Question about singing and breathing?

I used to have that problem also... well not so much that my shoulders would rise, but that I didn't take a deep enough breath to sustain my notes.

My friend told me this exercise... and OMG it has helped me so much.

What you want to do is lay down on the ground ( you can have a pillow underneath your head) and place a bok or something on your stomach. When you sing, focus on taking a breath in and raising the book with your stomach and while you sing, the book will lower as you start singing...

You may start to feel light headed because your body is not used to it, but it means you are doing it right... you will definitely hear an improvement.

Contact me if you have anymore questions

Your main problem is that someone has supplied you with some medically wrong information about how your diaphragm works. The diaphragm is an involuntary muscle. This means that you have no control over it, so diaphragmatic breathing is impossible in relation to singing. Basically it is complete rubbish. If you think you are making your diaphragm do anything at all you aren't. So you really do need to find out which muscles you need to use to breathe this will sort out all of your breathing problems.

The diaphragm is a muscle that works when you breathe, but you can't make it do anything apart from what it does all the time without you knowing anything about it.

A really good qualified singing teacher should be able to sort your breathing out for you.

because that's how we breathe naturally, it's reflex, that's why you do Cardio, like Running, Jogging or Swimming, your breathing when you run or swim is the same when you sing, eventually it will come off naturally for you if you do the said exercises, in the meantime you can try to control your body, like each time you breathe tell yourself, be very self-aware, and dont raise your shoulder and expand your stomach until it will feel natural for you.