The lungs are extremely important organs in the body, and they help keep you alive. They’re one of the most vital organs in your body, and without them, you’re dead. Your lungs are a part of your respiratory system, along with blood vessels and airways. The function of the lung is to collect oxygen so that you can breathe. As you breathe, air goes down the airways that lead to the lungs, and the lungs help carry the oxygen to the red blood cells. The red blood cells then help keep other cells alive by carrying the oxygen to them and expelling carbon dioxide. (I’m listing the 10 amazing ways to keep your lungs healthy.)
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Carbon dioxide is essentially the waste products our body is trying to get rid of every time we take in a breath. The most important thing to understand is that you should stay healthy. This requires a number of things, but with a little attention, you can make sure that your lungs are staying as healthy as possible. So take a deep breath, because I’m listing the 10 amazing ways to keep your lungs healthy. The unfortunate thing with health is that it’s mostly about preventing (reducing harm) things that can harm you.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
1. Avoid Smoking
If you keep your lungs away from smoke and other harmful carcinogens, you’ll find that your lung health remains intact. At the very least, it won’t be a contributing factor in your constant battle to retain your health. This one is as simple as it gets, because it’s well known that smoking does a harmful number on all organs of the body. It’s especially true for the lungs that the effects of smoking will take a harsh number on them, short or long-term. This mostly applies to the harmful effects of tar and carcinogens in cigarettes, but it can be any number of smokable drugs. It also includes the effects, albeit smaller effects, of vaporizers and e-cigs.
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Smoking can cause lung cancer, throat cancer, COPD, etc, and it’s something you don’t want to have to deal with. Second-hand smoke is also something to consider, because it can be just as harmful as first-hand smoking. All it takes is the wrong person inhaling in smoke, and it can cause long-term problems. Thankfully, the lungs are resilient, but it does not mean that the effects of smoking don’t take their effects immediately. If you’re smoking you know this, so it’s about taking the steps to stop it from getting worse. There are numerous groups you can visit or remedies you can use, such as patches, e-cigs, or gum, to help you quit. The point is to quit, and if you have not started, avoid it at all costs. Being around smokers does not help, but help a friend if they’re in the midst of it.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
2. Hold Your Breath
Things like holding your breathe are known to keep your lungs healthy and increase oxygen flow. Holding your breath, as well as generally improving breathing and lung function, has useful, potentially lifesaving benefits. These benefits may include: increasing life span by preserving the health of stem cells. It’s also said that even things like cannabis can help increase your oxygen capacity if smoked or vaped. This is something to take lightly, but it’s certainly a scientifically backed fact. The thing is that it’s not just about lung capacity, and there are other things to consider when doing such things, benefits or not. However, lung capacity is important to (lung) health, and hey, anything helps, especially in the long-term.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
3. Do More Exercise
Any kind of exercise can help your lungs, especially aerobic exercise. When you are physically active, your heart and lungs work harder to supply the additional oxygen your muscles demand. Just like regular exercise makes your muscles stronger, it also makes your lungs and heart stronger. Through this, lung capacity can be controlled and improved by 5 to 15 percent through aerobic workouts. Though exercise does not improve lung function, training can improve endurance and reduce breathlessness by increasing oxygen capacity. This is important to and because of weight loss, which is something to consider with lung health, too. So, be sure to get out and do some cardiovascular or weightlifting exercises. Stretching may even be useful too when it comes to lung health.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
4. Have a Good Diet
Diet has an effect on just about every aspect of a person’s health. It does not matter what the problem may be, diet is crucial to health and fitness. It can be because you need to lose weight or increase lung capacity through healthy supplementation, it’s all important. The more you eat bad food, the more it can have a negative effect on your health. This is where diet is important, because it’s about maintaining a healthy body with healthy levels of nutrients. If you don’t get those nutrients, you can end up with deficits that can harm your health. This can be in the long or short-term, and it’s obvious advice, but it’s important.
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Not everyone thinks of their lung health actively when considering diet and vice versa. The same can be said for supplements that can help reduce or eliminate damage done to your vital organs. There are also supplements out there that can give you lung protection, but it does not mean that you should do harm to them. Thankfully, your lungs can be repaired back to normal with time fairly easily, as long as you avoid the wrong things. Coffee, dark leafy greens, fatty fish, peppers, tomatoes, and olive oil are some of the good foods for your lungs. Oysters, blueberries, and pumpkin are some other examples of foods and drinks that have been shown to benefit lung function.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
5. Do More Fasting
Fasting can help cure almost any ailment, and this includes the lungs as well. Intermittent and prolonged fasting are often seen as religious practices, but they have a bevy of benefits. If you fast for long enough, you can instigate a process called autophagy. This is where old and damaged proteins are cleared out from the cells in your body. While this can be seen with other activities, such as exercise, and foods, it’s strongest while fasting. It essentially helps remove the toxins in your lungs the same way it’s done in your colon.
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There’s evidence that fasting may also help treat chronic lung diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is helped through the process of stem cell synthesis, which can help regrow damaged tissue. Thankfully, your lungs are highly susceptible to regrowth and healing through growth hormone increases too. This is all thanks to fasting, so if you want to heal that necrosis, fasting is probably the best way to reverse that damage. Also, if you’re losing weight and blowing through your fat stores, it’s good at removing stress from your lungs.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
6. Be Mindful
The less stress you have, the more you’ll find that you can breathe better. The better you can breathe, the healthier your lungs are and will be in the long run. Mindfulness has been used to reduce anxiety and depression, improve physical outcomes such as lung function, shortness of breath, and fatigue in those with COPD and psychological problems. Since it helps with anxiety, it can help with psychological symptoms that can lead to negative outcomes over time.
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This is where the stress-relief related symptoms come into play, and it can also be useful to meditate. One type of meditation involves deep breathing. Breathing in and out for a period of time improves lung capacity, similar to the effects of cardiovascular exercise. As long as you set a time each day to practice deep-breathing meditation, you should notice better lung capacity within a month.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
7. Breathe Fresh Air
No matter where you are, you’re probably breathing in air that’s no so great. This is why it’s best to wear a mask when you’re around dangerous chemicals or sicknesses. Even if it seems like it’s too much, wearing headgear is always preferable to getting black lung, pneumonia, or lung cancer. It’s not to say that you have to, but if you have to be around dangerous vapors or smokes, wear something protective. This goes for where you live, and it’s always nice to circulate the air or to have a purifier. These investments are always useful, and it’s also nice to live in healthy area or walk outside to get fresh air. It’s not to say that it’ll make a huge difference, but any difference helps. Being comfortable is a privilege, and it’s not something to take lightly.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
8. Keep a Decent Weight
The heavier you are, the more your body has to keep up with your cardiovascular system. If you’re overweight, you may find that you struggle from time to time with breathing. This is because the visceral fat and pressure surrounding your lungs is causing difficulties with breathing contractions. It can also affect your sleep at night, where difficulties such as sleep apnea can arise. Sleep apnea is essentially where someone has a hard time breathing in their sleep.
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Being overweight is a major contributing factor, along with other factors such as pre-existing conditions. This is why it’s so important to keep a healthy weight, even if it means that you’re a little skinny. However, being too light in weight can have other effects on the body and lungs that can be detrimental. All this should mean to you is that you should lose or gain fat until you’re at a comfortable weight.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
9. Keep up With Health
This means that you should not be going out and getting sick. This could mean the death of you, but it’s not something you should horrendously worry about. Although, if you become sick, it can be hard on your lungs and sinuses. Especially right now, it’s nice to be vaccinated or to wear a mask if need be. These sicknesses can highly effect the lungs, and the negative symptoms can even last a long time.
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Making sure that you’re not around bad air and being sure to keep clean are also very important. Also, keeping an eye on your mental health can at the very least save you from suffering short-term problems. If you’re dealing with anxiety, the long-term ramifications can include lung and heart problems, albeit not life-threatening. Depression and problems with respiratory depression can also occur, and it’s best to avoid drugs, especially opioids. To end, make sure you get a yearly checkup to make sure that you’re nice and healthy.
10 Amazing Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
10. Sleep Well
If your sleeping is off, your breathing is more likely to be off as well. Poor sleep quality or sleep deprivation can affect lung health significantly. Since poor sleep can weaken the immune system, it also increases one’s vulnerability to respiratory problems. For patients with chronic lung disease, sleep deficiency could worsen the signs and symptoms. As you wake up throughout the night, this can cause a deprivation of sleep, which leaves you more vulnerable to respiratory infections. These infections include things like the common cold and flu. Sleep deprivation can also make existing respiratory diseases worse, such as chronic lung illness. So, if you think that sleeping is a waste of time, you need to reconsider and create a better routine schedule.
Final Thoughts: 10 Amazing Ways You Can Keep Your Lungs Healthy
You see, there are plenty of ways you can either prevent damage to your lungs or heal them. The best thing you can do is keep on top of your health and avoid catching sicknesses that can degrade your health in a significant way. As easy as it sounds, it can often be a challenge to keep up as much as you should. And as difficult as it sounds, it’s important and becomes easy with time to keep up with your lung health. The more you do this, the better you’ll feel, and the healthier you’ll be or become.
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