God designed breathing to be as effortless as possible.
Any improvement in our breathing pattern will improve our alignment and movement potential. Paying attention to the breath requires concentration. It soon becomes clear that much of the valuable advice on breathing is quite useful as long as it is all used simultaneously.
A single mental picture
If we think about our breathing while in motion, we must have one single image in mind that we can hold constant as we move. Imagine a balloon situated in the pelvis, as you inhale the balloon expands equally in all directions. You can feel this expansion with the movement of the ribs as they widen out in all directions. On exhalation, the balloon deflates toward the center. This motion can be felt as the ribs will draw toward the center of the body on exhale.
Visualize the ribcage as an umbrella. The handle is the pelvis and the point is the top of the spine. As you inhale the umbrella opens and widens all around you. As you exhale the umbrella closes toward the center. Feel the bones of the ribs move while breathing, and play with the inhale expanding the ribs in the front, to the sides and back, then hugging the ribs towards the waist as you exhale. When the bones are free to move in this manner more space and length is created in the spine. Alignment will naturally change as we pay attention to our breathing patterns.