The act of breathing is something that most of us don’t usually give a second thought to because we don’t need to think about it in order to do it. Respiratory illnesses such as lung cancer and emphysema have received much recent attention in the media through anti smoking campaigns but there is more to healthy lungs than abstaining from smoking.
Occupational breathing hazards in mining, spray painting, construction, demolitions, agriculture and even cleaning can harm your airways too as can living in heavy traffic zones, infact a government study found several years ago that more people died from the effects of air pollution annually (2006) in Australia than from road accidents. Australia is not a place that really springs to mind for most when air pollution is discussed.
Orthostatic pneumonia (not viral) is a common cause of death for invalids on full bed rest, when a person needs to spend most of their time lying down in bed the lungs do not work very efficiently, eventually they weaken and lose their ability to clear themselves especially if there are colds and flu about. Respiratory tract infections by themselves can be a real nuisance for the young and strong too, they always seem to happen when we least have time for them and costs the ecomony at large big-time.
No discussion about breathing would be complete without talking about asthma, the use ( and sometimes abuse) of asthma medication has been on a steady rise for some time now. There are strong allergy links for many who have asthma, climate is often a factor (cold and dry in particular), stress can bring attacks on very quickly and being unfit with a lousy diet never helps either.
With so many things that can impair our breathing it is fortunate that there are many things that we can do to help protect our precious airways. A good place to start is good posture, ask any one to take a deep breath and the first thing they do is stand or sit up straight, it is impossible to fill your lungs without straightening the spine, if slouching is your normal posture you are doing your lungs no favours.
Cardio vascular exercise helps your lungs, mucous secretions can settle in our lungs over time, cardio vascular exercise helps clear them and aids the cilia (fine hairs lining your airways) to sweep out dust and other particles that you accidently breath in. More specifically for asthmatics, training your breathing with the Buteyko method of breathing exercises has performed quite creditably in medically supervised trials in Australian and British hospitals in recent years. Test subjects found that they could reduce their dependance on medication and they even looked calmer and more energised doing the Buteyko exercises.
Air filters and de-ionizers can clean up room air quite well and for people who have to live and work in excessively dry air environments may find air humidifyers useful, the lining on our airways is moist for a reason , it helps to trap air borne dust and bacteria, dry air can make us more susceptible to colds and flu.
If you are in some doubt about what hinders your breathing an allergy test might be worth having.