How to strengthen your lungs to fight Covid-19

Can you make your lungs stronger to fight off a respiratory disease such as Covid-19? Doctors say with physical activity, you might!

"One of the first things that happens with Covid is that you get short of breath and your oxygen saturation begins to fall," Raymond Casciari, a pulmonologist at St Joseph Hospital in Orange, California told AARP. "The better condition your lungs are in, the better off you will be."

"Anything that makes you breathe faster is basically a breathing exercise," says Joshua Denson, a pulmonary and critical care specialist and assistant professor of medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine. So his advices are to 'Get on a bike and ride 20 minutes a day,' or 'Go for a brisk walk.'

Aim for activity that ramps up your breathing

As lung function decreases with age, it is imperative to stay active. The muscles that sustain your breathing weaken over time, lung tissue lacks elasticity, and the air sacs within your lungs expand. Exercising has been shown in studies to help slow down this process and improve lung health.

"Aerobic activity also helps air get into the deepest parts of your lungs that you don't use when you are sedentary," says Bruce Levy, chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"If there are any secretions or pollutants you've breathed in, aerobic activity helps you clear them out of your lung and decreases your risk of infection or pneumonia," he says.

"Aerobic fitness also helps your body obtain oxygen from the environment and use it in the most efficient manner," he says. "If you happen to get Covid, if you've been doing cardio, that's going to help you."

How breathing exercises can help

Another way to get oxygen deep into the lungs and clear secretions is to do deep breathing exercises.

While they aren't as good as physical exercise, pulmonologists claim they are safer than doing nothing for sedentary citizens, and they may be especially beneficial for people with mobility problems.

Slow and steady breathing will also help to decrease the heart rate, regulate your blood pressure, and reduce anxiety, according to research.

A simple breathing exercise

Slowly inhale deeply through your nose, causing your belly to rise as your lungs fill, and hold the air for a few seconds. Exhale fully.

Repeat a couple of times, and then force yourself to cough enough that all secretions are brought to the surface. (If there are people around, make sure you wear a mask.)

The exercise is a preventive measure "that gets out the secretions sitting in the gravity-dependent portions of your lungs and decreases your risk of pneumonia and infection" if you're not exercising, Levy says. "It's a simple thing people can do for lung health."