Instagram – @the.kaizen.projekt Twitter – @the_kaizen_man Facebook – The Kaizen Projekt Snapchat – kaizen.projekt Shoutout to the team at www.alteregostudios.com for making this project happen. Hi guys, this is the Kaizen Man, welcome to The Kaizen Projekt. Today I’m going to talk to you about diaphragmatic breathing. So there’s different kinds of breathing, usually what we do is chest breathing, in which when we inhale, our chest expands and then when you exhale the chest collapses. When you do that your diaphragm actually moves up and it cuts off the expansion of the lungs so you actually take in less oxygen. Why diaphragmatic breathing is important and beneficial is because when you breathe into the belly, your diaphragm moves down. Which allows your lungs to fully expand and take in more oxygen, which helps with your athletic performance. At the same time when you breathe into the belly it signals to your brain that everything is safe, everything is calm, and it actually activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which keeps things nice and calm and rolling. So over the years I’ve trained myself to use diaphragmatic breathing all throughout the day if I can. At different points during the day I just check in with my body and just see where the breath is landing. And I’ll just consciously send the breath a little bit deeper. And if you’re an actor like myself this is a very very important way to breathe because it helps you to connect your voice to your emotional truth, to the seat of the core, where a lot of our emotions and all of our performance energy comes from. So diaphragmatic breathing is super helpful for actors, performers, dancers, or any kind of performance based art. So how you can use diaphragmatic breathing for yourself is first; you lie down on your back. Second, take a block or a book and place it on your belly button. Third, you want to consciously expand your belly and feel the block or the book rising, and fourth; when you exhale you want to relax the belly button let it come closer towards the spine and then feel the block or the book coming down. And just breathe into the belly. Let it rise, let it fall; let it rise, let it fall. Diaphragmatic breathing, it will change your life.