Contents:
- Medical Video: Breathing Exercises for Asthma
- What is exercise-induced asthma?
- Why can exercise trigger asthma?
- How to keep exercising
- 1. Always be alert whenever and wherever you exercise
- 2. Use your asthma medication before exercising
Medical Video: Breathing Exercises for Asthma
What is exercise-induced asthma?
As the name suggests, exercise-induced asthma (EIA) is a type of asthma that can be triggered by vigorous and ongoing exercise. Most people with chronic asthma will experience asthma symptoms during exercise. However, there are still many people without chronic asthma who also show asthma symptoms while exercising.
Why can exercise trigger asthma?
When breathing normally, we breathe warm, moist air through the nasal passages. Because people are more likely to breathe through their mouth while exercising, they breathe cooler and drier air.
In excercise-induced asthma, muscle bonds around the respiratory tract are very sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity, and react to contractions, which can narrow the respiratory tract. This will cause symptoms such as:
- Cough with asthma
- Tightness in the chest
- Wheezing
- Unusual fatigue when exercising
- Shortness of breath when exercising
These symptoms may make you worry, but you don't have to avoid physical activity because of this type of asthma. The following are steps you can take to prevent symptoms of asthma that can make you control your physical activity normally.
How to keep exercising
1. Always be alert whenever and wherever you exercise
Having asthma symptoms when exercising does not mean you cannot or cannot exercise. But be careful and beware of your asthma triggers.
Cold and dry air can be a trigger for asthma symptoms. If you exercise in cold and dry air:
- Breathe through the nose
- Use a neck protector or mask around your mouth
- Don't exercise when the air is polluted. Don't exercise near a newly pruned land
- Warm up before exercising, and continue with relaxation
- To warm up, walk or do your exercise slowly before you speed it up
- The longer the warmer the better
- For relaxation, walk or do slow movements for a few minutes.
Some types of exercise may have less chance of triggering asthma than others. Activities involving short sports or certain periods are usually more tolerable. Sports such as walking, volleyball, basketball, and gymnastics or rounds. Swimming is a good exercise for people with EIA. Warm, moist air can help your asthma symptoms subside. Football, baseball, and other sports with pauses where you don't have to move a lot are also at lower risk of triggering your asthma symptoms.
However, activities that require you to move quickly every time will be more able to trigger asthma symptoms, such as running, basketball, and soccer. And, exercise in the cold like ice hockey or ice skating cannot be tolerated.
2. Use your asthma medication before exercising
Use your medicine or emergency medicine, treatment from inside before you exercise.
- Take about 10-15 minutes before exercise.
- This medicine will help you for 4 hours.
Long-term medication with internal medication can also help.
- Take at least 30 minutes before exercising.
- This medicine will help you for 12 hours. Children can use this medicine before school, and this will help you throughout the day.
- Beware of taking this medicine every day before you move can reduce its effectiveness over time.
Follow your doctor's advice about what drugs you should use and when to use them.
