This is how you get strong lungs again

Our lungs provide much-needed oxygen to our bodies. They are vital, but also very vulnerable. Rianne Doorn is a Pulmonary Remedial Therapist and Cesar Remedial Therapist. She works at the Rembrandt Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation practice in Veenendaal, Amerongen and Duiven. “With inflammation in the lungs, the absorption of oxygen goes less well. As a result, you have less energy and you are usually very tired. In people with corona, the pneumonia is throughout the lungs instead of in one place, as with normal pneumonia This can compromise oxygen exchange in the blood.”

People with chronic lung disease often suffer from these kinds of complaints for a lifetime. In asthma, the lungs are always a little inflamed and very sensitive to stimuli. In people with COPD, the airways are permanently damaged, because of chronic inflammation or because the alveoli are damaged. Doorn: “Whether corona causes permanent damage to the lungs remains to be investigated, but we do see that many people have long-term complaints.”

Strengthen your fitness

Recovery from an infection in the lungs can take a long time, sometimes up to three months. “Your body will try to clear up the cause of the inflammation. This creates mucus. This gets in the way of free breathing. An infection in the lungs is an attack on your condition; you quickly lose a lot of muscle strength. Also the respiratory muscles, such as the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles that regulate breathing weaken. This makes it harder for you to inhale and exhale. Inflammation also often causes the loss of alveoli. The fewer alveoli you have, the harder breathing becomes. It can therefore take some time before your condition is back to normal.”

During the first period of recovery, the airways are sometimes even more sensitive and respond more quickly to stimuli. You have to cough more often. Of course this also costs energy. “The best thing you can do is make sure you get enough rest. Especially in the beginning it is good to sleep a lot and also to adjust your diet. For example, leave milk for a while. This can cause mucus in the lungs. Drink plenty of water and always complete a course of antibiotics completely.”

Train your lungs

A lung exercise therapist can support recovery from a lung condition. Exercise therapy or lung physiotherapy is also often very useful for people with COPD. “In people with COPD, we can stabilize the complaints or prevent deterioration of the lungs. To strengthen the respiratory muscles, you can practice with a so-called InspiratoryMuscleTrainer; this device provides slight resistance when you breathe through it. This increases the strength and the endurance of the respiratory muscles. But it is just as important to work on your overall condition. The respiratory muscles become stronger through, for example, the effort of sports. Sport preferably in fresh air. This is healthy for the lungs. In addition, I teach people with lung complaints how to cough up mucus. You can also do many exercises at home.”

People with COPD, but also people who have a bad cold, usually have a lot of mucus in the lungs. This gets in the way of breathing. Doorn: “It is best to get the mucus out of the lungs as much as possible. That reduces stuffiness and shortness of breath. It may not sound very fresh, but if you regularly cough up mucus, it is important to make sure that it does not change color or structure. This can indicate an infection in the body. In that case, it is good to contact the doctor.”

Watch your breathing

Learning to relax is important if you want to breathe better: “Stress regularly plays a role in shortness of breath; if you are tense, you unconsciously breathe faster or more restlessly. You also sometimes tense the muscles too much, which can cause the windpipe to narrow. For a moment it pays to watch your breath a little more closely.”

Moderating your pace also helps. “If you slow down and take more frequent breaks, you can better control your breathing and you won’t have to unload the dishwasher at the end of the day. A good tip for breathing better is to pay attention to your exhale instead of inhale. Sometimes we inhale and then hold the breath. People with lung conditions also tend to inhale more than out. If you have to make an effort such as bending or lifting, it is best to use a pucker lips exhale through the mouth. Think of a professional tennis player who has to hit a ball and makes a lot of noise, but then slightly less loudly,” says Doorn with a laugh. “It’s a good trick to keep breathing. You also let the stress flow away.”

Listen to your body

There are all kinds of smart meters and websites that give you useful information if you suffer from your lungs. You can measure how much oxygen you have in the blood, what the humidity of the air is or how much pollen or air pollution is floating around. But there is also a disadvantage to all this technology, according to Doorn. “Sometimes people get too carried away with these messages and ignore their body’s signals. Even if you’re having a bad day, it can usually be very good to get some exercise, even if it doesn’t feel like it. this at a leisurely pace and with sufficient rest breaks, then you improve the ventilation in the lungs and you feel much better.”

Four exercises for better breathing

1. Long Exhale

When you are short of breath, you may have the idea that you are not getting enough air. Doorn: “People who are short of breath often breathe in more and more deeply in order to get enough oxygen. But in fact you should do the opposite. By properly exhaling the old, used air, there is more room in the lungs for the fresh air that your body needs. If you exhale well, the inhalation will also go well. A handy technique to train this is the Pursed Lip Breathing. Here’s how to do this: breathe in slowly through your nose. Then make a tute of your mouth. Exhale through the mouth while making an audible pffffff sound. Be careful not to force your breathing. If you feel short of breath, exhale a little less.”

2. Relax well

Shortness of breath is logically often accompanied by stress. Doorn: “If you learn to relax properly, the shortness of breath will also be less. You can do this, for example, with the Jacobson relaxation exercise. During the exercise you make a mental journey through the body. From head to toe, you alternately tense all the muscles to the maximum and release them after a few seconds. Do this three times each time. You will then feel faster that you are holding tension somewhere in your body. Maybe you had your shoulders pulled up or your glutes tightened. To start, bring attention to your head. Tighten and release all facial muscles. Walk further down the most important muscles of your body: neck, chest, back, abdomen, arms and legs. Also try to notice if there is a difference between, say, the left or right foot. During the exercise you make contact with your body and you get out of your head for a while.”

3. Strong Muscles

One of the best things you can do to train the respiratory muscles is to be in good shape. Doorn: “Due to the effort, the air in the lungs is refreshed more often and you get more oxygen. The increased ventilation also strengthens the diaphragm muscle, the main respiratory muscle. You can easily do these four simple strength exercises at home. A good exercise for when your condition is weak is to sit quietly in a chair and get up again. Use a sturdy chair that cannot slip. If this works well, build in an extra difficulty. Just before your buttocks touch the chair edge, slowly rise back up. Squats, or deep knee bends, are a little tougher: place the feet slightly wider than the hips and turn the toes slightly to the side. Now, with a straight back, slowly bend all the way through the knees and come back up at the same pace. The last exercise is a kind of push-up. You do it standing by a wall. Straighten the arms and place the palms against the wall. Then gently bend the arms until the nose almost touches the wall. Then slowly push yourself back. Repeat all exercises about ten times. Make sure to exhale as you exert yourself. It might make you sweat a little.”

4. Breathe Calmly

To reduce hyperventilation, it helps to bring as much rest as possible to the breathing. Doorn: “You can practice this by waiting a count after each inhalation before exhaling again. This slightly lowers the frequency of breathing; you breathe fewer times per minute. When you hyperventilate, you usually breathe too much with the chest instead of the belly. Therefore, try to keep the chest still as much as possible. During this exercise, place one hand on your stomach, just below the navel. Then you know where to breathe and you can check whether the belly really participates. Each time you inhale, slightly push the navel out. This makes room in the abdomen and the chest has to do less. Then exhale slowly with pursed lips. The navel now falls back in. Do this for a few minutes. After a while you notice that you naturally breathe more with your belly.”

More practice? Watch the videos of Rianne van Doorn here.

This article previously appeared in Plus Magazine November 2020. Want to subscribe to the magazine? You can do that in an instant!