What is chest breathing?
Healthy people breathe through both the chest and the abdomen. Chest breathing accounts for around one third of all breathing and abdominal breathing (diaphragmatic breathing) for around two thirds.
When breathing through the chest, the intercostal muscles are used to inhale and exhale. Compared to abdominal breathing, chest breathing is considered more strenuous because it requires more energy.
In addition, chest breathing is shallower, so less oxygen reaches the lungs than with deep abdominal breathing.
How does chest breathing work?
In simple terms, chest breathing involves tensing the intercostal muscles when you inhale. This pushes the ribs outwards. This increases the volume of the chest cavity. As the lungs are firmly attached to the chest wall, they must inevitably expand with it. This creates negative pressure in them, causing air to flow into the lungs.
When you breathe out, the intercostal muscles relax again. The chest cavity and therefore the lungs shrink again. The contained air is pushed out through the airways – but never completely. Even with maximum exhalation, some air remains in the lungs. This residual volume ensures that the delicate air sacs (alveoli) – the sites of gas exchange – do not collapse.
When do you need chest breathing?
Chest breathing usually occurs when you are under a lot of physical or mental stress. It is therefore also a sign of possible stressful situations. Other typical triggers for chest breathing are, for example
- Pregnancy: As the abdominal girth increases, abdominal breathing becomes difficult. In advanced pregnancy, women therefore often tend towards chest breathing.
- Tight clothing: If the abdominal area is constricted by tight-fitting clothing, abdominal breathing becomes difficult – people increasingly switch to chest breathing.
- Dyspnoea (shortness of breath): When breathlessness occurs, those affected breathe more with the help of chest and auxiliary breathing. In the latter case, the auxiliary breathing muscles are used. These include certain throat, chest and abdominal muscles.
- After operations or injuries in the abdominal cavity: In this case, chest breathing is used as gentle breathing to avoid putting additional strain on the sensitive abdominal cavity.
