Anatomy Trains

In response to a request, let’s think for a minute about ‘stuck on the exhale’ vs ‘stuck on the inhale’: (I have great sympathy for the following, being somewhat bipolar and thus familiar with both extremes)

Of course both such people are continuing to breathe, but what the term means is that someone’s postural pattern tends toward either end of the bell curve where, in one instance, they cycle mostly around a position where the ribs are up, the diaphragm down, and the lungs are full. While these ‘stuck on the inhale’ people are circulating air enough to continue metabolism, they never really breathe out to where the lungs are empty, the diaphragm relaxes up, and the ribs fall.

At the other extreme lie those who hover around the exhaled position: ribs down, slumped, diaphragm unvibrant, lungs compressed. Again, they respire enough to live, but not through the full excursion of the ribs and lungs. Blood chemistry can change, and these folks tend to the depressed side. It’s hard to get your energy up when your breathing is down. This positional tendency tends to cast your eyes and attention down and inward as well – at the extremes these folks cannot get out of their own way.

Those stuck on the inhale are likewise manifesting a shaped pattern that has a meaning – we just haven’t developed a ‘Prozac’ for this disease. The inability to collapse breeds an (exclusively) outward looking manner that defies introspection and relies instead on others’ opinions to form one’s self-image. Hence we often see these barrel-chested in-breathers in positions like politicians, talk show hosts, and car salesmen, where the feedback is direct and self-worth in others’ eyes can be easily measured.