Got Asthma? Get a Mirror.
By Muray Grossan, M.D.

A mirror can actually help a person with asthma. This is because many of the prescribed, exercises to help your asthma work if they are performed correctly. When asthma exercises are performed with the help of an excellent coach, the benefits can be significant. Numerous studies have shown that when asthmatics follow the prescribed asthma instructions their overall health benefits. Even how deeply you inhale your inhaler can make a difference. Let the mirror be your full-time coach for best breathing.

The breathing exercise says to take deep slow breaths, but how deep and how slow?

If you use a mirror and COUNT your breathing you can SEE if your breathing is done to your best advantage. This even helps for using the inhaler correctly. Many allergists have a mirror in the room to insure that the inhaler is used correctly.

Mr J. Franklin is a forty year old college teacher, struggling with asthma for fifteen years. Somehow he had “learned” to breathe in slowly and exhale quickly. That was how they did the pulmonary tests, he recalled. But by exhaling quickly and forecefully he was blowing out the medication! When he changed to relaxed exhalation, his health improved.

Question? Will using the Hydro Pulse stop an asthmatic attack? See end for answer

Counting is the key. Count inhalation four and exhalation six. As you exhale think, feel, and experience a relaxation when you do this. The more you engage your muscles and mind, the better the effect.
Inhalation is a contraction event. Your muscles contract. Exhalation is a relaxation event so that being in exhalation longer, you are in a relaxed state longer. The exact timing is NOT important; as long as the exhale is longer. With the mirror you can better control the timing and the relaxation.

Your want to relax the muscles of your bronchial passages; when they constrict they affect your exhalation. Use the mirror. The best way to learn this is to bare your chest so you can see your shoulders and chest muscles at work. As you exhale – count of six- see your shoulders relax, your jaw relax and picture individual muscles of the chest including the intercostals relaxing. Seeing these muscles relax, visualize the bronchial muscles relaxing too. That can send a correct signal to the inner chest muscles for relaxation.

We know that being stressed is not good for the asthmatic. If you count your breathing in four and out six, this sends a message to your limbic stess system that there is no stress. Similarly if you use the mirror and your muscles look relaxed in the mirror when you do this correctly, that sends a signal to the anxiety center that your are relaxed.

Of course it is hard to do these exercises if your nose is clogged and dripping thick mucus into the lungs. Irrigation, using an irrigator that pulses at the correct frequency, helps to clear the thick mucus so it doesn’t effect the lungs.

When there is thick yellow material from the nose and chest, that signifies that the nasal and chest cilia are not doing their job. In health, there are millions of tiny oars called cilia that pulse in a uniform manner to move bacteria and dust out of the nose and lungs. Many kinds of bacteria and even pollution can slow or impair these cilia. Asthmatics feel worse on a bad smog day when the cilia are slowed by the increase in sulphur dioxide and other pollutants.

Pulse wave nasal/sinus irrigation is designed to deliver a pulsing stream at the correct harmonious rate to restore normal cilia function. It is like the wooden bridge that vibrates when the soldiers march across it in step. At a certain rate of marching, the bridge will vibrate.

It is important to find the exact rate of pulsation that moves the cilia. For example, if there is thick mucus in the nose, or if the mucus is thin, the rate of pulsation best to harmonize the cilia movement can vary.

Reading about relaxed breathing is of little value. Doing these exercises daily at least ten minutes a day daily will reduce your stress level and help with overall health, including your immune system. By daily repetition your body develops new tracks, habits of staying “relaxed.” Keeping the sinus free of infection by keeping good cilia movement is obviously beneficial.

Most important for the asthmatic is to take the recommended medications as prescribed, and drink plenty of liquids. I advise my patients to add lemon/lime to the tea (green or black, with or without caffeine) as well as to the water they drink. Remember that more moisture is beneficial to the asthmatic.

You have seen these advertisements where the lovely girl is happily breathing freely after using the latest (expensive) medicine. Utilize that happy picture as representing you yourself, when you do these exercises! Visualization helps.

Test Question: Will using the Hydro Pulse stop an asthma attack? Answer: No, doing irrigation will not stop an attack of asthma.