Healthy breathing is not very common
Breathing influences our life in all aspects, it is a natural process and we are often not aware that we actually do it. But is has been proven that proper breathing techniques are considerably helpful for human health and even when healing serious illnesses of all age groups.
Building good habits in a playful way
Physiotherapist Ivana Hudáková knows a lot about it as she has been working with patients suffering from various respiratory and other diseases for years. Her patients come to the Tatras to find relief and learn effective treatment methods. “I have specialised in pre-school children although school children come to us too. It is not easy to keep a child focused on breathing exercises for an hour plus to add other treatment activities to it. Adults have difficulties too, but small children can be motivated mainly with well-known rhymes and songs, stretching helps too. It has to be a fully complex approach.” She has worked as a breathing physiotherapist for over thirty years. Exercises for small patients are based on playing that includes various beneficial breathing and movement activities. A so-called psychomotor parachute can be useful too.
The presence of a parent is also an important aspect when exercising as it helps the child continue and make progress also at home. This is why regularity is significant. Exercises have to be done every day and the effect will come. “The most difficult thing is being responsible for one’s own health or for the health of one’s child and devoting time to it.” Among other things, Ivana Hudáková works with children who come to spend two weeks in the Tatras to get in form. The climate therapy and its healing effects play an important role. It has a positive influence not only on the breathing but on the overall health condition (helps against allergies, asthma etc.).
The strong benefit of climate therapy
In cooperation with a doctor, the physiotherapist studied a big group of people to find out that their health condition improved considerably thanks to climate therapy (it also helps treat the obstructive lung disease of adults and seniors, which is a serious disease). It could be said that if somebody undergoes such a treatment (2 weeks long for example), they feel quit fine for at least half a year afterwards. A high percentage of cases doesn’t need any further treatment or only some maintenance therapy. And this helps them stay fit even for a year. But it is not only about the climate therapy. Exercising is important too – setting the whole chest in motion, relaxing the whole body, making the muscles more flexible because they play an important role in breathing.
Although lungs as such don’t hurt (only their so to say covers, i.e. bronchi, do as there are no nerve endings in lungs), the body usually saves the part that is ill. That’s why small patients arch their backs more, they cannot straighten them and are weakened in generally. It is very important to learn to work with breathing properly so that the chest can expand when breathing in and contract when breathing out. Breathing gymnastics helps small patients learn how to improve the quality of their breathing and to work with it – by using diaphragmatic breathing or changing the breathing rhythm.
Oxygen means life and an oxygenated organism undoubtedly influences also other aspects of life. But each of us should take responsibility for their health, pay enough attention to it and choose a healthy lifestyle to influence their health with it.
