What is your respiratory health? It describes your respiratory system, which is largely made up of your lungs. Other elements are also involved – like your mouth and nose – but lung health is basically what’s being looked at. What do healthy lungs look like? They function well, meaning you have an excellent lung capacity and can breathe without any problems. You will also be free from any infections or diseases, which also tend to cause breathing problems.
Why does your respiratory health matter?
It should be self-explanatory! Healthy lungs lead to a healthier life free from major concerns. If you can’t breathe properly, you run the risk of – to put it bluntly – death. Ultimately, most breathing conditions can lead to this if untreated. Your quality of life goes downhill as well, mainly because you’re unable to do certain things.
With that in mind, what can you do to improve your respiratory health?
Exercise frequently
Exercise is potentially the best thing for your lungs. Think about what happens when you start working out. After a while, you start breathing heavily because your lungs are working hard to supply oxygen throughout your body. Those of you with unhealthy lungs or poor lung capacity will get tired and out of breath sooner than others. The only way to improve this is to keep exercising! As you do more workouts, your body starts to adjust. Your lungs begin to work more efficiently and can become a lot healthier. You started off running for 30 minutes, and by the end, you were completely out of breath. After a month or so of consistently running for 30 minutes, you might feel fine! You feel as though you could run for longer or at a quicker pace.
It’s the exact same as lifting weights to get bigger muscles: the more you do it, the bigger your muscles become. With respiratory health, the more you exercise and do cardio activities, the healthier your lungs become – simple!
Stop smoking cigarettes
Traditional tobacco cigarettes are the worst thing for your health. They contain so many harmful chemicals that are ingested directly into your airways. You don’t need reminding of how likely it is that you will develop lung cancer or chronic respiratory conditions by smoking cigarettes. Therefore, make it your mission to cut down and stop entirely. It can take some time, and don’t be afraid to get professional help if you need it.
What about other forms of ‘smoking,’ like marijuana or vaping. Neither of these things is as harmful as cigarettes, and they also include alternative ideas to further reduce the impact on your lungs. For example, a lot of people have started using weed pipes instead of smoking marijuana rolled up in paper. Why? Because it’s easier on the lungs and can prevent problems from occurring.
Improve air quality
You can’t improve the quality of the air outside, but you can improve it in your home. Loads of households have awful air – and you don’t even know it. What is ‘awful’ air? Well, it’s air that’s full of pollutants and allergens. If you have a lot of dust in your air, then it’s bad for the lungs. Especially if people have allergies to dust, it can cause problems such as wheezing, coughs, and a tight feeling in the chest. Similarly, if the air is too cold and dry, it’s terrible for your lungs. It makes them work super hard and dries them out, potentially causing chest infections.
Consequently, you need to improve the air quality in your home. Two simple gadgets will help you do just that: an air purifier and an air humidifier. The purifier works to ‘purify’ the air by removing lots of pollutants from it. It’s very enjoyable to open the machine up and look inside after a week or so of work. You’ll be shocked at how much gunk it collected from the air! An air humidifier is slightly different as it adds moisture to the atmosphere. This prevents dry air, which can help your respiratory health.
Eat lots of fruit and vegetables
No matter what aspect of your health you’re hoping to improve, you need to eat more fruit and veg. These foods are full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that aid your overall well being. Having lots of vitamins and antioxidants in your body can prevent many illnesses and infections from happening in your lungs.
Follow these best practices if you want to enhance your respiratory health. Funnily enough, all of these things will end up improving other elements of your health as well!
