How To Improve Lungs Health

Instead of thinking of lungs as airbags, it might be more appropriate to think of them as life jackets. Each lung has about 300 million balloon-like structures called alveoli, which replace the CO2 waste in one's blood with oxygen. When these structures are crammed with air, the lungs become the sole organs within the physical body which will float on water. This life vest analogy is even more poignant during an epidemic when lung health has been pushed into immediate focus. Of course, the usual suspects—inhaling smoking (direct or second hand) and environmental irritants—being harmful to the lungs are no-brainers. Similarly, it's public knowledge that eating foods rich in antioxidants boost immunity and lung health generally. Here we break down for you easy, non-medical ways to enhance your lung function and ensure lung health.

Our body works on the dual principles of pressure and reservoir. Covid causes stress not just to the lungs but the mind and heart also. When this stress increases, the way our body deals with it depends on the body's reservoir. If the reservoir is not sturdy, complications arise. Therefore, it's essential to nurture the body's natural capacitors, i.e., lungs. Covid inhabits the upper tract for about three days; so, it's advisable to follow routines that involve nasal wash (Jal-neti), steaming, and gargling to cleanse the sinuses and reduce viral load. The lower tract, on the opposite hand, needs increased capacity--best done via breathing exercises. When you exhale, you squeeze the lungs quite once you inhale, so learning the way to exhale more effectively increases the reservoir capacity of the alveoli in the lungs, thereby enhancing their capacity.

It's also possible to extend the efficiency of breathing via breathing and diaphragmatic breathing--shallow breaths from the chest and deeper breaths from the belly, where your diaphragm sits. Be aware of your belly rising and falling as you practice. Pursed lip breathing is another important technique that helps control shortness of breath and provides a fast and straightforward thanks to intentionally slow the pace of breathing. Chanting 'Om' brings into play resonance breathing, which fills the lungs, abdomen, chest, skull and relaxes the systema respiratorium by exhalation breathing.

Buteyko breathing, or Russian breathing, is another non-medical sort of therapy that uses breath-holding techniques to scale back breath rate, which breeds better longevity and reduces anxiety. Learning to control the breath rate is not just a lung phenomenon, but a mental practice as well, which is a component of breath meditation. This not only helps regenerate your lung capacity and nurture healthiness but also allows you to de-stress. Lungs are the sole organ whose functions are often controlled by controlling the breath, all others, just like the heart, the function automatically.

A well-functioning systema respiratorium can have many benefits, but with age, lungs can subside flexibly and lose their strength.