Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 3: Do Breathing Exercises
• Method 2 of 3: Change your lifestyle
• Method 3 of 3: Preventing Relapse
• Tips
• Warnings

Getting pneumonia is a serious challenge. After you have recovered, it is important to strengthen your lungs so that you can regain control of breathing and life. Skip to step 1 for tips on how to strengthen your lungs after having pneumonia.

Steps

Method 1 of 3: Do Breathing Exercises

1. 1 Practice deep breathing. Deep breathing helps restore lost lung volume. Start in a sitting or standing position. Place your hands on your waist and relax. Breathe in as much air as you can. When you reach maximum lung capacity, hold your breath for 5 seconds. Exhale as much air as you can. Make sure you exhale slowly and empty your lungs completely or as much as your health condition allows.
   • Repeat this exercise 10 times for each approach. It is advisable to do 3-4 sets of deep breathing exercises during the day.
2. 2 Breathe with pursed lips. Pursed-lip breathing will help you increase your oxygen uptake from your lungs while decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide. Start by relaxing your entire body. You can do this while sitting or standing. Inhale through your nose for 3 seconds. Before you exhale, you need to purse your lips, as if you are about to kiss someone. Exhale through pursed lips for 6 seconds. Inhale and exhale slowly. Air should not be trapped in the lungs.
   • Repeat the procedure. Pursed-lip breathing is used when the patient has shortness of breath. This breathing exercise should be repeated until the shortness of breath has subsided.
3. 3 Try to breathe with your diaphragm. The diaphragm is the muscle that draws air into the lungs and then pushes it out. Lie on your back and bend your knees. Place one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest. Take a deep breath. Make sure that the abdomen and lower rib cage are rising and the upper rib cage is not moving. It may seem like a daunting task, but you need to learn diaphragmatic breathing. The inhalation should take about 3 seconds. Exhale for 6 seconds. You should purse your lips in order to better control your breathing.
   • Repeat the entire procedure. This exercise may be difficult for you at first. However, with practice and repetition of this exercise, you can train your diaphragm and ultimately increase your lung capacity. Over time, breathing with the diaphragm will become easier.
4. 4 Practice the Huff Cough Breathing Exercise. The Huff Cough Breathing Exercise, by triggering the cough reflex, will help eliminate bacteria from the airways. Sit down or raise the head of the bed if you are unable to stand up. Relax and prepare yourself for the Huff Cough Exercise:
   • Step 1: Perform 3 to 5 deep breathing exercises. Combine pursed-lip breathing with diaphragmatic breathing exercises. Push the air out as if you were coughing. When you have completed 3-5 deep breathing cycles, open your mouth, but do not exhale yet. You need to hold your breath, while tightening your chest and abdomen.
   • Step 2: Tense up and quickly push the air out of your lungs. If done correctly, it will trigger a cough reflex and mucus that is stuck in the airways. If sputum comes out, spit it out and repeat the entire procedure.

Method 2 of 3: Change your lifestyle

1. 1 Drink plenty of water. Drink 8 glasses of water if you are an adult. For children, the amount of water depends on the body weight. Water helps the mucus in the lungs to become less viscous. Water or other fluids help mucus to pass more easily from the lungs into the nose and mouth. This leads to better breathing.
2. 2 Exercise regularly. Regular exercise and wellness workouts help your lungs cope with illness. Most people who exercise at sea level oxygenate the arterial blood in the lungs more efficiently than those who do not. This means that if there is not enough breath at high altitudes, or asthma and other types of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are exacerbated, then those who exercise actively can achieve additional ventilation thanks to this.
   • Walking, running, swimming, cycling are great ways to rejuvenate your lungs. Warm up and bend over before exercising. Each workout should be about 20-30 minutes long. Stop if you feel short of breath or have a heartbeat.
3. 3 Stop smoking. Smoking is known to be hazardous to health. It is even more dangerous for you if your lungs have suffered from pneumonia. One of the consequences of the action of nicotine is the narrowing of the terminal bronchioles in the lungs, which leads to an increase in the resistance to the flow of air through the lungs and back. If you already have breathing problems, you certainly don't want your lungs to narrow any further.
   • Nicotine also paralyzes the cilia, which are hair-like growths in the cells that line the airways. The cilia help remove excess fluid and particles. If they are paralyzed, they will not be able to help you remove excess fluid from the airways caused by pneumonia.
   • Another effect of smoking is the irritating effect of smoke, which causes an increased secretion of fluid in the airways.
4. 4 Take antibiotics as directed. Even if you think you are already doing well, you should not stop taking antibiotics if your doctor tells you to keep taking them.People who suddenly stop taking these drugs, or who do not take them for a while, put themselves at risk for drug resistance. This means that antibiotics will not be as effective as they might be if you followed your doctor's advice.
5. 5 Get enough vitamins and minerals. Good nutrition helps fight disease, and a well-balanced diet can give you the vitamins and minerals you need. For a little support and assistance to the immune system, take a multivitamin or vitamin C tablet once a day.
   • Adequate amounts of vitamins such as A, B complex, C, E, folic acid, and minerals such as iron, zinc, selenium and copper are needed. These vitamins and minerals act as antioxidants and help the immune system fight diseases, especially infectious diseases such as pneumonia.
   • Zinc sulfate promotes re-epithelialization or restoration of the inner layer of the respiratory tract.
   • Vitamin D and beta carotene will help strengthen your immune system.

Method 3 of 3: Preventing Relapse

1. 1 Don't drink alcohol during your recovery period. Alcohol can reduce the sneezing and coughing reflexes, which are necessary to remove mucus from the lungs, and interfere with the antibiotics and other medications taken during a pneumonia attack.
2. 2 Learn about vaccinations. There are several vaccines available to help prevent pneumonia. For example, you can get the pneumococcal and flu vaccine. Vaccines are usually given to children, but some vaccines may also be recommended for adults.
   • There are two types of flu vaccines. One of these is the "flu shot", which contains the killed influenza virus and is injected into the muscle with a syringe. It is intended for those over 6 months old, including healthy people and people with chronic diseases.
   • Another is the flu vaccine, which contains live, attenuated viruses in the form of a nasal spray. Because viruses are weakened, they are not strong enough to cause disease, but our body will be able to develop a defense against them. The vaccination is approved for use in healthy people 2-49 years of age, contraindicated in pregnancy.
3. 3 Cover your mouth when coughing or when someone is coughing. Covering your mouth when you or someone else coughs can help prevent the spread of germs, which makes it less likely you will get pneumonia again. It is also important to wash your hands whenever there is someone coughing or sneezing around.
   • To cover your mouth and nose, you can use a tissue, sleeve top, or wear a face shield.
4. 4 Wash your hands regularly. We acquire and spread pathogens (pathogens) through our hands because we use them to cover our coughs, turn doorknobs, cook food, rub our eyes, and hold our children. If we don't wash our hands, the pathogens multiply on our hands and spread to everything we touch. The correct hand washing technique, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is as follows:
   • Wet your hands with clean, running water.
   • Using soap, lather the outside of your hands, between your fingers and under your nails, rub your hands together.
   • Lather your hands for at least 20 seconds.
   • Rinse your hands well under clean tap water.
   • Dry your hands.
5. 5 The things you touch frequently should be clean. As mentioned in the previous step, pathogens spread through our hands, therefore, in order to prevent the spread of the disease, it is also necessary to keep the objects that you touch with your hands clean.
   • Items that need to be cleaned include doorknobs, switches, and remote controls.

Tips

• Rest often.When recovering from pneumonia, it is important that the body rests as much as possible so that it can rebuild itself.
• The lungs expand better when you are upright or lean forward with pillows on your knees.
• Breathing exercises should be done throughout the day, paying more attention to them in the morning. The lungs are saturated with the secretions from the airways accumulated during the night, which is why it is very important to do breathing exercises in the morning, as soon as you wake up.

Warnings

• If you have severe breathing difficulties, see your doctor.