Breathing from the stomach

[Kevin]

Hey y’all just wanted to share something that’s helped me. Basically I’ve been very intentionally breathing from the stomach all day and it’s surprising how helpful it is. I normally experience a lot of anxiety throughout the day but breathing from the stomach has helped tremendously. Seems pretty obvious in retrospect but I just wanted to share.

[Phil]

👍🏻 

[Reena]

I think it's also called diaphragmatic breathing. 

[Phil]

If you want to ‘take it to another level’… take a belly full of air, feel the pressure of the air on the diaphragm, and say the alphabet out loud while releasing air as slowly as possible. 
 

Initially, typically you can only say the alphabet a couple times. But after about 5 or 10 minutes of repeating this you can say it 8 or 10 times no problem.  
 

It’s a typical diaphragm stretch warm-up for singers, but it’s also very rejuvenating, energizing and fun.  Try singing along with a tune after, and sing from the diaphragm, letting the air out slowly. 

[Ges]

2 hours ago, Phil said:

If you want to ‘take it to another level’… take a belly full of air, feel the pressure of the air on the diaphragm, and say the alphabet out loud while releasing air as slowly as possible. 
 

Initially, typically you can only say the alphabet a couple times. But after about five or 10 minutes you can say it eight or 10 times no problem.  
 

It’s a typical diaphragm stretch warm-up for singers, but it’s also very rejuvenating, energizing and fun.  Try singing along with a tune after, and sing from the diaphragm, letting the air out slowly. 

Gotta try this!!

[Kevin]

5 hours ago, Phil said:

If you want to ‘take it to another level’… take a belly full of air, feel the pressure of the air on the diaphragm, and say the alphabet out loud while releasing air as slowly as possible. 
 

Initially, typically you can only say the alphabet a couple times. But after about five or 10 minutes you can say it eight or 10 times no problem.  
 

It’s a typical diaphragm stretch warm-up for singers, but it’s also very rejuvenating, energizing and fun.  Try singing along with a tune after, and sing from the diaphragm, letting the air out slowly. 

I like this. It feels good to do it. I can barely say the alphabet once. Hopefully doing it more helps with the lung capacity.

[Phil]

3 hours ago, Kevin said:

I like this. It feels good to do it. I can barely say the alphabet once. Hopefully doing it more helps with the lung capacity.

Awesome.  The stomach though, not the lungs. 

 

With the stomach warmed up / expanded… singing wise… while letting the air out slowly… sing from the diaphragm while also feeling the ‘registers’ vibrate. Stomach - chest - throat - head/tip of nose… for low, middle, and high notes. 

[Kevin]

15 hours ago, Phil said:

Awesome.  The stomach though, not the lungs. 

 

With the stomach warmed up / expanded… singing wise… while letting the air out slowly… sing from the diaphragm while also feeling the ‘registers’ vibrate. Stomach - chest - throat - head/tip of nose… for low, middle, and high notes. 

Beautiful thank you 🙏 

[MazE]

On 3/31/2022 at 4:58 PM, Phil said:

If you want to ‘take it to another level’… take a belly full of air, feel the pressure of the air on the diaphragm, and say the alphabet out loud while releasing air as slowly as possible. 
 

Initially, typically you can only say the alphabet a couple times. But after about 5 or 10 minutes of repeating this you can say it 8 or 10 times no problem.  
 

It’s a typical diaphragm stretch warm-up for singers, but it’s also very rejuvenating, energizing and fun.  Try singing along with a tune after, and sing from the diaphragm, letting the air out slowly. 

Amazing! I will try this today before i record my daily homemade rap verse. Wow this made a difference.

Edited April 2, 2022 by MazE

[Phil]

(Some more general breathing techniques, also applicable to singing) 

Breath from the stomach, feeling it, in a casual relaxed manor.

Committing to doing this consciously for 3 days can be very eye opening in many ways. 

 

(1)

As a practice and also diaphragm wise….

- breath into the stomach until it’s full, and then breathe in more air, fuller & fuller, more & more air.

- think of it like a stretch, and feel all around the stomach, in front of, behind, the top, the bottom… stretching. 

- feel the feeling of relief in each area; the pelvic area below, the hip areas on the side, the back of the waistband / tail bone area, etc. 

 

(2)

- once comfortable with that practice as is (1)…

- then the same thing, but now include noticing any ‘tensing up’ when you do the practice, in other areas of the body. 

- might be a lifting of the shoulders, a tightening of the stomach, a clenching of fingers, toes, arches of the feet, thighs, etc. Different for everyone. 

 

-then begin to look at 1 & 2 as one practice. 

 

(3)

Utilize the ‘relax’, ‘let go’, ‘surrender’ - “signal”. Basically just bring the word / thought to mind, and ‘send it’ to a specific muscle or area. Then just ‘witness’, kinda just wait… and the muscle will un-tense. There are like five layers within the body of the ‘tension’, which un-tense. So explore… even once you feel the muscle respond to the signal… even though the relief & relaxation feels significantly relatively better… also explore sending the signal again, and feeling the un-tensing even more deeply.

 

Then, once comfortable with 1, 2 & 3 as one practice, and do that with the entire body, head to toe, inside & out, all at once.  

 

Then you’ll notice you can essentially ‘move awareness’ around in the body so to speak. 

 

Also, feel vibration head to toe throughout the body while singing. 

 

This practice & singing go together so well it’s as if they’re already one in the same. 🙂