Contents:
- Medical Video: Pulmonary Rehab: Daily Fitness & Exercise
- How can I exercise if I suffer from COPD?
- What sports can I do if I suffer from COPD?
- How often do I have to exercise if I suffer from COPD?
- What can I do to breathe more easily during exercise?
Medical Video: Pulmonary Rehab: Daily Fitness & Exercise
Beneficial exercise is not only for the heart. Exercise can help the lungs breathe more oxygen and cleanse the body of irritants. With COPD, there is an irritant that is caught in the lungs and causes inflammation and damage. What you need to know is that exercise can help you breathe more easily and improve your overall health. Here are some things you should know before exercising with COPD.
How can I exercise if I suffer from COPD?
Symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, or COPD), the most common is shortness of breath. You can barely breathe without wheezing or panting. That is why it is natural for patients and doctors to emphasize the idea of resting.
However, exercise is what you really need to improve your breathing. When exercising, blood flow will increase to the lungs. This is good for two reasons: to help you remove mucus that covers the lungs by coughing and to increase oxygen to the blood.
What sports can I do if I suffer from COPD?
Different types of exercise can improve your COPD in different ways. As an example:
- Sports aerobics can improve breathing by strengthening the heart and lungs. Over time, exerciseaerobics can reduce heart rate and blood pressure. Your heart will not need to work very hard during physical activity, which will increase your breathing.
- Sports which exercises muscle strength can stimulate the breakdown and re-formation of muscles with contractions that often occur. Sports who exercises strength your upper body can help build the strength of your breathing muscles.
- Sports stretching and flexibility such as yoga and pilates can improve your coordination and breathing.
However, you still have to be careful when exercising. Consult a doctor before starting any exercise program. Doctors can provide safety advice and the benefits of exercise.
How often do I have to exercise if I suffer from COPD?
It is important not to overdo it when exercising with COPD. Like most exercise programs, you should start briefly and slowly then increase the frequency when you are familiar with the amount of exercise. Increase your training time very gradually. With COPD, light exercise can make your heart beat as fast as a normal person when they do moderate intensity exercises.
Start with simple training goals and slowly increase to sessions of 20 to 30 minutes, three to four times each week. You can try sports such as walking, or static bikes, or very slow martial arts called tai chi. Remember to stop and rest if you feel short of breath.
You can increase stamina by alternating between different exercises, or between high intensity exercises and low intensity rest breaks. For example, 30 seconds of intense exercise with a 30-second rest interval (or 20 seconds of intense exercise with a 40-second break).
What can I do to breathe more easily during exercise?
When you exercise with COPD, remember to breathe. Enough to remember to breathe slowly. Inhale through the nose to warm and moisturize the air, and exhale twice as long through the pursed mouth. Shortness of breath while exercising means your body needs more oxygen. You can restore oxygen to your system by slowing down breathing.
You can keep the air you breathe moist and clean by using it humidifier or water filter. To help reduce the speed of your breath while exercising, try to exhale two times longer than when you breathe. For example, if you inhale for two seconds, then exhale for four seconds.
Don't take a bath immediately after exercising. Avoid bathing with very hot or very cold water, or a sauna, after exercising. This can aggravate COPD symptoms with temporary swelling or narrowing and hardening of the lung tissue.
If you don't know how to exercise properly or excessively in doing so, this can be dangerous for your lungs. So, make sure you know how to exercise properly before you start.
Hello Health Group does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
