Breathing techniques help cleaning industry asthmatics to breathe more easily

3rd of August 2016 Article by Nick Marshall
Breathing techniques help cleaning industry asthmatics to breathe more easily

Nick Marshall, creator of 82 Breathing Analysis and Coaching, coaches individuals across many industries - including cleaning - to manage their asthma using breathing exercises.

In spite of advanced workplace health and safety practices, professional cleaners are exposed to sources of asthma on a daily basis. A University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre study found a strong link between the use of cleaning products including irritants and sprays and a prevalence of asthma amongst professional cleaners.

Cleaning operatives can easily evaluate whether they are susceptible to asthma or not and, if yes, learn some basic breathing techniques to manage their condition.

Imagine walking into a dusty room wearing a snorkel attached to your mouth. Taking a deep breath you immediately break into a coughing fit as your lungs try to expel the dust from the lungs you have just breathed in.

Panting and coughing you run from the enclosed space with a tight chest and all the symptoms of stress and anxiety; high heart-rate, high blood pressure, difficulty breathing and an inability to focus and concentrate.

Now imagine you walk into that same dusty room with a filter attached to the top of the snorkel. This filter warms, humidifies and removes large- and medium-sized dust particles from the air and also contains a gas used by emergency rooms as a bronchodilator, a drug that widens the bronchi, whose inhalation alleviates asthma. Taking a relaxed, medium-sized breath you are able to move around the room and go about your activities focussed and without breathing difficulty, asthma or stress.

This filter is known as the nose, and it too can help us track our health, focus, fatigue and asthma susceptibility each day.

For most just learning to breathe correctly with the nose is enough to change their daily stress, heart rate, anxiety and asthma susceptibility noticeably.

These benefits can apply to a professional cleaner during a long shift or a cleaning executive going from building to building, driving in the traffic and walking (and running) upstairs during the day.

For those cleaners whose nose is always blocked and believe they can't breathe properly, try this simple exercise.

1. Take a small inhale
2. Exhale and hold your breath
3. Block your nostrils with your fingers and nod your head up and down 10 times while holding your breath
4. Repeat this three to five times until nose unblocks.

Asthma, anxiety and stress each have similar symptoms; a heightened heart rate, high blood pressure, a tight chest, panting, sighing, gasping and heavy breathing (or over-breathing).

An asthmatic, as well as those who have stressful working conditions and anxiety-related disorders, will breathe up to 15 - 20 breaths per minute with the mouth, with each breath larger than the normal 500 ml. Assuming that each breath is 700 ml, the average respiratory minute volume for this person is 10 to 15 litres of air per minute.

When we compare an asthmatic and a non-asthmatic side-by-side it is actually the asthmatic that breathes nearly two to three times more than the non-asthmatic, even though they feel like they are not breathing enough.

Professional cleaners are susceptible to asthma in their working environment, but there are some simple methods to assess whether they are affected or not, and, if yes, basic breathing techniques available that will help them control their asthma.

www.2oxygen8.com

 

Our Partners

  • ISSA Interclean
  • EFCI
  • EU-nited