How to Clean Your Lungs After You Quit Smoking
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You made one of the best decisions towards saving and living a better life when you abandoned smoking. Smoking is one of the things that causes damage to the lung and our entire body is at risk of other related health problems.
Smoke (an air pollutant) is one of the toxic materials that affect our body, especially the lungs. It slowly Damages the lung thereby reducing its strength and function.
According to WHO (World Health Organization), Constant exposure to air pollutants results in annual 4.2 million deaths worldwide and the death of 1 in every 5 people is caused by smoking.
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Realizing that our lungs perform a lot of actions for us, it is good that we take a bold step into making it healthier, we can make changes in our lifestyle and perform exercise that will help us get rid of the pollutants in the lungs.
If you are looking for tips on how to clean your lungs after you quit smoking, then you don’t have to worry about that.
Your lung is a self-cleaning organ, which means that it starts cleaning itself once you stop smoking. But there are some actions that you can take to help improve the self-cleaning process of the lungs.
All you have to do after you quit smoking is help your lungs to remove those unwanted substances (mucus) it has accumulated and those things that you can do to improve the function of your lungs are what we’ll talk about.
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How to Improve Your Lungs Self-Cleaning Process
From the first 2 weeks, after you stop smoking, you will notice that your lungs have improved in their function and that is because it has started its self-cleaning process.
Here are the things that you will do to help your lungs heal faster:
Eat Anti-inflammatory foods
Eat a lot of foods that have properties for fighting inflammation. Inflammation of the airways can make the chest to be heavy and congested thereby making breathing very difficult.
So eating foods like;
- Tumeric
- Cherries
- Blueberries
- Beans
- Walnuts
- Olives
- Lentils etc. that can fight or reduce inflammation is encouraged.
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Regular Exercise
You may be surprised at this but believe it regular exercise has a lot of effects on your lungs, it increases the better functioning of the lungs.
Avoid air Pollutant
It has been proven that air pollutants like Carbon monoxide (CO), Ozone (O3), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter and so on. are dangerous to health and as you are trying to improve functions of the lungs, you should try your possible best to abstain from them.
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Practice Steam Therapy
Inhaling steam from a clean hot shower or hot water helps lose and clear mucus from the lungs. This can also help you relieve laboured breathing that you may be experiencing.
Daily Coughing Routine
Coughing has a great impact on the lungs because it helps the lung remove the Mucus which have accumulated in the lungs and obstructs the intake of oxygen into the lungs.
These mucus are gradually removed from the lungs when you cough thereby increasing the level of oxygen intake.
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Practice Breathing Exercise
Practising a regular breathing exercise can help you to improve the function of the lungs, especially the diaphragm which is gradually losing its ability to spring back and push out stale air from the lungs.
You can also meet your doctor for more guidelines.
Chest Percussion
This is a manual method used by healthcare professionals and respiratory therapists to dislodge trapped mucus in the lungs.
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Caution
Abstain from the use of products or pills claimed to have lung-cleansing properties because many of these products can worsen and make your health issues more complicated, or you can get permission from your doctor before using.
Quitting smoking, regular exercise, eating healthy foods that have anti-inflammatory properties and all other tips listed above are what you can do to keep your lungs healthy. You can also get more guidance from your doctor.
do well to stay away from pollutants and make sure you stay closer to fresh clean air, bearing in mind that prevention is better than cure.