab the back of your thigh nice and gently. You don’t have to force it but try to straighten your leg and bring your toe towards your face, then release. You do not have to hold the stretch for a long period of time. Make sure you are continuing to breathe in slowly and exhale even slower.
Do about 10-15 repetitions on each side.
Mobility Technique 3: Arm extensions
This one focuses on the upper body. In a seated position, extend your arm out to the side and bring it back in as you, again, breathe in and out slowly. This is not about pushing through any pain and your arm might not even extend all the way – that’s okay.
Again, do this 10-15 times on each side.
As you move and wake up your body, you’ll calm your nervous system, reduce inflammation, and decrease pain. My goal is for you to feel better so you can feel renewed and ready to conquer the day!
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