Jan van Dixhoorn

Functional and dysfunctional breathing

Jan van Dixhoorn

Functional breathing is a whole body movement, whose flexibility and variability enables adaptation of the organism to the many changes in the environment, both internal and external. Therefore, there are few, if any, fixed qualities of proper or good breathing. However, under resting conditions a number of characteristics can be assessed. They will be discussed and procedures for assessment will be demonstrated. Among them are the distribution of movement, the involvement of the spinal column and the response to changes in posture and attention focus.