Breathlessness after COVID-19 - helpful techniques

[Music] one of the most common symptoms that people describe to us in lancavid is that of breathlessness breathlessness can be really debilitating and really scary especially when it's out of control it's out of normal to what actually we are doing the activity that we are performing being breathless is normal and normally that's a response of an increase in activity but when we lose control of our breathing it becomes really challenging actually being able to gain back that control can be a really powerful and important tool not just in long covid but also in our general health so we often find that in people that have experienced covered whether that they've been in hospital or not hospitalized and managed out in their homes that breathlessness is still heavily reported by so many we know that during an initial infection our bodies go into a usual fight flight response to fight that infection so this involves increasing our heart rate and increasing our breathing rate in order to meet that demand we find that we might be breathing a little bit more shallowly perhaps a little bit more into our into our upper chest and that little bit faster that initial infection then clears but what we find is that breathing pattern all that slightly faster pattern and up in our chest remains and people then find that they might become more short of breath just talking just sitting there at rest or doing some of them very basic activities that otherwise would not have caused any breathlessness so today we just want to talk a little bit about what is good breathing what is normal breathing how are we designed to breathe then we'll get you to look at assessing your own breathing and analyzing whether there may be any changes that you could make and then teach you some really basic breathing exercises just to get you started on that rota recovery and managing taking control of that breathlessness [Music] so what is good what is good efficient breathing we're designed to breathe in a certain way to meet our normal body demands so we breathe in oxygen and we breathe out carbon dioxide and this is really essential for all the functions of all of the organs within our body so we're designed to breathe using two different styles of muscles the first is our primary muscle of breathing and that's our diaphragm our diaphragm sits at the base of our lungs and it contracts and flattens down as we breathe in and then it relaxes and the air comes out as we breathe out the diaphragm is designed for breathing it's a really efficient muscle uses very very little energy and it's the first one to start when we when we uh when we're born and the last to stop when we when we leave so the diaphragm is really efficient muscle uses very very little energy we like to call it the mo farah of muscles it can just keep going it's an endurance muscle then we have our accessory muscles of breathing so our accessory muscles they come into the neck they're into the front of our chest into our back in between our ribs and these muscles are designed to help us to breathe when we need to increase our breathing rate or we need to increase the amount of air that we're shifting throughout our lungs now these muscles have other functions as well so what that means is that they use a lot more energy to help us to breathe we like to call them our usain bolts of breathing so they are good for those short sharp uh episodes but not for keeping going so when we start breathing a lot more utilizing our perhaps our upper chest using those accessory muscles to help us to breathe on a day-to-day basis or on minimal activity breathing becomes exhausting becomes really really tiring so it's important for our bodies to relearn to really think about how are we designed to breathe how should we be moving the amount of air within our lungs one of the first things that we always always think about is the nose the air and the oxygen enters the body via the nose the nose is designed to warm and filter air it's designed to slow down and actually control the flow of breath towards the diaphragm then we need to think about how much air do we need to shift within the lungs and actually it's really interesting to know that the whole of our lungs can take around four to six liters of air but normal normal good efficient breathing we should only be shifting around 500 ml which is just a little bit bigger than a coke can but what's really important is where is the breath where are we moving the breath and that's where we need to think about what's the diaphragm doing and really trying to direct that flow of breath towards the diaphragm and then the last thing to think about is the timing so the length of the in-breath to the out-breath and one thing that can be really useful when we're thinking about how long we should be breathing in and out for is the use of a rectangle and so we tend to say that if you breathe in on the short side of a rectangle and breathe out on the long side and again in on the short side out on the long side that just helps people to sort of visualize that the out breath should be slightly longer than the in-breath so now let's have a look at our own breathing let's analyze how we are breathing ourselves see if we can notice any changes that we may be able to make [Music] so now we're going to think about how to assess your own breathing first thing we want to notice is whether you're breathing through your nose or through your mouth when you breathe through your nose it helps to draw the air down towards your diaphragm and if you breathe through your mouth it can cause you to be more prone to cough or to breathe just using the upper part of your chest the next thing to think about is whether you are moving your tummy as you breathe so might find it useful to put one hand on your tummy and one hand on your upper chest as you're breathing in and out look down and see which of those hands is moving can you feel your tummy moving more or your upper chest moving see if you can think about keeping the top part of your chest nice and still and allowing the tummy to expand and fall as you are breathing next thing to consider is whether all these muscles around your neck and shoulders are very tense or if you're able to relax them in the nice relaxed position they give plenty of capacity for your diaphragm to do the work and it takes the pressure off these muscles as you're breathing see if you can think about whether that breath is nice and smooth or if there are stuttery juddery movements within it our breath should just flow in and out nice and smoothly think about whether you can hear your breath it should be nice and quiet when you're just breathing at rest so just see if you can make that breath nice and relaxed and quiet this is a good exercise to practice for a few minutes every few days just to see if you can pick up any unusual ways that you are breathing and then you can practice correcting them [Music] so let's practice the breathing technique we've got you nice and comfortable lying here on the bed let's pop the pillow under your knees just so that your legs are a bit more relaxed are you comfortable there so this is an exercise that you can use every day to practice getting your breathing into the normal pattern and then when you're more used to it you can use it any time during the day when you feel that you are starting to become breathless and you need some way to recover okay so it looks as though you're nice and relaxed there i can see that your shoulders are nice and nice and resting onto the bed just make sure that you've got no sort of tension in your muscles around your shoulders and we want you to be breathing in and out through your nose think about the muscles around your jaw just make sure that you've got no tension in your face and your neck and then as you're breathing want to be concentrating on getting that breath coming down to your stomach feel that tummy rise and fall good and we're looking to see that the in-breath is shorter than the out breath so we're thinking about that rectangle as you breathe good we're looking out for any signs that you might be feeling that you're hungry for extra air so look out for any urges to sigh or cough or yawn and then just reset get back into that nice relaxed pattern and see if you can carry that on for as long as you can good

Channel: OxfordHealth

Views: 25,799

Keywords: NHS

Id: fpgDwCDXCCw

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2022