PODCAST - why “just_rest is terrible advice for asthma
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[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 why just rest is terrible advice if you have asthma. With that being said, I am not a healthcare professional. I am an athlete who has had asthma since I was very, very young. [00:01:00] And everything I teach on this show comes from my experience. If I have a disclaimer in the show notes and in the description, if you are watching this on YouTube, and if you are having an asthma attack, then yes, you probably should rest and take your inhaler, take anything else that your medical professional has prescribed you, and you should probably contact 9 1 1 or whatever your healthcare professional has told you to do.
What I'm saying here. Is that what I have seen in my life is that by integrating exercise movement working out consistently in my life, it has helped me. It has empowered me to take control of my life and to manage my asthma. So in general. When someone says, or when I was a whole lot younger, people would tell me, yeah, you probably just shouldn't go as hard.
You probably shouldn't work out very much 'cause you have weak [00:02:00] lungs and when you have asthma you need a rest a lot more. And you know that is internalized. Well, I know if I'm having an asthma attack, I should probably. Chill out, take my inhaler and calm down. But in general, what I've learned over the years is that this advice is not very good unless you are in the middle of an asthma attack.
So I have five reasons why just resting, just taking it easy, not working out is terrible advice if you have asthma. The first one is for me, like I said, this is all from my experience. My asthma gets worse when I don't exercise. It just does. When I'm sick, I don't exercise as much because my asthma is flaring up more, so I take some time off.
Well, you know how hard it is after you haven't worked out for even a 2, 3, 4 days. If I haven't worked out for even a couple of days, next workout I do. I feel my asthma flare up. Does that mean I have a full blown asthma attack? No. The point is when I am not consistently working out my [00:03:00] asthma. Gets worse sedentary behavior, by the way.
Sedentary, meaning that you're not moving a lot. You're sitting, you have a very, you know, activity, less lifestyle life, however you wanna put it. It's associated with poor asthma and reduced. Lung efficiency. So when I was a kid, I was told at four years old that I shouldn't play soccer. That was my favorite sport.
Shouldn't run, probably shouldn't really focus on anything physical or at least take it easy. Rest more. Well, what I learned is that by focusing on progressively. Increasing my lung capacity by strengthening my lungs. Just like you strengthen your, your biceps, your triceps, your chest, glutes, core legs, whatever it is, by progressively working on building lung capacity, by working out, by exercising, by playing soccer, doing it.
[00:04:00] Smartly. So what I would do, and I do this to this day, if I need it, I have my inhaler around. What I would do is, instead of taking my inhaler before I work out, I would work out for five, 10 minutes and when I feel the symptoms coming on, take my inhaler. And then after doing that for a couple weeks, I would wait longer and longer and longer and longer.
Until nowadays, I can run a hundred K Ultra and win it and not use my inhaler once. Well, that's because of consistent progressive overload over time, progressively strengthening my lungs so when I don't exercise for whatever reason, maybe when traveling, maybe just a stressful season, I find. That my lung capacity isn't as good and that my asthma symptoms can be worse.
My asthma gets worse when I don't exercise. Not sure how it is for you. This is how it was for me. I need to exercise. I need to exercise every single day. If that means going and taking a walk and doing nothing else, then that's what I do. But I personally need to exercise every [00:05:00] single day to keep my asthma at bay.
And that brings me to number two. The more time I take off from exercising, the harder it is to get started. Again. This is true if you have asthma or not. The longer you take off from the habit, it tends to be harder to get started. I find that if I just take one day off, the next day is harder. It is mentally more challenging for me to work out the next day than if I had worked out the prior day.
It's crazy. Even one day when I work out every single day, it's easy. I'm just like, yeah, I'm working out again. I'm working out again. I'm working out again. I'm working out again. I built the habit. Well, when you have asthma, it throws in even another factor, the longer period of time. So if I don't work out for a week, my asthma tends to be worse than if I don't work out just for one day.
If I don't work out for a month. Wow, that I can't even visualize that I would be a miserable person if I didn't work out for a month in some capacity. Like I've had injuries over the years where I couldn't do certain things because certain injuries, and I always do the thing that I can do. [00:06:00] Amazing woman who comes to my yoga classes every week, she just had an injury and she still shows up at the gym.
And she's doing what she can do. She's doing what she can do. That's what I recommend. When you have injuries, when you have things that are limiting, you do what you can do. Just keep moving. Movement, consistent exercise, it literally decreases all cause mortality rates by 35%. Dr. Peter Attia. Uh, author of the book Outlive says that this is, if there was a silver bullet in medicine, it would be consistent working out.
The more time I take off between exercise and the harder it is to get started again, if you have asthma or not, this is just a truism. It compounds. Highly recommend even when you're sick to try and do what you can. It'll serve you well. And that brings me to number three. Consistent exercise boosts your immune system.
Now, I'm not saying that. If you're an ultra runner that boosts your immune system, because [00:07:00] in my experience, even after a marathon, I sometimes get sick within a week of running a marathon. Even definitely after running a hundred KI gotta be real careful 'cause that type of output on my system. Does lower my immune response for at least a little bit of time.
At least this is what I've experienced and I've done some research on it, and it looks to be a thing where after these intense endurance events, people can get sick much easier. So I'm not saying that that type of exercise booster immune system, what I'm saying is that moderate, moderate, consistent exercise improves immune regulation and reduces respiratory infections.
This is why even when I'm sick, I try and get some movement in my body. I'm not running a hundred miles when I'm sick, but you know, I'm at least walking and maybe doing a couple mile run when I'm not sick. I'm trying to always do something when I'm sick, that's when my asthma really hits me. So if I can prevent myself from [00:08:00] getting sick or prevent myself from getting really sick, by boosting my immune system, by exercising, I'm gonna do it.
So I highly recommend that you consistently exercise. Not just rest consistently. Exercise. So you can boost your immune system. Your immune system is stronger, you won't get as sick. And for me at least, the sicker I get, the worse my asthma. If I don't get sick, my asthma's pretty good. When I'm sick, that's when my asthma hits me.
If I'm real sick, that's when it really hits me. So let's boost your immune system with consistent exercise. No longer with boosting your immune system. Exercise reduces baseline inflammation. What does this mean? This means that there's a certain amount of inflammation in our bodies at all times. Even if there's quote unquote zero inflammation in your body, that counts as a certain amount, inflammation is swelling, it is a response.
Uh, stress response in our body. Stressors could really be anything. Well, when you exercise, and I understand that [00:09:00] exercise is a stress that you put on your body and you can have inflammation because of exercise. Now what I'm saying, what I'm saying is research shows that regular aerobic exercise, like walking, jogging, or cycling, can help lower inflammation in people with asthma.
If you have lower inflammation in your body, you have asthma, you have less likely to have a asthmatic reaction, asthmatic attack, because that's what. An asthma attack is, is it is a stress response. It is a inflammatory response. Asthma causes swelling and irritation in the airways, and exercise has been shown to reduce some of the immune cells that drive that swelling decreases baseline inflammation.
This means working out doesn't just help you feel better in the moment. Over time, it can actually help calm the inflammation that makes asthma harder to manage. So don't just rest. Let's move. Let's exercise. Let's consistently exercise reduces baseline inflammation. Improve your asthma. Now this one, I had to do some digging scientifically, and what I learned is that consistent [00:10:00] movement improves CO2 tolerance.
What does this mean? Wow. Asthma often feels like low oxygen. But it's really the body panicking when CO2 builds up, which makes breathing speed up and the chest feel tight, CO2 builds up. That's when we exhale. We expel CO2 from our body. Well, when we exercise and we build our lung capacity, our lungs are stronger and they push out more.
CO2. It's just how it works. Regular movement trains your lungs and brain to stay calm when breathing gets uncomfortable instead of panicking. So really when you start panicking, when you start having an asthma attack, instead of stopping breathing, you need to calm down and send that CO2 out. That's why when I run, I do different things like sequential breathing where I'm like, whew.
And I'll do this like in conjunction with a song. I'll get a song on it as a good beat, and I'll get breathing on the beat. This [00:11:00] helps me calm my body, calm my mind, create a mind to body, mind breath connection, a mind lung connection, so I can expel CO2 and open my lungs back up for fresh oxygen over time.
This leads to better breathing control, less chest tightness, and fewer asthma flares. From stress or exercise, I had to look this up because I've always wondered why when I go into the sequential breathing, why it helps me so much. What is actually happening? Well, it's training me to systematically expel CO2 to powerfully expel CO2, bringing room in my lungs to open up to bring in fresh oxygen, and a lot of times, at least for me, when I'm having an asthma.
Attack. I have a lot more control I feel of my exhale than my inhale. The inhale I freak out. I'm like, I, I can't get enough air, but I can press it out. So I press it out and then I open up. Now, remember. [00:12:00] Always check with your healthcare professional. Use your inhaler when you need it. I have a disclaimer in the show notes and in the description.
If you check this out on YouTube, and I have a guide for you. It's my three pillars of healthy living guide. It's my gift to you for spending this time with me today. The three pillars are movement, tracking, and accountability. Movement is the key. You move not only for your asthma, but for longevity. End your life.
We track because what we track expands, so we want to track our healthy foods, we wanna track our exercise. We want to have an accountability partner or a way to keep accountable. So we keep moving and we keep tracking what's good for us. My three pillars of Healthy Living Guide, you can get it in the show notes or in the description below on YouTube.
It is my free guide. It is my gift to you so that you. Just by taking a couple minutes of your time, have three tools that you can start integrating into your life today. You can also go to athlete with asthma.com/healthy Living Guide to grab your free copy. I'll see you in the next [00:13:00] 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 redefining what's possible.
