Breathing Exercises for COPD

Learn to use pursed lipped breathing and belly breathing techniques will help you relax and get through situations where you need to exert yourself, such as climbing stairs.

Pursed Lip Breathing

Pursed lip breathing is a very important technique for dealing with shortness of breath. It can help you prevent and manage breathlessness. And it also helps calm the anxiety that can come with losing your breath.

Pursed lip breathing involves breathing in through your nose and out through pursed lips. The out breath is twice as long as the in breath. This creates what is called a "back pressure" in the alveoli. Back pressure keeps the alveoli open longer, allowing the old trapped air to escape. Once the old air escapes, oxygenated air can fill the lungs and get into the bloodstream, decreasing shortness of breath.

To do pursed lip breathing:

• Sit in an armchair with your shoulders back, your back straight, and your arms supported.

• Relax your neck and shoulders as much as possible.

• Breathe in slowly through your nose with your mouth closed. Count to yourself-one, two, three-until your chest and abdomen have expanded as much as possible to fill your lungs.

• Then, blow out, pursing your lips as if you were blowing through a straw. Count one, two, three, four, five until your lungs are as empty as possible. The goal is to breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in.

Did you find yourself relaxing? Did it relieve your shortness of breath, even just a little? You can use this breathing technique before any activity that can cause shortness of breath, such as climbing the stairs, to help PREVENT shortness of breath. Or, use it to help calm yourself down and restore your breathing if you do become breathless.

Belly Breathing

Belly breathing, sometimes called diaphragmatic breathing, is a technique for breathing more deeply. Belly breathing strengthens your diaphragm and has a relaxing effect on your breathing and on your body.

Normally, the diaphragm does about 80 percent of the work of breathing. But when you have COPD, the diaphragm usually becomes flattened. As a result, the muscles in the chest or neck take over more of the work. Because these muscles are less efficient, you work harder to breathe, burn more energy, and tire out faster. Belly breathing helps restore function to the diaphragm and helps relax the smaller, less efficient chest muscles. It also has an overall relaxation effect, similar to the effect that people get from meditative breathing.