Today I'm going to guide you through four breathing exercises that have been shown to reduce
reflux and also the need for reflux medication. Now there's been a great study done including
these exercises and if you'd like to get more information on this this study here and you
can get the link down below. I'm going to take you through step by step the first four exercises that
the participants did in this particular study. So what you'll need to do is you'll need to be
sitting down. The exercises in the study were done either lying down sitting or standing but I do
suggest you sit to actually start them. First up you need a hard chair. So we're going to be using
our breathing muscles. So that you most likely know that reflux or heartburn is caused when
the acid arises from your stomach. Usually this is stopped by a valve. So the valve sits here at the
top of the stomach and that valve can close and open. It opens to allow your food to travel down
and then it closes to stop the acid rising back out of your stomach. Now the way you breathe can
affect that movement of the acid out of your stomach these exercises are going to help to
strengthen through that area through the closure area and also too if you're someone who tends to
tense and stress and tighten your tummy muscles these exercises will also help you to relax
through that area as well. I'm going to guide you through the four exercises and then we'll
talk about how many exercises to do and when to do them. So let's get started. So you'll need your
firm chair sit to the back of your chair and sit upright relax your shoulders away from your ears
and try to lengthen your spine as if you're being lifted up through the crown of your head sitting
nice and tall. The first exercise I want you to place one hand on your chest and one hand on your
upper abdomen here. And I'd like you at home to do this with me. Take a nice deep breath in
and out. So you'll probably feel at home that your chest rose forward and that your abdomen
rose forward as well. For this first exercise the abdomen should rise but the chest should stay
still and not move forward. So basically we're doing belly breathing or what's also known as
diaphragmatic breathing and it means breathing into the abdomen so this part should move
forward. Let's try that again so here we go breathe in slowly and deeply through your nose
and let the air just fall away slowly. Now how did you go with that at home? Was the
upper chest still moving forward? You really want to encourage the belly to move forward
with the breath. Breathe into the belly one more time at home breathing into here
and let the air fall away. So with all these breathing exercises the air should come in
slowly and deeply as if you're inhaling a really beautiful smell. If you get dizzy or lightheaded
with the exercises stop them straight away and just start again when you feel recovered. Now
that's the first exercise. The progression on this exercise that was done in the study was both hands
used on the upper abdomen so just there. This time as you try to breathe into your belly just apply a
gentle resistance force so it's as if I'm trying to stop my belly moving forward with my hands. So
sit tall, relax your shoulders away from your ears and try to breathe in again slowly and deeply but
don't let your tummy move forward with your hands just resist. Here we go breathing in slow and deep
and then let the air fall away. Can you feel how that makes it a little bit harder to breathe into
your belly by using that resistance? So that was the progression exercise on the first exercise.
Here's the second exercise. To start with bring both hands around onto the sides of your rib cage.
Now this is your lower rib cage here that you feel there, hands are into the waist and just
slide your hands around. This time I'd like you to breathe in and I'd like you to get your hands
to move wide as you breathe into your rib cage but also don't forget the last exercise we did
breathing into the belly. So we're breathing into the belly but also making the rib cage move wide
with our hands. Again set your posture nice and tall breathe slowly in through your nose,
make your hands move out to the sides with your rib cage and then relax down. Could you
feel your ribcage move wide? Let's do one more of those. Nice and tall here we go breathing in two,
three, four, five and out slowly through the nose or through the mouth whatever feels comfortable
and relax. Alright we've got our final exercise now and this is a progression on the exercise
that we just did. So I'm trying to equip you for the next couple of weeks so that you have
a progression exercise on each of the basic exercises. Bring your hands up to your ribcage
again and just as we've applied a resistance force to the first exercise we're going to apply a
resistance force to the outside of the ribs here. So rather than letting your rib cage expand I want
you to use your hands so that your ribcage can't really expand wide. So again set your posture,
prepare to breathe slightly and deeply in through the nose but don't let your hands move wide. Apply
some resistance here a force that way. Here we go breathing in one, two, three, four, five
and let the air fall away slowly. Can you feel how it makes it a little bit harder to
breathe when your ribcage can't expand when you've applied that resistance? So it's like a resistance
exercise for your breathing muscles which is how you're strengthening. So I've gone through four
exercises there. You can remember we did the first one which was the basic breathing into the abdomen
then we applied an over pressure for the first one. Then the second exercise was out to the side
and then we applied a resistance out to the side. So how many exercises do you need to do and when
do you need to do them? Well the researchers don't really spell out how many exercises that were done
in the study but they said participants worked up to doing 30 minutes of exercises a day. I would
say to start start with exercises one and three that I showed you. The exercise through the front
and the exercise through the side and start to do just a couple of those each time you practice.
Maybe you can work up to doing 10 exercises in a row and if you feel dizzy or lightheaded stop the
exercises. When you feel recovered start again. Then after a week or so when you feel ready to
progress the exercises move on to exercise two and the resisted exercise exercise four. So that again
you're building up to doing ten of each exercise. Now when should you do these exercises? I suggest
you do these exercises before you eat. Don't wait until you've got reflux because it's too late
then to try to stop the reflux. I also suggest that you try and do a couple of these exercises
after you've eaten, say five to ten minutes after you've eaten and if you notice yourself feeling
stressed or tense this means that these muscles here are engaging and tightening
like a tight belt around your waist. You want to loosen any tight belt that you have around you
around your middle because that's going to force everything up and do the breathing exercises to
relax your tummy. So we've got the four exercises there. I really hope these help you start to
reduce your reflux medication. Make sure that you get your doctors okay to do so before you do that.
And there are some more progression exercises from this study if you'd like me to present
these in a future video I'd love to bring them to you, just let me know in the comments below.
So thanks so much for watching today. If you found this video helpful I'd really appreciate it if you
can give it a like below and I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for watching, bye for now.