halcyon house

a worker owned holistic wellness cooperative

Tag: breath

Your fight or flight muscles (part 3) – accessory breathing muscles
What other muscles get activated during the fight or flight response?
Overcoming Chest Breathing: How Stress Locks Your Neck and Chest Muscles
In my two previous blog posts, I explained how the psoas and masseter muscles hold tension when your sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight response) over-activates. However, the tension pattern does not stop there. Chronic stress also recruits your accessory breathing muscles.
What Are Accessory Breathing Muscles?
These small muscles reside in your neck and chest. Your body activates them automatically when you stop practicing deep diaphragmatic breathing and fail to expand your rib cage.
Under normal circumstances, your body safely engages these accessory muscles to assist your breathing during heavy exertion, such as vigorous exercise. However, using them for daily, relaxed breathing is highly inefficient. Wellness professionals call this habit chest breathing, a dysfunctional pattern where your rib cage lifts upward toward your chin rather than expanding outward.
The True Cost of Chronic Chest Breathing
When daily stress locks you into chest breathing, your neck and chest muscles work overtime. This constant over-activation keeps your body trapped in a perpetual fight-or-flight loop. By training your body to return to lateral rib cage expansion, you can release chronic neck tension, lower your stress hormones, and restore optimal respiratory health.
The chronic overuse of these neck and chest muscles leads to fatigue, tension headaches, neck pain, jaw tension and upper back pain. By breathing in this way, you are also stimulating your flight or fight nervous system in an ongoing feedback loop. It is important to have a breathing assessment if you have any of these symptoms.
Breath re-patterning is an important part of a holistic approach.
At Halcyon House, both Jennifer and I will assess your breathing pattern as part of our treatment assessment. We will recommend breathing practices that will assist you in regaining optimal and efficient breathing.
Part 1
Part 2
2026-08-26
Our bodies are truly amazing
Ready for some massage education?
Every time I do a deep dive into a system I thought I knew well, I am reminded of the subtleties of how everything works together in a beautiful symphony. This is especially true of the pericardium. In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is sometimes referred to as the Heart Protector and indeed it does that job well.
Recently, when Jakki needled my PC-6 acupuncture point, I felt a surge of energy shoot out of my middle finger, right where the meridian is mapped in the acupuncture charts.
But my practice is all about the fascia, so I started studying more about how the pericardium works, and how it is designed.
The pericardium is:
- a ball of dense fascia,
- a thin layer of fluid,
- and a soft inner ball with the heart suspended inside the soft inner ball.
The outer ball has a facial connection into the top of the diaphragm. Both the diaphragm and the pericardium are innervated with vagus nerve attachments, further pointing to their importance in nervous system regulation.
Visualize:
Every inhale is by design tugging on pericardium and pulling it gently downward. Every exhale releases it back to its neutral position. When we bypass primary diaphragmatic breathing for secondary thoracic breathing, we are stalling this natural rhythmic pulsing of the fluid surrounding the heart. If this function was not very important, the pericardium would not be connected to the diaphragm, as there are plenty of other anchor points available inside of the rib cage.
I have been imagining my pericardium is a jellyfish, with every downward movement of my diaphragm on the inhale gently tugging the jellyfish downward. Each exhale releases the diaphragm and allows the jellyfish to float upwards. Every breath soft and gentle moves my imaginary jellyfish up and down in my internal ocean. Just a few minutes of this breath imagery can really calm my spirit.
The more I learn about the body, the better I understand the systems within, and the better I can provide massage education to my clients or anyone who will listen!
More Physiology Posts
2026-04-10
Change
The only constant is change. Even in stillness there is much movement happening within. Every breath is a new beginning, a chance at starting over. Following the breath through the body to discover what holds you back from making real change in your life can be daunting. Sometimes the shame, self loathing, and inner critic wins, but with each new breath comes a new opportunity to move that stagnant prana. Take a walk with the woods and become one with the breath that is one with the forest. Inhale the exhale of these Northern woods. Exhale the inhaled breath of the trees. In this way you become part of the forest, not just an observer. Life becomes more vibrant one breath at a time.
2026-01-07
Pursed Lips Breathing
When we are relaxed and comfortable (parasympathetic), we optimally use diaphragmatic breathing (see previous post). However, there are important breathing practices that we can use to calm a heightened nervous system. You might experience a heightened (sympathetic) nervous system with any of the following: anxiety, agitation, racing heart rate, rapid/shallow breathing, distracted mind, tense muscles, digestive issues, and many more.
Try pursed lip or extended exhale breathing.
This involves breathing comfortably in through the nose then slowly breathing out through pursed lips. You might imagine that you are blowing a candle flame but not blowing it out. Another option is to blow out through a straw. The long slow exhale calms your nervous system. Do this until you feel a shift in the area that you noticed. Also, discontinue this practice if you notice light headedness or increase in symptoms.
More about Robin
2025-09-03
Breath
How Diaphragm Dysfunction Triggers Chronic Stress and Pain
Well-being begins and ends with your breath. While this concept may sound esoteric, it represents the exact driving force behind your parasympathetic nervous system. This system actively relaxes your mind and body after a period of intense stress. By practicing relaxed, deep breathing with a soft, extended exhalation, you can consciously regain control of your Deep Front Myofascial Meridian. I also call this crucial pathway the “fight-or-flight line,” the “pregnancy line,” or the “skeleton stabilizer line”.
The Role of the Diaphragm in Core Stability
Your diaphragm plays a major role in regulating this deep structural network. When diaphragm dysfunction interrupts this foundation, your body forces secondary breathing muscles in your neck to take over. This unnatural shift creates a dangerous cycle that can cause—or worsen—a wide range of health issues, including:
- Chronic pain and chronic stress
- Severe anxiety and PTSD
- Traumatic head and neck injuries
- Debilitating migraines and tension headaches
- Digestive issues and carpal tunnel syndrome
How Your Brain Responds to Restricted Breathing
When your diaphragm gets stuck, your brain immediately senses danger. It interprets restricted breathing as a threat to your survival. To win this real or perceived battle, the brain floods your bloodstream with stress hormones and warning signals. By mastering your breath, you flip the switch from panic to peace, unlocking true physical and mental resilience.
Try this breathing exercise to help regain control of your natural breathing cycle.
- Lay on the floor with your knees bent and hip width apart. Tuck the tail bone slightly moving it away from your head to flatten the lower back then send it up toward you to arch the low back. Now find the middle space and relax into that position.
- Next imagine, but don’t actually move, that someone has placed a flower on both shoulders from behind and to smell them you would need to turn your head to the side with your inhale, and return to center on the exhale. Imagine “smelling” the flower on each shoulder with your inhale, returning to center on your exhale. Don’t try to change anything, just focus on the visualization of smelling the flower, first on one side, then on the other side, resting in the center after each exhale brings your awareness back to neutral.
- After a few breaths stop the visualization and just follow your natural breath in and out, not forcing anything just breathing in to the first natural stopping point, pausing briefly and letting the breath fall back out as your diaphragm relaxes and pushes the air out. If you are able to get here and it feels good, revel it the simplistic beauty of your breath and enjoy this practice to help recenter yourself, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
- If this practice is hard, makes you uncomfortable, you notice that one side isn’t working no matter how hard you try, or causes nausea, pain, or panic then you might need some help to restore balance and return the breath to its natural rhythm. Robin and/or Jennifer can help with bodywork techniques at Halcyon House or schedule an acupuncture session with Jakkie for a Traditional Chinese Medicine approach to rebalance the lungs and breath.
2025-09-03