Start With This Simple Corrective Exercise

Just like any other muscles in your body, the muscle groups supporting your ribcage can be strengthened through training (or weakened from lack of use!) to help you breathe better.

It might not seem like anything fancy as far as corrective exercises go. If your body has forgotten how to do its basic job from hours of sucking in your stomach or hunched over your keyboard, though, maybe it's time to try working on something basic.

The ribcage is meant to expand and contract to facilitate breathing throughout the day. Modern day life - most often long hours spent sitting in the office with tense shoulders - has restricted the muscle groups surrounding the ribcage from doing its job the way its supposed to. Instead, we lift our neck to inhale or are thinking about keeping our stomachs flat so that we're never fully inhaling.

Add 5-10 minutes of breathing exercises (exercises - not naps or meditation!) to your day and see if you feel any different. Breath holds, focusing on full expansion and full exhalation, are a good place to begin.