Lung Exercises. What?

Yep, I’m doing this crazy thing called respiratory muscle training, aka lung exercises. If you think its just working out at a gym, going for a walk, doing yoga, etc., you’re wrong. I have this little device called T Breather. I didn’t even know this thing existed, so leave it up to my husband to tell me he was ordering me one.

How did he even know what a breather is? Well by training, he’s an occupational therapist, so he has seen/heard of them many times in his years of being a therapist. It’s just his character that when one of us complains of pain, he checks us out, then provide exercises for us to do to strengthen that area (and we are his worst patients😂). So being the concerned husband, he took it upon himself to order a breather for me and expects me to use it.

Why am I Doing Lung Exercises?

So why did he decide I need a breather? I was out of breath all the time and he thought I was breathing to shallow when I was sleeping. I would get winded going up and down the stairs once. Trying to put on shoes would cause me to be out of breath. Just basic things would cause me to get winded easily. I just thought it was because I hadn’t been exercising like I use to, and I was just out of shape. Honestly, I just figured it was a result of having COVID.

Yep, our entire family got COVID about a year ago. It was awful, but it could have been worse. I did all that I could to keep COVID out of our house for almost 2 years. We have daughters with compromised immune systems, so we took precautions when we were in public. It was so frustrating when my father (Papa) brought it home after a work party. He didn’t tell anyone for a couple days he wasn’t feeling well. Since I’m a laboratory scientist, I took it upon myself to test him and sure enough it was positive within seconds. From the time I tested him, we all tested positive in about 4 days. Unfortunately, this was one of the downfalls of not having our own place yet.

Anyway, after a couple weeks, of feeling exhausted we were all on the mend. To be honest, Papa and my husband were worse than all the girls, not sure why. For myself, I had that lingering cough. It felt like an eternity of coughing, and I really don’t remember (oh another result from COVID, hard to remember things) when it seemed like it stopped.  I could just feel the junk hanging on for weeks. In the back of my head I just decided it must be long haul COVID. When you don’t feel like yourself, it really sucks…

How these Exercises Work

Enough about COVID and back to the breather. The breather is simple device that you just inhale and exhale two sessions a day. A session is considered 2 sets of 10 breaths (inhale, exhale is 1 breath).  It has dials on either side of it to adjust your inhale and exhale so that you are breathing in what they call the “in the zone.” Being in the zone is when you are in the middle of the amount of effort you are needing to use.  These sessions are meant to help breath using your diaphragm.

I’m not an expert on the breather, but I can tell you that you need to be consistent to see results. It is just like any other type of exercises, in order to see results, you have to put forth the effort first. A couple benefits are, it doesn’t take a lot of time to do (less than 5 minutes each session) and you can even do this exercise still in your pajamas if you want!!

The breather can be used by anyone who wants to strengthen their lungs with a specific exercise. It’s great for those with asthma, those who have trouble swallowing and any other respiratory issue. Plus, they have two other breathers, one called the breather voice and the breather fit. The breather voice is great for those who sing or act. The breather fit has been created for athletes and others who have intense training sessions.

Breather Information

I never thought I would have lung exercises part of my daily routine. If you are curious about the breather, I’ve added a link to the website for you to learn more about the breather. They even have videos to watch!

https://www.pnmedical.com/product/the-breather/

Happy breathing!!