Controlling Breathlessness

Being breathless is something that might happen when you have an atrial fibrillation episode.?Walking up a hill, climbing the stairs or even just walking on the flat can make it uncomfortable to breath and make you feel as though you need to stop and catch your breathe.

Once this happens you can start to feel anxious, panicky, lose your confidence or just feel embarrassed that you can’t carry on.?Feeling like this only helps to aggravate your feelings of breathlessness.?There are three things that we can control to help our breathlessness.

• Using correct breathing technique
• Controlling our anxiety when we become breathless
• Lifestyle

Breathing Technique - Learn to breathe Properly

Maybe you are now shaking your head in puzzlement.?Breathing is automatic, you don’t have to think about it, after all you have been breathing every day since you were born, so surely you know how to breath properly?

Sadly, I have to shake my head.?You see when we are young, we DO know how to breath properly.?Watch a toddler breath and you can see their bellies inflating and deflating with each breathe in and out. As we grow older we learn some bad habits

·???????holding our breath when we are concentrating.?How often have you heard a yoga teacher or physio say “Don’t forget to breath”

·???????anxiety causes us to tighten our chest and shoulders and just breath from the top of our chest.?This is harder work for our muscles as we are not using the whole lung and you get tired quicker which will make you feel out of breath

·???????sitting around all day working on a computer or watching television again causes the muscles in your chest and shoulders to tighten so your lungs do not fully inflate or deflate allowing carbon dioxide to build up in your body

Breathing Properly

·???????Practice belly breathing - Breathing properly is using the whole of your lungs for each of your breaths.?To practice this put a hand on your belly and as you breath in feel your ribs, hand and belly move outwards as you breath out feel your ribs, hands and belly move downwards.?Your chest should stay still.?Practice this for 10 minutes a day.

·???????Breathe through your nose – breathing through your nose filters the air from allergens and warms the air making it easier for your lungs to use.?Breathing through the mouth can cause dehydration, bad breath and tooth decay

·???????Keep your breathing soft and gentle – you shouldn’t be able to hear yourself breathing.?Try to feel as little breathe as possible coming through your nose

Anxiety Control

When you feel breathless feeling anxious and panicking will make your breathlessness worse as your chest and throat constrict and you will breathe from your chest.?You can use your breath to control your anxiety.?Breathing out longer than you breath in will stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system which is your rest and digest system and help you relax.?Here are three other exercises you can do to help you relax.

·???????Breathe in slowly for 3 and out slowly for 6

·???????Breathe in slowly for 4, hold for 4, out slowly for 4, hold for 4.?This is known as box breathing

·???????When you are anxious about your breath you breathe faster and don’t empty your lungs properly.?This exercise will help you empty your lungs as well as stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system.?Breathe in quickly through your nose, breathe out slowly through your mouth, like you’re blowing out a candle.?Hold your breath for a count of 5 and repeat.

Repeat the exercises until you start to feel relaxed.

Lifestyle

Physical Activity

It is easy when you are suffering with breathlessness to stop physical activity but if you avoid being active you will make your breathlessness worse.?Your muscles will get weaker and need more oxygen to work.

As your muscles recover after exercise, they adapt to use oxygen more efficiently. So, with regular exercise, you’ll need to breathe less to do the same activity. So build up your physical activity with a few minutes each day.?Physical activities include gardening, walking, dancing, housework as well as gentle exercises like Tai Chi and yoga

Weight Control

Being underweight means that your muscles will be weaker and being overweight means that your muscles will need to work harder so try to keep a healthy weight

Smoking

Smoking causes inflammation of your small airways which will make your breathlessness feel worse

Interests

Singing and laughter yoga hep to strengthen your lungs which in turn will improve your breathlessness.?Find out more details about singing for lung health here https://www.blf.org.uk/support-for-you/singing-for-lung-health

Pacing

The following exercises were provided to me by my cardiologist Jonathan Pitts-Crick who has developed a program to relieve the symptoms of breathlessness.

Count your steps to ensure you are breathing correctly.?When you are walking on a level or downhill breathe slowly in whilst you take 4 steps and slowly out while you take 4 steps.?If you are walking up hill then breathe in for 3 steps and out for 3 steps.?

Climbing stairs is an anaerobic form of exercise and uses stored energy so take a deep breathe at the bottom of a flight and hold your breath then breathe normally at the top.

These exercises might be difficult to start with but it will keep your oxygen levels normal.