Health

Seven Easy Ways to Improve Your Lung Health

Lung Capacity means the total amount of air your lungs can hold. But, lung capacity decreases when people get old. 

With lungs of weak capacity, it becomes challenging to do stressful activities. For example, you need good lung capacity for hiking that calls for high endurance and stamina.

You are perhaps familiar with what lungs do. They circulate oxygen throughout the body and expel carbon dioxide. 

If any problems develop with the lungs, the whole body suffers. Lung exercises are effective ways to enable your lungs to become more efficient at managing airflow and oxygen levels.

Here, we suggest five easy ways to improve your lung health:

Start Meditating

Meditation can help create a balance in your body. It enables you to conserve energy and actuate more power in whatever you do. In addition, when you meditate, your cells regenerate and heal faster that assists in the revitalization of your whole body.

You can do meditation anywhere and at any point in time. Although there are many methods of doing meditation, all of them have a single purpose. 

If you are good at controlling your thoughts and emotions, you will see how beneficial it can be when you do meditation. 

Get Good Sleep

If you extend your sleep time, it can boost your endurance performance. It is because when you sleep, your muscles get rest and heal from injury. As such, your body can do more stressful tasks. And you will get less fatigue when you take proper rest. For example, you can quickly go trekking or hiking after a good rest. 

If you do not get enough rest or sleep at night, you can have two things. One should be at a particular time every day as it creates an internal clock that helps you doze off faster. Two, you should switch off all electronics gadgets before sleep. Such devices emit blue light, which can hamper your circadian rhythm.

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Stretch Regularly

When you stretch regularly, it helps you recover your skeletal muscle fibres, which maximizes muscle strength. It also contributes to an increase in stamina. 

As a part of the best practices, you can reserve a day exclusively for stretching as it tones your body, and that will reduce any risks of injuries. 

Drink Plenty of Water

You need to maintain proper hydration levels to have good stamina for doing high endurance tasks. Bear in mind that even a slight reduction in body fluids can significantly reduce stamina and concentration levels in human beings. You need to drink enough water throughout the day to keep your lungs healthy.

According to health experts, you should drink at least eight glasses of water per day. However, if you do not indulge in high-intensity workouts, you can drink even six glasses of water per day. And, you should not fail to hydrate yourself if you go on a trekking or hiking trip.

As a good practice, you should try to hold every stretch for at least 30 seconds as it helps your muscles get warmed up and relaxed. 

Quit Smoking

Smoking impacts your lungs negatively. And to maintain good lung health, you should quit smoking. When you smoke, it can decrease your lung capacity allowing only a smaller volume of oxygen to reach your bloodstream. And, smoking is the single biggest reason for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in human beings. Moreover, tobacco, the chief constituent of standard cigarettes, can damage the airways and lungs, leading to this disease’s development. 

But, quitting smoking is not that easy because it is very addictive. So, you should find some alternatives to it. One of the best ways is to use a vape starter kit to substitute cigarettes that do not contain harmful tobacco.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

When you breathe, you make use of the diaphragm, which is a dome-shaped sheet of muscle that sits between the chest and the abdomen. It helps the lungs fill with air by moving down and then pushes air out of the lungs as it moves back up. It is commonly called diaphragmatic or belly breathing. The abdomen rises and falls with each breath.

Despite the diaphragm being the primary breathing muscle, many people unknowingly breathe using muscles in the neck, shoulders, and back, limiting the amount of air entering and leaving the lungs. 

Diaphragmatic breathing strengthens the diaphragm muscle, and that helps the lungs work more efficiently. 

The next question is–how to do diaphragmatic breathing? First, you should breathe from your belly. It will help if you place one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest as you inhale and exhale. Also, you need to breathe in through the nose for two seconds and then force out the air through pursed lips for two seconds. Finally, ensure that you press down on your abdomen to engage your diaphragm muscle when you exhale.

Rib Stretch

As the name suggests, rib stretch is the stretching or expanding of your ribs. And It helps your lungs to take in as much air as possible. It necessitates you to be in a standing, upright position with your hands on your hips. First, you should slowly inhale air until your lungs get filled. Then, you should hold your breath for 20 seconds and then exhale slowly. Then you need to relax and repeat that three times. If you perform it regularly, rib stretches can help you take more air into your lungs and exhale fully so that stale air does not build up in the lungs.

Conclusion

Lung exercises help in improving your overall lung health. But, it is a good idea to consult with a doctor if you have chronic lung disease before starting the exercises. Remember, it does not produce overnight results, so you need to have the patience to see positive results over time. Most importantly, ensure that you listen to your body and exercise at a pace that does not overburden your body. 

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