Breathing Exercises for Healthy Lungs


 

Like other body organs, our lungs also need special care and attention, but we often tend to ignore that.

Lungs play a vital role in keeping us healthy and strong.

It allows for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, which is essential for the body to function.

But our regular activities that we do in day-to-day life does not help our lungs to use their full capacity.

The capacity of lungs is the total amount of air that your lungs can hold.

And with time the capacity typically decreases slowly as we age.

Without sufficient flow of oxygen in our body, we become more prone to health problems like respiratory illness, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and also heart disease.

In the current situation of coronavirus pandemic, a lot of us are at risk of having lung problems.

To avoid lung problems and to take precautionary care of lungs, we need to do certain home-based exercises.

These exercises will help our lungs to increase the capacity of oxygen flow in it and thus keeping ourselves healthy.

Pursed lip breathing:

This exercise helps keeping the airways open for longer and thus facilitating the flow of air into and out of the lungs.

  • Sit straight and breathe deeply through nose in slow fashion.
  • Purse the lips as if about to blow something.
  • Breathe out slowly through the pursed lips. It should take at least twice as time as breathing.
  • Repeat the steps again.

Belly Breathing:

This exercise helps to improve the rate at which lungs expand and contract.

  • Breathe in slowly through nose to fill the stomach with air while resting the hands on the stomach.
  • Breathe out through mouth.
  • Again, breathe through nose and breathe little more than the previous time so as to raise the stomach higher than previous breath.
  • Breath out. Every exhale should be twice or thrice the time of inhale.
  • Repeat for 5-10 mins every day to enhance the lung function.

Deep Breathing:

  • Breathe in through your mouth.
  • Hold the air for as long as you can.
  • Exhale through mouth slowly.
  • Repeat the process and every time try to increase the holding time.
  • Practice every day.
  • Reach a stage where you can hold your breathe for more than 25 secs. It is a sigh that your lung capacity is good and the lungs are healthy.