Managing Breathlessness

Managing Breathlessness during exercise

Exercise can be a challenging thing to contemplate when you have a respiratory condition. If you suffer from breathlessness, you might worry that exercising will make you more breathless.

Getting breathless is a normal reaction to exercise; it is just the point at which you start to huff and puff that varies. Breathlessness with exercise is not harmful. In fact, doing exercise will help improve your breathlessness, because it will make you fitter by making your muscles stronger and improving the efficiency of your heart and lungs.

All this means that daily activities that might usually make you breathless (eg. getting dressed, hanging out the washing) will become easier, so you have more energy to get on with the fun stuff in life!

Here are some tips you can try to help manage your breathlessness while exercising:

Pace yourself: try and exercise at a steady rate and slow down or take rests if you need to. Don’t forget, use gentle exercise to warm up and cool down.

Recovery positions: if you need to take a rest during exercise, try and use a forward lean recovery position (eg. leaning forward with your hands on your knees or rest your elbows on a surface like the back of a chair). This will give support to your breathing muscles to help you recover.

Pursed lip breathing: try breathing out through pursed lips (lips held close together so just a little bit of air can escape). This provides back pressure to splint your airways open to allow all the breath out and make room for your next breath in.

Rescue (reliever) inhaler: if you usually use a rescue inhaler/puffer to help manage breathlessness with exercise, try taking it before you exercise. Remember to use a spacer if one can be used with your inhaler.

Know your triggers: if certain things (eg. cold air, fumes, pollen) make your breathing worse, try and avoid these when you exercise. This might mean you exercise inside at a gym or even by walking around your local mall. If you want to exercise outside, consider wearing a scarf or something similar that you can pull over your mouth and nose to warm the air you breath in.

If you become excessively breathless, feel dizzy or experience chest pain while exercising, stop what you are doing and seek medical attention.

If you have a respiratory condition and want support to exercise, ask your GP to refer you to your local pulmonary rehabilitation programme or a respiratory physiotherapist.

There is a list of Pulmonary Rehabilitation Programmes on the Foundation website: here: https://www.asthmafoundation.org.nz/about-us/support-groups

Respiratory physiotherapist Zoe Manderson.

About the author

Zoe Manderson is a respiratory physiotherapist in Taranaki for Te Whatu Ora and a member of the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board .