How to Keep Lungs Healthy at Home: Breathing Exercise

We all know the importance of the lungs. Lungs are the largest organ in our body, which helps to provide oxygen to blood and filter out carbon dioxide. Every time we breathe our lungs get filled with oxygen, they remove all the harmful particles which we have inhaled from the environment and pass on the filtered and clean oxygen. So, how to keep lungs healthy at home: Breathing exercise. Yes, with the help of some breathing exercise we can increase our lung capacity and keep them fit and healthy.

In this COVID Pandemic, where it is affecting our lungs, it has become very important to keep our lungs healthy. One of the ways to do this is to quit smoking. Many lungs problems are caused due to excessive smoking. Breathing exercises help to increase energy in our body and decrease stress and anxiety. So, let’s check out the exercises which help to keep our lungs healthy and active.

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How does exercise strengthen the Lungs?

Well, now you might be wondering that what are the breathing exercise and how does it keep our lungs healthy? Breathing exercises are simple exercises which helps to provide our body energy and decrease our tension. When we are in a good physical activity, it helps to clear the lungs as they compress the walls of the lungs and helps us to exhale deeply.

Other Benefits of Breathing Exercises are-

• They detoxify your body.
• It helps to improve oxygenation.
• Exercise relaxes your body.
• It helps to reduce stress and increase energy level.

10 Breathing Exercise to Strengthen Lungs

1. Belly Breathing Exercise-

Belly breathing specially focuses on strengthening your diaphragm muscle. Diaphragm muscle allows a person to take deep breath.

How to perform:

• Lie down flat on the ground.
• Keep some pillows under your knees and neck.
• Rest your hand or any lightweight object on stomach.
• Breathe in slowly through the nose, and notice how far your stomach goes.
• Exhale through mouth.
• Again inhale, and try to get your stomach higher than the previous breath.
• Exhale with mouth, your every exhale should be longer than the previous exhale.
• Do it for atleast 5 minutes.

2. Humming Breath Exercise-

This creates a vibration in your body and relieves you from stress and anxiety.

How to perform:

• Sit by folding your legs.
• Close your eyes and ears with the help of fingers.
• Now produce humming noise.
• The humming noise should be felt in your entire body.

3. Pushing Out Exercise-

One simple stretching exercise, which you must be performing daily with your routine.

How to perform:

• Stand properly with your feet together on a flat ground.
• Inhale by bending little backwards and your hand above your head.
• Exhale and bend downwards from your waist.
• Try to touch your feet with your hand.
• This will help to push out the air from your lungs.

4. Rib Stretch-

Just as the name tells Rib Stretch, it does what it says. Rib stretch means stretching or expanding your ribs, so that your lungs capacity increases. This exercise helps to take you more air into the lungs and exhale fully so that the stale air does not build up or stays in your lungs.

How to perform:

• Stand in an upright position with your hands on your hips.
• Slowly, inhale the air until your lungs are completely filled.
• Hold the breath for about 20 seconds or however long you can hold.
• Then exhale slowly. Relax, and repeat it three times.

5. Anulom-Vilom-

One of the simple breathing exercise, which helps to clear out the toxins from your body and helps your lungs to work in a better way. This exercise should be done in a warm up way, before performing any other exercise.

How to perform:

• Sit comfortably in a position you like.
• Now close your left nostril and breathe through your right one.
• Then close your right nostril and breathe out through your left one.
• Now, inhale through left and exhale through right.
• Continue this alternate nostril breathing to clear the airways.

6. Cardio Vascular Exercise-

There are many cardio exercises which you can perform. Like jumping jack, squat jump, lunges etc. All of these are done to inhale fresh air and they are very helpful if you are trying to quit.

7. Aerobics-

Aerobics is an important exercise to increase the efficiency of the respiratory system. It involves exercise like Walking, jogging, cycling and skating. These exercise result in deep breathing and also improves overall elasticity of the body.

8. Laughing-

Laughing is one of the best exercise to improve lung function. The more you laugh, the less stressed you become. Laughing is a great exercise to help the abdominal muscle work and also increase the lung capacity. It forces out your lungs to throw out the stale air and allow fresh air to enter for better working of lungs.

9. Pursed- Lip Breathing

All chronic lung conditions like asthma and bronchitis are caused due to inflamed airways, which prevent air from circulating through the lungs. In lung conditions, stale air becomes trapped inside the lungs and it does not make any new room for fresh air or oxygen. Pursed Lip Breathing is one way to keep lungs healthy.

How to perform:

• Inhale the air slowly through nose.
• Now, with Pursed lip exhale the air.
• The goal is to take double time in exhaling than you take in inhaling.

10. Lion Pose or Simhasan-

Not many people know about this pose or exercise. It is a unique pose which requires you to make sound. The sound you make resembles the roaring sound of lion.

How to perform:

• Distance your knees as wide as possible.
• Keep your toes of both the feet together.
• Move your body slightly forward. Keep your hands forward in the middle of your knees.
• Arch back a little and move your head backwards.
• Open your mouth and draw out your tongue outwards towards your chin.
• As you breathe out, produce the sound of ‘aah’ coming from throat.
• Close your mouth after exhalation.

Tips to Keep in Mind to Keep Lungs Healthy

Apart from above exercise, some of the other tips to keep your lungs healthy are-

• Eat foods that are rich in antioxidants.
• Stop smoking.
• Get vaccinations like flu and pneumonia. They help to prevent lung infection.
• Exercise more frequently, so that your lungs function properly.
• Try to improve your indoor air quality by using air filters.

So, above are some of the ways through which you can keep your lungs healthy and active. The main purpose is to do physical activity which will help you to obtain more oxygen. As better oxygen means better functioning of body. Therefore, take deeper breaths and keep those lungs healthy.

What do you do to keep your lungs healthy?

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