Dawgilama, can you share some more details on the exact breathing method you use, tips and tricks please? This seems a "subtle art" and your advice would be greatly appreciated. When you say breathe through the diaphragm, how does one know that, is it mere movement of the stomach area? Just want to be sure I get this right. Stuff on the net is all over the place and not really easy to grasp.

As I initially mentioned, mouth breathing lends itself to shallow breathing and can have a negative impact on the muscles of your neck and upper back/chest. In recognizing that I have a tendency to breathe through my mouth most of the time, I committed to breathing through my nose instead. At the same time, I've been cognizant of breathing using my diaphragm (being aware of the movement when breathing in and out). That's really all I've done and have seen dramatic results.

Thanks for sharing! I agree that correct breathing is very important. I'm at a point where I have to focus to do it correctly (I find I breathe more with upper chest instead of diaphragm). I remember also watching a PT video where the physical therapist said there was almost no point on trying to fix anything else until you had the breathing down, otherwise you would just end up irritating those muscles that were compensating for incorrect breathing.

Im a girl of 19. Im a computer engg student, a dancer and I sometimes do yoga. Ive been suffering from a pain in the left side of the chest and left arm from many weeks, which got worse recently.Im not able to hold anything easily with the left hand. Im not able to breath normally. Every time I breathe in and out, Im having a stabbing kind of pain in the chest and at the same position at the back, from my left shoulder till the fingers. Its even terrible when I force a deep breath. The pain is the same whether I dance or not. I consulted a chest specialist, got my ECG, Abdomen scan which showed normal. But a chest X ray showed "Hypertrophied C7 transverse process bilaterally". He said it might be an over growth of a bone, the pain might be a variation of spondylitis since I had no pain in the neck and asked me to go to a neurologist. The neuro surgeon asked me to get X rays of the neck, and said everything is normal and just not worry. Im finding it difficult to sleep at night as I cant find a proper painless position for my arm. Im not able to do any poses for yoga.Are these symptoms for TOS? Which specialist can I consult for it? Please help me

It continues to be a slow process, but I've had another breakthrough that I am hoping takes me to the end of this nightmare. As I mentioned before, breathing correctly provided incredible improvement, but then I hit a wall. My traps would get incredibly tight when I stood or walked. All these years, I attributed at least some of my issues to tight traps - it now seems that the tightness I feel is due to overstretched traps. With this in mind, I have begun to do arm slides on a wall with a shrug when my elbows reach shoulder height. I am showing improvement again, so I am again encouraged. Hope others find relief.