When many people have asthma, they rush to buy asthma medications or see the available asthma doctor. What they don’t realize is they can ease the symptoms by exercising.

Does exercise help asthma? When done right, it does ease the symptoms. The reason for this is because the exercises:

• Reduce inflammation
• Improve lung capacity
• Increase endurance
• Improve the cardiovascular fitness
• Strengthen muscle

For best results, avoid exercising outdoors in frigid temperatures, as the low temperatures will worsen the condition. Some of the best asthma exercises that you can engage in include:

Indoor swimming

As much as you will be interacting with low water temperatures, swimming is one of the best asthma exercises you can engage in. It exerts fluid pressure on the chest, you have low pollen exposure, and you breathe in moist, warm air.

While swimming is a great exercise, you should be cautious as the chlorinated waters have been problematic for some people. If you aren’t used to swimming, take caution when you are getting in the waters as you might be allergic to the waters.

Diaphragmatic breathing

If you are into yoga or you don’t like engaging in strenuous exercises, you can engage in diaphragmatic breathing and other types of breathing exercises.

In diaphragmatic breathing, you need to learn how to breathe from the region around the diaphragm instead of from your chest. And by so doing, you strengthen your diaphragm, slow your breathing and decrease the body’s oxygen needs.

To practice diaphragmatic breathing, you need to lie on your back with your knees bent and the pillow under your knees. You can also opt to sit up straight on your chair. With one of your hands on your upper chest and the other on your stomach, breathe slowly through your nose.

While moving the hand on your stomach but keeping the one on your chest still, breathe slowly through your pursed lips. You should keep practising this technique until you can breathe in and out without moving your chest.

You can engage in other excellent breathing exercises such as: nasal breathing, Buteyko breathing, yoga breathing, and pursed-lip breathing.

Recreating biking

Do you love biking? You should pick up your bike and use it to leisurely bike around the estate. Since you are asthmatic, don’t exert a lot of pressure on it as it can worsen the situation. For best results, bike at a leisurely pace.

If it’s during the high pollen season, consider doing the biking when there isn’t a lot of pollen in the air. You can even do indoor cycling on a stationary bike so that you don’t come into contact with the annoying pollen.

Hiking

Hiking is another excellent exercise you can engage in but don’t do the hiking on a steep trail. The right way to go about it is to choose a relatively flat trail or a steady decline, then have fun.

Before you go out, first check the local pollen count and only proceed with hiking if the pollen levels are low.

Valuable tips for exercising with asthma

Use an inhaler before you exercise. The inhaled medications will relax the airways, making it easy for you to breathe during physical activity.

Warm-up and cool down. Before you begin the exercises, let the body adjust the exercise and when you are done with the exercise, gradually stop the activity.

When you are going outside, cover your nose and mouth with a mask or scarf. This is to prevent the dryness of the cool air from tightening your airways.

Finally, experts in allergy center Germantown MD recommend limiting your exposure to pollen and pollution as much as possible by exercising indoors or only going outside when the pollen count is low in the air.