RESPIRATORY REHABILITATION, MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER IN TIMES OF COVID
Today we are going to talk to you about the importance of Respiratory Rehabilitation in times of COVID.
We have been in contact with people who have been COVID positive for many months. We share your concerns and also the anguish, depression and situations of sadness and uncertainty that occur when you are recovering from this disease caused by the Coronavirus.
We want to help them and we have the responsibility to do so as people who find ourselves in the socio-health field.
Reflecting on all this, we have come to the conclusion that the recovery of COVID patients must be slow, calm and in the home environment. Many of them are so physically and mentally exhausted that it is hard to imagine that they would be willing to go to a center that could work with them. At this time, respiratory rehabilitation is key for optimal recovery.
BREATHING DIFFICULTY, ONE OF THE SEQUELS OF COVID
The most important and most disabling sequel left by COVID 19 is the persistence of respiratory distress .
As the most characteristic symptoms of convalescence in COVID patients, our friends describe the following ailments:
To this must be added that on many occasions the concern and anguish generated by other sick relatives, hospitalized, and also the loss of relatives due to death are added.
Our support has to go in different lines of work, and we will start with something as basic and fundamental as breathing. To do this, we will explain Respiratory Rehabilitation exercises later.
And why start here and not with psychological aspects of the person?
Is there something more basic and more beneficial in the human organism than BREATHING?
We firmly believe and have been able to verify that through relaxation and breathing, people find great relief from our discomfort and anguish. We barely realize the importance of doing the breathing exercise consciously and well.
We must also teach children from their earliest childhood the benefits of conscious breathing and the respiratory rehabilitation exercises that we will present to you can also be done with them.
This helps to manage:
- physical discomfort
- emotional damage
- The anxiety
- Stress
- The emotions
- The fear
- panic attacks
- physical pain
- Negative thoughts
And so many other negative aspects that worsen our state.
We go in search of our health, balance and well-being through Breathing as if it were an adventure.
What are the two brains?
Have you heard of two brains? There is an author by the name of Pierre Pallardy who wrote a method of abdominal breathing “The Wisdom of the Belly”. In this treatise he tells us how he, through his experience, has achieved enormous and good results in terms of healing breathing, since he discovered the enormous relationship between the two brains: the first brain and the abdominal brain.
The key is to be able to recover our abdominal breathing. The vagus nervous system communicates with the brain and extends throughout the body, influencing all the cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive organic systems and innervating organs.
In the respiratory system, it speaks of the sensitivity that it confers to the mucous membranes of our entire apparatus, transmitting the rhythm and strength of our breathing.
Spontaneous breathing seems to repeat itself endlessly with the movements of inspiration and expiration, rhythmized by pause times called apnea. This definition is taken from "The breath" whose author, Blandine Calais-Germain, was a ballet dancer to end up becoming a physiotherapist.
A brief note to clarify concepts:
Inspiration is the time in which we make the air enter the lungs from the outside and it manifests itself with the expansion of the chest and abdomen, it can be of different volumes and different speeds.
Expiration consists of expelling the air from the lungs to the outside, observing a closure of the entire trunk of the body, abdomen, ribs... Everything contracts .
Finally the apnea , which is the pause between inspiration and expiration. This pause is done naturally. Its duration is regulated by the organism's need for oxygen and the expulsion of carbon dioxide, that is, CO2.
Basic Practical Exercises of Respiratory Rehabilitation
Belly Breathing
Throughout the day in the position that we want, we breathe in, filling ourselves with air while we put our hands on our abdomen. At the moment of inspiration our hands will go up and we will feel the belly and our entire body full of air. We will do it very slowly, counting to 5 on each inhalation and then we will expel the air also counting to 5. Our hands will sink into the belly.
For this exercise we will avoid belts or clothes that put pressure on us.
This exercise that seems so simple will provide us with great well-being. Before we can even massage our abdomen so that we become aware of it and learn to know it and even detect possible painful areas.
We have to repeat this practice many times throughout the day, while we are sitting, lying down, lying down, on our backs or while we work.
We are feeding our abdomen with oxygen and as a consequence, our respiratory system. If it is possible, we will check the saturation and if it is not possible at that moment, when it is.
It can be done whenever we want, at any time. It can serve as a resource for a personal situation that generates discomfort of any kind. We repeat the exercise and concentrate only on the breath, only on our belly.
When we start doing this abdominal breathing exercise based on the Pallardy method, we will do another exercise that consists of eating.
Feeding
We must improve our diet by doing the act of eating slowly and very deliberately, stopping at chewing and swallowing, so that everything is a harmonic and pleasant exercise.
Hydration
Another point to keep in mind is hydration .
Drinking water, herbal infusions that are not stimulants, will be a perfect complement that will make us feel good in a few days.
Other breathing exercises that are not simple are less effective in increasing breathing capacity.
Let's blow up a balloon:
We breathe in, taking air to the abdomen, we count to 5, then we breathe out, releasing the air and inflating the balloon.
We repeat the exercise 10 times.
We move a sheet of paper:
We breathe in taking air from the abdomen counting to 5, we release the air by pushing a sheet of paper, moving it and swinging it.
We repeat the exercise 10 times
We take a plastic straw
Another very simple exercise is to take a plastic straw to absorb liquids (light bulb, straw, straw). With it we will do the same air inhalation exercise and we will release the air through the straw moving paper balls placed on a surface. For example, on a table, making bubbles in water (if we use a glass).
We repeat the exercise 10 times.
In summary:
I will tell you that the fundamental thing about all this is that we make the decision to enjoy breathing.
Our breathing gives us life, and although the lungs have been damaged due to the Coronavirus, that should not stop us from seeking to rehabilitate the function correctly. Thanks to it, oxygen will reach all the organic systems that will allow us to continue living with health and well-being.
Continuing to use a finger pulse oximeter to monitor arterial oxygen saturation is critical and vital.
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