What's the secret to keeping your head down in swimming, breathing out to the side?

building off alex's excellent foundation, try also looking back over your shoulder when you breathe. this helps you think about not looking forward and up. there is a great drill you can do i learned from rowdy gaines: kick along as usual, swimming with just one arm, the other at your side, fingers on your thigh.  breathe to the side of the immoblie arm. this drill is hard and torturous, but it makes you move your whole body to breathe and stroke, which is proper (as stated above). ultimately, you should not be turning your head to breathe--it should just come out as your body rolls from side to side with your strokes. and relax! most of the time peoples' heads come up it's because they're panicking and/or stressed out about their next breath. clam down and slow down and you should be able to focus better. you will not die while swimming, and you will not run into the wall or anything else. i promise.

also..try thinking of yourself as floating..head down...and notice how your legs will pop up when you put your head further down. When people lift their head up to breathe, it does the opposite of what they are attempting to do (float and stay flatter in the water) and actually causes you to sink and drag more of your body. As an experiment..try just floating and moving your head up and down to see what happens..this helps to understand how important the head position is. Try to breathe more as a roll to the side..like rolling onto your back and back...rather than a movement of your head. Your neck shouldn't move when you roll to breathe, it should maintain the same position in it's relation to the chest etc..just rolling with the direction of your body. (not sure if that makes sense)

I agree with all the answers here. I think it is because of the conditioning we have when we start swimming. The inflatable tube that we use to learn as kids keep our head up effortlessly. Over time, we get used to pushing with our legs and dog paddle with our hands without really learning how to breath between strokes the proper way. My trick is I roll my body to the side when I am ready to take a breath so that I don't have to raise my head straight up, instead tilting my head to my sides. So here's how it is - When I am ready to exhale, I roll my body slightly to the right/left (whichever is convenient), exhale, and then go back underwater (for a split second) and I roll over to the other side so that I can tilt my face just enough to take a gulp of air. All this happens in a second or two. Hope this helps!