Breathing for meditation is about relaxation. Proper, relaxed breathing, in general, requires breathing using the diaphragm, directing air downward into your belly, not upward into chest. The vast majority of people are unaware of the proper way to breathe, which is one reason it should be one of the first things discussed when learning meditation.
"Although there is a certain logic to breathing with the chest muscles—that is where the lungs are, after all—it is not helpful to use these muscles as the primary tool for everyday breathing. Breathing primarily with the chest muscles makes breathing too labored. The effect is to arouse the sympathetic nervous system and to maintain levels of tension that sap energy and dramatically increase your susceptibility to emotional disturbances. Overusing the chest muscles for breathing is a subtle but major cause of physical and emotional distress."
Wouldn't the most relaxed form of breathing be whatever it is you do automatically? It seems weird to me that the autonomic nervous system would prefer to use a suboptimal muscle group.
Furthermore, I find that when I'm exercising I need to force myself to use my diaphragm because of the effort it takes to move my viscera out of the way.
I realize it may seem like the most relaxed form of breathing is however you've been accustomed to breathing automatically, but no, probably the majority of people tend to breathe using chest breathing and it is definitely not the most relaxed sort of breathing. You can't fill your lungs as full, it creates tension in chest, neck, and shoulders, neglects using diaphragm, which is the primary muscle for breathing. Learning (actually re-learning, because we all tend to do it right as young kids) to breathe properly may not feel natural at first, but that doesn't mean it's not the best way. If you overthink things by creating a (false) mental image of it being harder you may sabotage your efforts, though. Don't take my word for it, take a look at meditation resources, singing resources (singing well -- and also playing any woodwind or brass instrument -- requires natural relaxed breathing), general health resources on breathing. All distinguish belly-oriented breathing (good) from chest-oriented breathing (generally bad, suboptimal).
As a real world example, you may be able to notice in yourself how when you become nervous or scared your body becomes tense and you tend to chest breathe. Focussing on belly breathing in a case like this can actually calm your emotions as well as your body, dissipate the fear or nervousness, help you gain control over your fear.
> neglects using diaphragm, which is the primary muscle for breathing
Which are bad because...? These two have nothing to do with whether it's a relaxed activity or not, by the way.
> it creates tension in chest, neck, and shoulders
How?
> singing resources (singing well -- and also playing any woodwind or brass instrument -- requires natural relaxed breathing)
Singing or playing a wind instrument are not relaxed activities. In both cases the breathing muscles are being used to force air through a resonator to produce sound. Search images of trumpetists or classical singers and tell me that's how a relaxed person looks like to you.
> As a real world example, you may be able to notice in yourself how when you become nervous or scared your body becomes tense and you tend to chest breathe. Focussing on belly breathing in a case like this can actually calm your emotions as well as your body, dissipate the fear or nervousness, help you gain control over your fear.
If you have time to think about your breathing then whatever is scaring you can't be so bad.
Focusing on a specific thing, no matter what it is, will distract you long enough to calm you down a bit. Haven't you heard that thing about counting to ten when you get angry? Same thing.
Look, I'm not arguing that using the diaphragm is not the most efficient in terms of energy expended / volume of air exchanged. I'm a trained athlete, so if I didn't know this I would just pass out within seconds when I work out. I'm saying that once you're exchanging sufficient air to cover the aerobic budget of whatever it is you're doing, exchanging more will accomplish nothing. If breathing with your chest is enough to cover it, for example, while sitting (as it clearly is, as no one has ever suffocated from doing it), then for breathing with the diaphragm to be more efficient it has to expend less energy per inhalation. So far you have done nothing to show that this is the case.
Seriously, most of what you say is flat out wrong. But there's nothing I can say that will change your mind. If you have any interest in finding out more I would encourage you to check out the acknowledged experts on meditation, singing, woodwind-playing, etc. They'll confirm what I've said. If at that point you still want to dispute what the experts say, what the most experienced people tell you, that's something that, for me, would make me start turn inward and question my own instincts/thoughts/motivation.
"Although there is a certain logic to breathing with the chest muscles—that is where the lungs are, after all—it is not helpful to use these muscles as the primary tool for everyday breathing. Breathing primarily with the chest muscles makes breathing too labored. The effect is to arouse the sympathetic nervous system and to maintain levels of tension that sap energy and dramatically increase your susceptibility to emotional disturbances. Overusing the chest muscles for breathing is a subtle but major cause of physical and emotional distress."
https://yogainternational.com/article/view/diaphragmatic-bre...