Breathe in, breathe out, super-easy, right? "Yes" may not be the answer for people with severe asthma. The narrowing of the airways is one ill-famed suffering that comes with asthma, making it pretty challenging to catch one's breath.
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Complain to your doctor, and those white-robed angels would readily prescribe beta-agonists and corticosteroids to improve your airway clearance. Unfortunately, these medications will not suffice all the time in curtailing your symptoms.
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The good news is some ready breathing exercises can supplement your therapy, appreciably reducing your symptoms without making your inflammation worse.
How do these exercises work?
The breathing exercises we would espouse in this guide will help alleviate your symptoms by improving your endurance, your lung capacity while reducing inflammation.
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Digging deeper, these exercises – thanks to sustained workout – can help improve your airways' tolerance. With such enhanced facility, your lungs feel less exerted when you walk up your stairs or execute other activities that traditionally wind you up.
Breathing exercise – when executed accurately – can reduce the airway inflammation typically triggered by asthma. This is achievable via slashing inflammatory proteins, responsible for enhancing your airways' reaction to exercise.
5 breathing exercises you have to try out today
Great! Having established the helping mechanism of these breathing exercises, let me walk you royally through 5 aerobic exercises that will make life easier for you.
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You have got to try out yoga
Ask Janelle Monáe and Jidenna (from their 2015 hit song "Yoga"). There are very few things yoga can't do! Yes, yoga could significantly reduce flare-ups. By opening your chest muscles, some yoga poses improve your symptoms.
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Studies have shown that yoga enhances pulmonary functions, even reducing the frequency of drug use in asthma patients. The bulk of yoga poses that work focuses on deep breathing.
Bhujangasana – more readily known as the cobra pose - helps enhance blood circulation, consequently facilitating the transportation of oxygen around different body sectors.
Just like the bridge pose, the cobra pose clears your lungs (opening your chest as well) and overall enhancing digestion.
Other yoga poses like the Easy Pose (Sukhasana) have proven their value in regulating breathing-related stress by enhancing chest expansion and brain relaxation.
Ultimately, this improves your demeanor, keeping you calmer and preventing the infamous unsettledness that causes asthma flare-ups.
Have you considered pursed-lip breathing?
The pursed-lip breathing technique is fantastic, especially when you are short of breath. How?
By trapping air in your lungs, pursed-lip breathing increases your exhalation, facilitating breathing. This technique can be relieving when you have asthma attacks.
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A technique, yes, but there is almost nothing technical about this as the pursed-lip breathing is so easy to execute. It simply starts with you slowly breathing in via your nostrils with your lips sealed.
Now purse your lips (as if whistling) after the count of five and breathe out through your mouth. Match every inhalation with two exhalations.
Diaphragmatic breathing is a wonder
Diaphragmatic breathing effectively slows your breathing, reinforcing your diaphragm and overall cutting down your oxygen requirement.
This breathing exercise is mainly about working your diaphragm. The diaphragm is that muscle (concavely shaped) sitting just below your lungs. This is responsible for breathing.
In this technique, instead of breathing through your chest, you would breathe from your diaphragmatic region. To better get this right, it would help if you lie on your back, having your knees bent. Alternatively, you can sit right up your chair.
If done appropriately, slowly breathe through your nostrils, all this time with two hands respectively resting flat on your stomach and your upper chest. Keeping the hand on your chest, move the other one on your stomach.
Now calmly exhale from your pursed lips. Sustained practice is required to get to the stage where you can fluidly breathe out and in with your chest remaining still.
Have you heard of Buteyko breathing?
You don't need to remind me this exercise has a curious name, but it works excellently in easing your asthma. The Buteyko exercise derives its name from the Ukrainian doctor, Konstantin Buteyko, who created the technique back in the 50s.
The Buteyko breathing is aimed at slowing your breathing pace while helping you breathe deeper. By reducing hyperventilation in people with asthma, this technique reduces shortness of breath.
Studies have established its efficacy in reducing patient drug dependency and improving asthma symptoms, although more scientific exploration is needed to affirm its capacity in improving overall lung function.
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To practice the Buteyko technique, start by sitting straight on a chair and relaxing your chest muscles. With your abdominal muscles decompressed, you can take a depth breath while your eyes are shut.
With your mouth closed, draw air in through your nose, taking alternative shallow and deep breaths. After a while, gradually exhale until you no longer feel your lungs pumped up with air. Upon achieving this, delay your breath for as long as possible before reverting to calmer breathing.
Lastly, you can resort to the Progressive relaxation technique
This technique aims to reduce your overall muscular contraction, relaxing your body, and in the process, relaxing your breathing. How do you go about this?
First, lie with your back on the ground while shutting your eyes. Now, let us transfer your total concentration to your nasal breathing, constricting the muscles in your right foot.
Next, free things up, relax and feel the tension ooze out of your body. Repeat the procedures with your left foot muscles. You can keep alternating between both legs till you feel significantly relieved, typical of your body feeling weightless.
