How to Increase Lung Capacity, More Oxygen and Healthy Long Life
Welcome. I hope you and your family are doing well. Our lungs one of the most important parts of our entire body, because this is what brings an oxygen to all the cells, tissues, glands and organs. And if proper oxygen is not getting to those cells, our body starts to wither away and eventually get very sick.
There are millions and millions of people worldwide who have problems with their lungs, problems with the environment, breathing in, pollutants, people who smoke, allergies, bronchitis, asthma, as well as COPD conditions like emphysema.
Your lungs are a pair of pyramid shaped organs inside your chest that allows your body to take an oxygen from the ear. They have a spongy texture and are pinkish gray in color. The lungs bring oxygen in the body when breathing in and send carbon dioxide out of the body when breathing out.
Carbon dioxide is a waste gas produced by the cells of the body. The process of breathing in is called inhalation. The process of breathing out is called exhalation. So the bottom line is that breathing is a vital function for life as the lungs add oxygen to the blood and take away carbon dioxide in a process called gas exchange.
When you have healthy lungs, breathing is natural and easy. You breathe in and out with your diaphragm, doing about 80% of the work to fill your lungs with a mixture of oxygen and other gases, and then to send the waste gas out. I like to use an analogy and compare our lungs to a screen door with a spring.
That when you open up a screen door and you push it open and you walk out that screen door with that spring will shut completely. And it does it all the time. As you go out, it will shut completely. But over time, as we start developing problems in our lungs, as we push that screen door open, because our lungs are springy as well, eventually that spring doesn’t work the same.
It becomes loosened. And now that screen door doesn’t close all the way, and that air gets trapped in the lungs. And over time, stale air continues to build up, leaving less room for the diaphragm to contract, bringing in fresh air.
So when the diaphragm is not working to its full capacity, the body starts to use other muscles in the neck, back and chest for breathing. This translates into lower oxygen levels and less reserve for exercise and activity. So there are two particular exercises that will help get rid of that stale ear to allow that diaphragm to start working correctly and will allow more oxygen to get into the cells of your body so you can stay healthier and live a long life. This exercise is pursed lip breathing.
This allows more ear to get in and out of the lungs. It allows our ear waves to stay open longer, and this will give you more energy for your physical activity. So we’re going to breathe our ear into our nose. And however many seconds we do it, we’re going to double that amount of time as we purse our lips together, breathing out of our mouth.
So, for example, if I breathe in through my nose for 5 seconds like this, I’m going to purse my lips together and breathe out of my mouth. Blow all that steel air out for 10 seconds. For many of you, it may be difficult, but try to do your best and do this exercise for about 90 seconds.
Now, this last exercise is called diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing. This is very, very effective. One of the best exercises that you can do for your lungs. You’ll do it starting either in a seated position or lying on your back. I prefer lying on your back because we only want to breathe from our diaphragm.
We don’t want to use any muscles in our neck or chest. Most people under stress are breathing with other accessory muscles and they’re not getting the full amount of oxygen into their system. So what you can do is take your hand and put it on your belly.
Or take like a box of tissues and put it on your belly. You only want the belly to come up and down. You do not want to use any other muscles. That way you’ll know you’re doing it correctly. Now you’ll perform the exercise similar to what you did before. We’re going to breathe in as much as we can through the nose, full deep inspiration until we can’t breathe in anymore.
You’ll feel your belly going straight outwards and then we’ll exhale with pursed lips out of the mouth. And we’ll continue to breathe out at least twice as long. The more you can breathe out, the better and the more you’re going to get that stale ear out of the lower part of your lungs.
And that’s the idea behind this technique. So I’m going to perform one of them to give you an idea. I’m going to lift this up my shirt and I’m going to put my hand on my belly. And when I’m going to breathe in through my nose, my belly should come outwards.
I’ll breathe out as long as I can with purse lips. As your belly comes inwards and towards the end of your exhalation, it gets real difficult. But I want you to try to push. I want you to try to push as much as you can. That little extra second or two can really help get rid of that trapped air.
You’re going to practice this a couple of minutes. So here is your ideal goal, to practice this technique only five minutes a day, just five minutes. By doing this technique repetitively over time, you’re going to continue to remove that excessive stale ear.
Meaning when you start to breathe, you’re going to be able to fill up those lungs with more oxygen. And what does that mean? That means more life and better health. Please share this video with your friends and family. Leave your comments below. And most important, make it a great day. I’m Dr. Allen Mandel.
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