Breathing exercises for broken ribs
After a rib fracture, it is important to strengthen the muscles between the affected ribs again. This can be supported by simple breathing exercises. The upper body is turned against the legs so that the muscles between the ribs on the affected side are stretched. In addition, it is important to strengthen the diaphragm by conscious breathing into the abdomen in order to support the limited functioning of the muscles between the ribs.
Breathing exercises during Yoga
Yoga is a sport that aims to unite body and mind. The breathing exercises play a central role in this. They are also known as pranayama and serve to stimulate and relax body and mind.
Translated, pranayama means “control of the life energy”. In yoga, it is assumed that through breathing, oxygen and thus energy is added to the body and harmful energy is excreted with the exhalation. An important breathing exercise in yoga is abdominal breathing.
You place your hands on your abdomen and consciously try to breathe in and out of your abdomen. The abdomen bulges forward and back again. The inhalation and exhalation take about 5 seconds.
Another breathing exercise in yoga is the rapid breathing. Here you first inhale and exhale deeply a few times. This is followed by a very fast and sharp exhalation, which lasts about half a second and an inhalation that is twice as long. This is repeated 20-100 times and then one inhales deeply and holds the air briefly. This cycle is repeated about 3 times.
Who benefits from breathing exercises?
Breathing exercises serve to improve more even breathing and thus calm the body. Therefore they are especially useful in stressful situations. People who are constantly under pressure at work, for example, benefit significantly from breathing exercises, as they also provide more energy in the body.
But also other forms of stress, such as psychological stress, can be reduced by breathing exercises. However, there are also many respiratory diseases with respiratory disorders for which breathing exercises can achieve increasing improvement. Regular training can prevent a negative development of the disease.
This improves the state of health of the affected person and leads to a gain in quality of life and recovery in cases of previously often existing respiratory distress. Examples of such diseases are COPD (a chronic obstruction of the airways), asthma, pulmonary fibrosis (in which lung tissue is converted into connective tissue and is therefore no longer available for breathing) and various forms of paralysis, which restrict the muscles that assist breathing.
