We all know that a healthy lifestyle can help us lose weight, get more energy and give us a better quality of life in general. But it is little known that good exercise and healthy food is especially beneficial for the well-being of your lungs also, both for people who still have healthy lungs as for people who suffer from any lung disease already.
Exercising doesn’t necessarily mean exhausting yourself
For people who have a lung disease, like asthma or COPD, exercising often seems just bridge too far. But exercising does not have to be strenuous. A small research with COPD patients doing mild exercises in a bath filled with warm spring water showed a remarkable reduction of their symptoms and improvement of the condition of their lungs as well as their oxygen saturation. Also special training like yoga or tai chi have seen to be very wholesome for COPD patients, and can even slow down the progression of diseases like emphysema.
For asthma patients, especially those suffering from exercise-induced asthma, a simple exercise as blowing in a bottle regularly, can improve their lung function significantly. This was demonstrated by a research where 212 patients were asked to blow into a bottle every 4 hours, during 4 months. After this period their FEV (Forced Expiratory Volume, which is the amount of air that can be blown out in a one second forced exhalation) showed a stable improvement of their lung function. Apart from that they needed to use their inhalers a lot less during this period. 65-75% of the improvement remained for over half a year, even without blowing in the bottle.
It seems only logical that, if these simple exercises are so beneficial to already damaged lungs, they would be just perfect to keep your still healthy lungs in tip top shape. So don’t wait until it is too late, start exercising and let your lungs absorb the oxygen to energise your body. No need for exhausting exercises, a nice walk in the fresh air, that you can breathe in deeply, is sufficient and may be even the best!
Eat vegetables and fruits to keep your lungs in the best possible condition
More and more scientists and researchers emphasise the importance of eating ample fruit and veggies, around 400 grams daily, to keep our bodies healthy. Specific research has recently shown that especially our lungs also benefit from this kind of diet. A researcher from the section Health & Environment from the University of Washington in Seattle found that frequent consumption of vegetables and fruits reduces the chance to develop COPD or other lung diseases, while for people already suffering from COPD, it improved their lung function significantly. Other research found that eating fruits and vegetables offers protection against lung cancer.
If possible, try to get biological products, as these contain more anti oxidants than the regularly grown vegetables and fruits. Furthermore, the biological varieties contain more polyphenols. Both anti oxidants and polyphenols are known to have anti inflammatory and anti carcinogenic properties.
Ref: Medisch dossier, Sept. 2016; Wikipedia
