Do you think you’re working a little too hard to breathe? When you’re ready to play a long phrase, does it feel like you need to gulp in air and forcibly muscle it down into your lungs? If so, you might be a frog breather. Our breathing anatomy is very different from a frog but sometimes we might think we need to breathe like a frog to get sufficient air. A frog doesn’t have ribs or a diaphragm. To draw air into its mouth the frog lowers the floor of its mouth, which causes the throat to expand. The nostrils open to allow air into the enlarged mouth, then close and the air is forced into the lungs by the contraction of the floor of the mouth. This is a positive air pressure breathing system. A frog must actively push air into its lungs.
Humans are different. We have a negative air pressure breathing system. Our ribs and diaphragm are attached to the pleura of the lungs. Our diaphragm contracts down and our ribs widen to create space in the lungs. By virtue of the low pressure in our lungs, air rushes into our lungs. We really don’t need to do anything but let it happen. Now you say what about that long phrase? How am I going to make that happen? We can also control or regulate the amount of air that we exhale. As we let air out, our intercostal muscles move our ribs. When we consciously move our ribs more slowly, we can control how much air we let out. There is a lovely interplay between an array of muscles that allows that to happen.
So next time you are ready to gulp in a big breath of air, remember you simply need to let your ribs and diaphragm work for you and breathe like a human!