During times like these it’s especially important to have good respiratory health, as the Coronavirus is a respiratory illness.
So you’re probably wondering, what are some ways I can improve my respiratory health?
Heres how.
Stop smoking
An obvious one that needs no real explanation! Smoking is absolutely terrible for your health. It damages your heart, lungs and pretty much every single other part of your body! According to Dr. Robert Eitches, an allergist and immunologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles:
“Smoke is composed of small particles; when inhaled, the particles get stuck in the lungs, this begins a vicious cycle of permanent lung damage.”
Even smoking marijuana, despite its “claimed” health benefits, is still bad for your lungs.
“Even though there’s a lot of controversy around the benefits of the drug, anything that you are inhaling into your lungs that’s a combustible product will certainly increase the stress on your lungs and the level of inflammation. Even if it’s for medical purposes, you want to be careful with anything that you’re igniting and inhaling into your lungs at this point,” Dr. Ryan Steele, an allergist-immunologist and assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, said.
Exercise
Exercise can help improve lung capacity and heart and lung health, and as you may know, the health of the heart and lungs are quite closely related.
When a person doesn’t exercise much, a lot of the little “sacs” in the lungs become obsolete, and these are important as they’re heavily involved in the transportation of oxygen. They essentially close and collapse a little, but by exercising you’re essentially forcing them to stay open and functional. This is especially important when fighting Covid-19, as one of the main issues that arises is pneumonia, where’s the lungs start to fill up with fluid and you feel like you can’t breath. A person who gets severe Covid-19 who is fit is much more likely to have less breathing problems than someone who is unfit.
Reduce mucus buildup
“Mucus is naturally occurring in our bodies, and it provides a very important function to maintain good health in our respiratory tract,” Steele said. “It helps to capture allergens, bacteria and viruses.”
But as it is with everything in life, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The ciliated cells in our throat are those “hairy” cells that essentially halt and stunt the movement of foreign objects into the lungs. If too much mucus gets at then can get all sticky and stop working properly, causing a breeding ground for pathogens. The excess mucus can also irritate our passages, causing a number of other problems.
“Mucus is something where if you have too little, it’s bad because we can get infections,” Steele said. “If you have too much, it can block your ability to breathe and also increase infection. So you want just the right amount.”
One of the best ways to thin and get mucus coughed up is by eating spicy foods such as chilis, cayenne sauce and peppers and jalapeños.
