In addition to medical treatments for severe asthma, exercises such as diaphragmatic and pulsed breathing may help improve your breathing and quality of life.
Asthma narrows the airways in your lungs to the point where it can be hard to catch your breath.
Medications such as inhaled corticosteroids and beta-agonists open up your airways to help you breathe easier. However, for some people with severe asthma, these drugs might not be enough to manage symptoms.
If you’re looking for something to supplement your drug treatment, you might want to try breathing exercises.
Based on current evidence, breathing exercises may have value as an add-on therapy to medication and other standard asthma treatments.
Here are six different breathing exercises for asthma. Some of these techniques are more effective than others at relieving asthma symptoms. It’s best to talk with your doctor to find out which breathing techniques may be best for you.
In diaphragmatic breathing, you learn how to breathe from the region around your diaphragm, rather than from your chest. The diaphragm is the dome-shaped muscle below your lungs that helps you breathe.
This technique helps to strengthen your diaphragm and allows for deeper breathing.
To practice diaphragmatic breathing:
- Lie on your back with your knees bent and a pillow under your knees, or sit up straight in a chair.
- Place one hand flat on your upper chest and the other hand on your stomach.
- Breathe in slowly through your nose. The hand on your stomach should move, while the one on your chest remains still.
- Breathe out slowly through pursed lips.
Keep practicing this technique until you’re able to breathe in and out without your chest moving.
While more research is necessary, mouth breathing
The advantage of breathing through your nose is that it adds warmth and humidity to the air, which can help reduce asthma symptoms.
The Papworth method has been around since the 1960s. It combines several different types of breathing with relaxation training techniques.
It teaches you how to breathe slowly and steadily from your diaphragm and through your nose.
You also learn how to manage stress so it doesn’t affect your breathing.
Steps for the Papworth method include the following:
- Sit or lie down in a comfortable place and relax your body and mind.
- Place one hand on your abdomen and one hand on your chest.
- Slowly and deeply inhale through your nose. Your abdomen will rise.
- Slowly exhale through your mouth. Your abdomen will fall.
- Aim to exhale for longer than the inhale.
- Focus on keeping your body relaxed.
Buteyko breathing is named after its creator, Konstantin Buteyko, a Ukrainian doctor who developed the technique during the 1950s.
The idea behind it is that people tend to hyperventilate, which means breathing faster and more deeply than necessary. Rapid breathing can increase symptoms like shortness of breath in people with asthma.
Buteyko breathing uses a series of exercises to teach you how to breathe slower and deeper. Studies evaluating its effectiveness have shown mixed results.
Buteyko may improve asthma symptoms and reduce the need for medication, though it doesn’t seem to improve lung function.
To practice Buteyko breathing:
- Breathe regularly for a few minutes.
- After an exhaled breath, hold your breath by using your index finger and thumb to plug your nose.
- Retain your breath until you feel the urge to breathe, then inhale.
- Breathe regularly for at least 10 seconds.
- Repeat several times.
Pursed lip breathing is a technique that can help relieve shortness of breath and promote relaxation.
To practice pursed lip breathing:
- Breathe in slowly through your nose with your mouth closed.
- Purse your lips as if you were about to whistle.
- Finally, breathe out through your pursed lips to a count of four.
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Yoga is an exercise program that combines movement with deep breathing. A few small studies have found that using the same type of controlled deep breathing as in yoga may help improve asthma symptoms and lung function.
Learning breathing exercises and practicing them regularly may help you manage your asthma symptoms. Breathing exercises that may help include diaphragmatic breathing, nasal breathing, the Papworth method, Buteyko breathing, pursed lip breathing, and yoga.
However, even the most effective breathing exercises can’t replace your asthma treatment entirely.
Talk with your doctor before trying any of these breathing exercises to make sure they’re safe for you. Ask your doctor to recommend a respiratory therapist who can teach you how to do these exercises safely and effectively