PODCAST - How My Asthma Changes With the Seasons
===
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
today on the show. I wanna share with you how my asthma changes. With the seasons, depending on what season we're going [00:01:00] into and what state or part of the world that you live in, you may find that your experience is similar or it could be vastly different from me I invite you to comment if you're watching this on YouTube, or send me an email with your comments, [email protected] and let me know how your asthma is affected by the seasons throughout the year.
Let's start. With spring. ~Spring is an interesting one for me. ~Spring equals outdoor allergies, and when I was a kid I actually didn't. Think I had outdoor allergies, or at least ~it just didn't affect me or ~I wasn't aware of it. But now that I'm very attuned with my body and even the littlest things, I can tell. Outdoor allergies hit me most springs now in Colorado, it's typically ~late spring where outdoor allergies start affecting my asthma, ~late spring, early summer. ~But let's just say,~ but to simplify things, spring is really about managing outdoor allergies well, what I have found is [00:02:00] that my outdoor allergies are worse when I am eating unhealthy. When I am putting foods and substances in my system that create inflammation, this could be dairy. This could be sugar, alcohol, you name it, fried food, whatever causes inflammation in your system, whatever. When you feel more stuffiness, more congestion, when you feel different things in your body that alert you that there's more inflammation, if you pay close enough attention, you'll see what happens when these substances and foods enter your body. ~Well, ~when you compound this with irritants ~in the environment ~caused by outdoor allergies, your ~outdoor ~allergies can actually be worse.
If your diet's worse, so in the spring, I like to eat cleaner than the rest of the year. Now I try to eat pretty clean throughout the year, but I really decrease my dairy to basically [00:03:00] zero, decrease my sugar as much as possible. ~You know, that ~I don't really drink anymore and fried food. ~I try to decrease.~
~I, ~I try to decrease as much as possible as well. The less inflammation in your system
the less histamines in your system
and histamines are basically chemicals that your body produces to fight off irritants, like outdoor allergies, ~like ~inflammation from dairy, sugar, alcohol, fried foods, all these things. So if you keep compounding the histamines in your body by. With your diet and your outdoor allergies, with your food sensitivities and your outdoor allergies, your outdoor allergies can be much worse, making your asthma much worse.
So biggest takeaway for spring is decrease ~your ~inflammatory foods and substances in your body and your outdoor allergies may not go away, but at least for me in my life, the impact of my outdoor allergies. Has decreased greatly, meaning [00:04:00] that the impact that the spring has on my asthma has decreased greatly. Now remember, I'm not a healthcare professional. ~I~ have a disclaimer in the show notes and the description below this video. Next summer, well, in Colorado, summer equals wildfires smoke for me, depending on when everything blossoms. The beginning of summer can also equal allergies, but for the most part. I need to be mindful of smoke. ~Wildfires. So what this means is ~I try my best ~to ~every single day before I go outside to open my phone, go to my weather app.
~At the very least, ~there are better indexes to look at, but on your weather app. You can see the air quality index for the day, and if it tells you that you shouldn't be outside because of how high the air quality index is, you probably shouldn't go outside ~or ~spend less time outside or put a bandana on something [00:05:00] for you to breathe through This is important if you have asthma or not, because. Smoke is really bad for your lungs. What this looks like to me is during the summer, ~I will find that ~if I go out for a run, even if the air quality index isn't high enough, that I shouldn't be out there at all, but I can still go out there, I will find that I wheeze, I cough more, and depending on how bad it is, ~even if it's safe to be out there, I do bring a bandana to breathe through.~
~I do bring a bandana to breathe through. ~I ~do ~bring a bandana to breathe through, summer is also hotter in temperature, but for me, I don't know. I've adapted. It doesn't bother me. That doesn't mean that it won't bother you. I mean, I run in a hoodie. Year round, you'll see me in 90 degree heat, wearing a hoodie, running 10, 15, 20 miles.
~Now, I don't recommend you necess. I don't now, ~I don't recommend you doing this. ~You always gotta~~ ~check with your healthcare professional. I'm just saying about my body has adapted so that heat doesn't really affect me. Now, dryness does, and we'll dig deeper into that later in this episode. Depending on where you live, it might be really [00:06:00] humid in the summer. And while humidity can cause you to sweat a lot, it can be harder to breathe 'cause it's thick. The humidity is actually good for your lungs and ~your ~asthma. This is why you need to be aware of how your body responds to ~these ~different seasons throughout the year.
Hey, friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed,
so I put together a healthy living guide that you can [00:07:00] access absolutely free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life. To start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to athlete with asthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy.
Now let's get back to the rest of the show.
Next~ fall fall's. Interesting. ~Fall. I equate to cold season. Not cold, as in it's cold. It does get colder but cold equals Hey, it's time to get your flu shot. Cold equals this change from [00:08:00] really hot to cooler fall equals going back to school.
The kids are getting each other sick. ~Fall equals cold season. ~I wish it wasn't true, but at some point during the fall, I at least get the sniffles of some sort, even though I'm ~pretty ~healthy and ~I'm ~good at fighting these things off. ~But the ~fall equals cold season, ~and as you may know from other episodes on my channel, ~my asthma specifically really only affects me when I'm sick.
I really am trying not to have to use my inhaler when I'm sick, but I have every ~single ~time ~I've been sick ~in the past few years. It is really the only time that I have to do it. Now, there are times during summer where if it's very smoky outside for multiple days in a row, I will find that I'll need to use my inhaler.
But the fall cold season probably affects. My asthma the most ~out of all the seasons~
~now when, now ~when I'm sick, I like to continue to work out. There are a lot of benefits of it. I have multiple [00:09:00] videos and podcast episodes all about it, but that's one thing in the fall ~that ~I ~make sure to ~continue to do is to work out. I also make sure that I'm taking vitamin C and my favorite thing is to have lemon in my water, especially ~first thing ~in the morning, ~squeezing some lemon.~
~Drinking that in my water. ~All of this can help protect you from cold season. At least it has helped me, especially working out has helped me. But I've heard from many people that when they're sick, they have no desire to work out and ~they ~think it can make it worse. So you gotta be aware of how you and your body feel and see if ~any of ~this works for you.
~Hello? Hello. Looking good. Looking good. Alright.~
And lastly, ~we have winter. ~Winter equals. Cold as in temperature and dry, at least where I live in Colorado ~now, ~no matter where you live, you may experience ~some ~dryness because when it's cold, we run our heat. And depending on what kind of heater you have, you may [00:10:00] not have a humidifier set up either as part of your heater or separate from your heater to counteract ~the ~dryness ~created from the heat.~
~Well, dryness can equal ~dryness is the opposite of what our lungs want. Our lungs, ~no matter if you have asthma or not. ~Need to be moist. ~That's why when we're, that's why, at least for me, ~when ~I find that ~I'm in a humid area, I may be sweating ~a lot. I may feel like the air's thick, ~but my lungs are ~at least ~happy.
~That's why when I'm sick and ~when I was sick as a kid, I would use a nebulizer, which basically a mask that goes on my face, and it pump moisture, water vapor medicine threw humidity into my lungs to make me feel better. That's why whenever I get sick, I'll actually put the shower on hot, sit in the shower, or sit next to the shower and breathe in the humidity.
That's why we like to run a humidifier year round, ~but ~especially in the winter. I highly recommend ~that you have a humidifier and get a humid, um, humidifier, and I highly recommend that you're, Hmm.~
~I highly recommend that ~you get a humidifier ~and get one ~that tells you the humidity level.
Of the room or rooms that it serves. [00:11:00] I like to keep my humidifier set to 60% humidity. And basically how it works is when it's turned on, it'll make sure that it's set 60% humidity. They'll turn off, then turn back on. Now it'll turn off. So I like to do this to keep the house from getting too dry, which.
Really helps my asthma. ~The other thing is we talked about it being cold. Well, ~if it's cold, ~this could mean that ~the air outside can be harmful to your lungs. If it's too cold outside, what you want to be doing is breathing through your nose, so nose breathing. To warm up the air and or bring some sort of neck warmer, something for you to breathe through.
~A neck warmer works really well where you can actually breathe through the neck warmer while you're outside you ~By integrating these ~three things, ~your winters should be a lot better with asthma. Now if you wanna take this to the next level, I have my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide for You, ~movement, accountability, ~movement, tracking, and accountability.
In less than a couple [00:12:00] of minutes, you'll ~be able to read. In a couple minutes or less, you'll be able to ~learn ~all ~about these three pillars and start integrating them into your life. You can grab your Healthy Living Guide, ~linked ~in the description below, or in the show notes if you're listening to this as a podcast, or go to athlete with asthma.com/healthy Living guide to grab your free copy today.
I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It is about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and [00:13:00] redefining what's possible.
