Roughly 300 million people throughout the world have asthma. There is no permanent cure available for asthma, but treatments like yoga can help you live a normal and active life.
Regular and gentle asthma practice can reduce the severity of this chronic inflammatory disorder. Yoga helps improve breath management, balance, flexibility and many more. But it can’t be considered a first-line treatment.
Continue reading to learn more about whether asthma can be cured by yoga.
What is Yoga?
Yoga is a spiritual, mental, and body practice that originated in ancient India. It involves different physical poses, deep breathing and concentration.
Regular yoga practice has many benefits like:
- Enhances endurance
- Promotes flexibility
- Improves strength
- Helps remain well-being
- Reduces stress
Yoga is a popular exercise throughout the world. As per the 2017 National Survey, 1 out of 7 adult practices yoga.
The word “Yoga” first appeared in Rig Veda, a book of ancient texts. Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root “Yuj,” meaning “to join” or “union.”
This mind and body practice was found in Northern India over 5,000 years ago. Slowly yoga spread in the West with the help of Indian Monks during the late 1890s. In Western Countries, yoga became popular by the 1970s.
Connecting a person’s spirit, body and mind is the prime philosophy of yoga.
Can Asthma Be Cured by Yoga?
For controlling asthma symptoms, yoga is one of the recommended alternatives. But yoga and asthma relief don’t have a direct link.
Researchers analyzed 14 studies in 2014 on 824 participants. These studies examined the effects of yoga on lung functionality, quality of life and symptoms of asthma patients.
According to the research, researchers found that yoga has minimal effect on asthma patients. They concluded that yoga couldn’t be a regular therapy. However, it can be practiced with regular treatment only if someone feels better.
Another research in 2016 also found the same result after analyzing 15 different studies. The study showed how yoga poses improve breathing and reduce asthma symptoms. Researchers found that yoga has minimal benefits in curing asthma.
Based on the above studies, it is proved that yoga offers significant benefits in reducing asthma.
But doing yoga is not bad at all, and some asthma patients reported that they feel better by following a few asthma poses. It is analyzed that yoga improves posture and open chest muscles, encouraging better breathing.
You can also learn to control your breath and reduce stress; both are common triggers of asthma symptoms.
Overall, yoga offers some benefits in controlling asthma by
- Increasing lungs functionality and reducing the time that it takes for a person to feel short of breath
- Lessens stress and improves mood, minimizing asthma symptoms
The Benefit of Yoga for Asthma
Wiping the slate clean or eliminating the flare-ups is not possible through yoga. But yoga can help you breathe better. However, it offers some benefits. Let’s read from the below.
Fine Tune Your Body
Regular yoga aligns a person’s body and mind. Fine-tuning means your body provides insight into flare-ups and attacks. More importantly, you will get awareness regarding improvements, triggers, etc.
Improves Breath Control
If you want to control your breath effectively, yoga is one of the best exercises. Your ability to breathe evenly will improve when you focus on each movement within the respiratory system. Managing an asthma attack will be easier and simple after learning how to control your breath by doing yoga.
Helps You Have a Peace of Mind
Most severe asthma happens due to anxiety. Yoga is a great way to master the skill of remaining calm. Panic is common when you can’t breathe for asthma patients and common people. Yoga is a method that teaches you to stay calm and relaxed. Even a person who does regular yoga can remain cool in scary situations, preventing anxiety and breathing problems.
Slow Down Respiratory Rate
In yoga sessions, a person learns to breathe evenly, slowly and deeply. Thus, your respiratory rate slows down and allows you to inhale more oxygen than before. Flare-ups can easily be avoided by even and deep breathing, helping you control an asthma attack.
Reduce Anxiety and Overall Stress
Anxiety is one of the main reasons for asthma attacks. Reducing anxiety is quite possible through yoga. A person’s anxiety level will be 2X reduced than before if regular yoga is practiced.
Gives You Control Over Muscles
Your core, shoulders, back and other muscles related to breathing exercises will get strengthened by yoga. A strong respiratory system gives you more control over your breath.
Extending Lung Capacity
Over time, yoga can assist you in building tolerance against exercise. This way, your lung capacity and functionality will improve. After doing yoga, you can do activities that create problems in your breathing earlier such as walking upstairs.
Increasing Blood Flow to the Lung and Heart
Yoga increases the blood flow in our lungs and heart. Also, conditioning the heart by providing more oxygen.
Enhances Overall Lung Health
The more yoga you do, your lungs will get familiar with consuming more oxygen. It reduces how difficult your body is to work on breathing every day.
Reduces Inflammation
Inflammation happens in the airways due to asthma, and daily yoga can really minimize inflammation. It minimizes inflammatory proteins, and thus, your airways respond efficiently to yoga.
Can an Asthma Attack Happens While Practicing Yoga?
Yes, an asthma attack can happen while practicing yoga if you are new to yoga and doing high-intensity yoga practice. Until your body builds up endurance, you must not practice excessive yoga. Always remember that yoga is not a long-lasting solution for asthma.
How to Avoid Asthma Attacks When Practicing Yoga?
Keeping the doctor's prescribed drugs or inhalers or airphysio at hand distance is a good option to avoid asthma attacks when practicing yoga.
- It would be best to avoid practicing yoga in extremely cold and hot weather conditions. Practice yoga in an area where the temperature level is tolerable.
- Be attentive to the response of your body when doing yoga. If any particular yoga is causing a flare, stop doing it until the flare is under control.
- When an asthma attack happens, stop doing yoga, get the inhaler or airphysio and use it to reduce breathing problems or asthma flare-ups. If you wonder what airphysio is, the short answer is that it is a device that dislodges mucus from your airway or lungs. Thus, your lung functionality and strength improve. To learn more about this lung trainer, read this airphysio reviews.
Closing Remarks
With the above discussion, it is apparent that yoga can help people with asthma feel better. A doctor can advise on medications and how to stay safe during asthma flare-ups.
Yoga is a body, mind and spiritual exercise that increases lung capacity and functionality. Regular yoga will bring an improvement in asthma symptoms and offer usual benefits.
Hopefully, your confusion on the question “can asthma be cured by yoga” is now clear after reading this comprehensive explanation. Start practicing yoga and get the vets benefit of this exercise.
