Can Humidifier help with COPD, Asthma, or other Lung Problems?
Before we answer this question, let us know how humidity does affect your airways and lung condition!
Health care experts believe that there are several things that can trigger COPD and asthma.
Bad weather, temperature, altitude, and humidity are some of these.
According to Lung Institute, optimal weather condition – which is neither excessively hot nor extreme cold – is suitable for your lungs.
When it comes to humidity, an ideal environment with 30 to 50 percent of relative humidity levels is good for airways and comfortable breathing.
Can Humidifier for COPD Help?
For those suffering from asthma and COPD conditions, a slight change in temperature or humidity levels can make things easier.
Adding a room humidifier, therefore, helps to keep the air at an optimum moisture level, making your airways relaxed while breathing.
These are most helpful for improving the indoors especially when the inside air becomes dry during the extreme winter or summer season.
Remember that when choosing the best humidifier for COPD, you pick a cool misting device that can ease the dry air conditions better.
When buying the device online, you can either pick the one for your complete house or for an individual room.
There are also portable ones that can be used in your car or while traveling to keep your airways in healthy condition all the time.
Whichever model you choose (small or large), make sure that it comes with a built-in humidistat to control the humidity automatically.
When operating the device, ensure the water and filter are changed regularly to keep it hygienically clean.
Proper unit cleaning at regular intervals is important as an unmaintained humidifier device can put the bacteria and viruses back into the air, making your sickness worse.
Common Asthma and COPD Triggers
Asthma and COPD are pathological conditions that affect the respiratory system – mainly the airways that carry and emit air from the lungs.
Studies showed that children, as well as adults with a weaker immune system, are highly susceptible to acquiring lung problems compared to healthy adults.
Most of the time, these conditions get triggered by:
- Getting in contact with allergens
- Breathing in a polluted environment
- Breathing in too much fragrance
- Stress & emotional hypersensitivity
- Extremely low or high humidity in the air
- Cold climatic conditions and consuming cold beverages
Few Ways to Keep Your Lungs Healthy
Certain changes in lifestyle and home remedies can help you feel good and be more active than before.
Some of these remedies you can try to relieve the condition include:
- Quit smoking
- Avoid visiting second-hand smoke
- Controlling aggressive emotions and stress
- Breathing positions and relaxation techniques such as yoga
- Regular exercises to strengthen muscles and help breathe easier
In addition to the above vaccines, bronchodilators and therapies to reduce the risk may also be recommended for asthma and COPD sufferers.
Also, to control the flare-ups at times when you need to go out on a cold, windy, or hot summer day, you can simply make use of a breathing mask to cover up your nose and mouth.
It can help you stay protected in all weather conditions.
Is Steam Inhalation Good For COPD and Asthma?
Well, the answer may vary from person to person!
While for many people inhaling steam is found to be USEFUL, few found their condition getting WORSE after their lungs inhaled the warm steam.
For a normal sufferer with mild symptoms inhaling warm steam can prove beneficial as it helps in breathing by loosening the mucus and relaxing the airways.
Warm steam can be taken through hot showers, steam baths, warm mist humidifiers, nasal steamers, etc.
Care that you get the limited amount of steam that is most comfortable for your lungs.
Spending more time can cause extra humidification, which may cause your lungs to choke.
COPD and Air Conditioning: Things You Need To Know?
Spending time indoors on a hot summer day can be challenging for COPD sufferers.
Extremely hot weather not only makes your body dehydrated but also can cause bronchospasm, constricting your airways and making it harder for you to breathe.
Proper air conditioning in a room for COPD patients is therefore essential to keep the problems at bay.
The air conditioner is also essential for respiratory issues because it filters out most of the air pollutants making the overall indoor air quality better.
However, just like humidifying devices, the air conditioner in your room should also be serviced regularly.
If not, it can cause your problems to be severe rather than solving them.
Meen Smith is a nurse by profession who loves writing online, spending time with her family and caring for the elderly. She has already worked as an associate editor on various moms, babies, home appliances, kitchen, and healthy living blogs. In her spare time, she also enjoys drawing, reading/writing kindle eBooks and improving her skills a bit.