To Smoke Or Not To Smoke

To keep your lungs healthy, the layer of mucus that covers the windpipe and bronchial tubes must be moist enough to be pushed along easily, and the tiny pushy cilia must remain strong and busy. Infection, smoking, lack of fluids, and allergies can stun or cripple the cilia, and can alter the consistency of the mucus.

When this beautiful system is challenged, damaged, or clogged, the incoming irritants and microbes are either trapped against the wall of the respiratory tract like a dirty bandage that rarely gets changed, or the irritants find an unobstructed, direct path into the deep lungs and ultimately into the bloodstream. Without the cooperative efforts of the cilia and mucus blanket, your crippled respiratory system is finally unable to cleanse itself.
Be well. Breathe beautifully.

LINK: The Path From Throat To Lungs

Death By House?!

Indoor air pollution is rated as one of the top five environmental risks to health and quality of life. Did we actually believe that once we were locked inside our homes that we would be safe from harm?

Smog alerts come and go. Fortunately for us and for our children, they are not a constant threat (yet). Your lungs get a few days relief in between the bad-air days.

I trust you have carbon monoxide alarms around the house, that you have had all appropriate appliances checked for possible gas leaks and that all containers marked “danger” are safely locked up.

But consider the potential pulmonary damage from the synthetic stuff inside the house because these irritants are CONSTANT and RELENTLESS and CUMULATIVE. Man-made glues, plastics, preservatives, paints, stains, and such let off volatile fumes that irritate delicate respiratory tissues especially in children.

EVERY DAY, even in winter (sorry), you need to bring fresh air into your house. Open windows at opposite ends of the house. Turn the oven vent on “high” at the same time to help draw the air in. Every few minutes of cross-ventilation helps.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Get OUT!

The air outside your home is too often loaded with microscopic bits of soot, flying fertilizer, smoke, tires, asphalt, car/bus/airplane exhaust, toxic gases, grit and grime.

However, the air inside your home, office and car can present an even greater threat to your lungs. Have you noticed the thin greasy film that accumulates on the inside of your car windows? The automotive plastics and rubber are deteriorating and radiating gases that can easily find their way into your body. You are exposed daily to construction materials that threaten your quality of life: plastics of all kinds, particle board, veneers, paints, carpets, popcorn ceilings, carpet glues, linoleum adhesives, wallpaper glues, household cleaners, dry cleaning fumes, mothballs, cigarette smoke. You are built to tolerate a few of these irritants at one time for a short period of time.

Sensitivities arise when you have long and repeated exposure to any dangerous substance. Finally your overburdened respiratory system can no longer keep up the good fight and you find yourself with asthma or worse. These sensitivities tend to be permanent.

Lend your most powerful political voice to laws that clean up the environment and the building industry standards. Read the air quality reports every day in the paper so you can avoid unnecessary trips outside on bad-air days but reverse that when the air outside is relatively clear.

Try to avoid staying in any single setting for more than a couple hours at a time. Take a short break in a different venue as often as possible. Leave your office for a quick walk around the block to clear your head and to break your shallow breathing pattern.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Outwitting the Lint Monster!

Some ultra-fine irritants that sneak into your lungs can never be expelled or absorbed. You are stuck with this garbage, forever. Your lungs and heart are eventually forced to work harder than necessary because of the mounting respiratory burden. After repeated exposure, the body may become sensitized and eventually only a few particles of an irritant will set off an asthma attack or an allergic reaction.

Cleaning the lint trap in the clothes dryer and changing the vacuum cleaner bag create clouds of dust, lint, carpet fibers, cat hair, mite dander and house debris.

Keep an inexpensive paper dust mask hanging near your clothes dryer AND on your sweeper handle. Remember, these little masks are great protection from airborne particles but do not protect you from toxic gases. If you have trouble remembering to wear the mask, stick up a Post-it on your dryer door. Paper masks are cheap so why not throw one in the car and one in the garage as well?

An alternative plan is to hold the lint trap or vacuum bag at arm’s length. Keep the problem as far from your nose as possible. Take a deep breath before you begin the process and while you are dumping the dirt, let your air out in a long slow “hissssssssss.” If you need more air in the process, turn your head to the side to breathe in and then repeat the hissing exhalation.

Be well and breathe beautifully.

Breathing Brooms - The Cilia

You are certainly familiar with the clear, warm, sticky blanket of mucous that lines most of your respiratory passages. The multipurpose mucous layer protects the underlying tissues of your nasal cavities, sinuses, throat and descending bronchial passages that wend their way between your nose and your delicate deep lung tissue.

Mucous is a super “fly paper” that releases moisture into the incoming dry air while at the same time grabbing up a billion bits of airborne bouncing garbage before it finds its way into your delicate lungs. Mucous is great stuff but once it has picked up a full load of garbage, you don’t want it hanging around.

Sprouting outward from the walls of most of your respiratory tunnels are millions of microscopic hair-like projections called “cilia” that beat and sweep like tiny brooms. A healthy cilia-covered wall resembles a microscopic wheat field in a stiff breeze. These extraordinary pushy little brooms beat as many as 50,000 times per hour to push along your mucous layer.

Under ideal conditions old polluted mucous is regularly dumped out through your nose, mouth or digestive tract. At the same time new fresh clean mucous is produced by tiny goblet cells embedded in your bronchial walls. For this defense system to work effectively the mucous layer must be moist enough to be pushed along easily and the sweeping cilia must remain strong and active. Infection, smoking, lack of fluids and allergies can stun or cripple the cilia and can halt the movement of the mucous in its tracks.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.