Conscious Breathing
​Conscious breathing can transform your life. It can change the way you think and process emotions, how your respiratory system works, how often you get ill, your chances of developing chronic diseases. From the nervous and cardiovascular systems, right down to your body’s individual cells, conscious breathing has the ability to transform and renew your health.
Impaired breathing habits are very common, therefore all aspirations for improved health and increased well-being should include conscious breathing exercises as a basic component.
​When you engage your breath, you are activating your nervous and cardiovascular systems. With each inhale and exhale, your breath helps regulate, recover, and restore your body. The science behind conscious breathing is a great reminder of how our bodies have a natural ability to be resilient. Regardless of where you're starting out, you can learn to breathe better. We can establish new breathing habits in a simple, and effective way anytime, anywhere.
Here are some tips and techniques that we recommend exploring in your journey toward healthier conscious breathing. Carving out a few minutes each day for conscious breathing exercise can help you reduce stress, feel calmer, and have more energy — all good things when it comes to living a healthy, well-balanced lifestyle. Next step is to increase your oxygen levels.
Occupational Therapy Services
Pulmonary Function Test
A spirometry test plays an important role in the diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), even in its earlier stage before any obvious symptoms are noticeable. The assessment allows your occupational therapy technician to track and monitor the progression with spirometry test scores and conduct rehab programs for early intervention. If you have symptoms like increased mucus, shortness of breath, or a persistent cough, consider this test to monitor your lung function and help track and manage your pulmonary condition. COPD is a preventable and/or treatable respiratory disease. It can be characterized by progressive airflow limitation and chronic inflammation, do not ignore the symptoms.
What you should know about the COPD Test Scores.
Pulmonary Rehabilitation
​Oxygen (O2) Therapy and Ozone (O3) Therapy are vital components for a pulmonary rehabilitation program to assist those with moderate to severe COPD, either during a COPD exacerbation or when the disease is stable and blood oxygen levels are low. The goal of oxygen therapy is to maintain blood oxygen at a level that meets the body’s demand for oxygen, usually above 89%. While a higher oxygen saturation may be ideal, people with COPD have difficulty maintaining higher oxygen saturation because of the damage to their lungs. In this case, mild supplemental oxygen inhalation is a functional approach to deliver Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) as a therapeutic intervention.
Physical activity is also recommended for COPD patients to exercise the respiratory muscles as a component of a rehabilitation program. Medical Qigong and Whole Body Vibration (WBV) are modalities of physical activity, both are evidence based therapeutic approaches we consider delivering respiratory muscular training. Either one coupled with supplemental oxygen inhalation, makes EWOT an effective non-pharmacological intervention. Book your COPD Test to see if you're eligible for our Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program.
Effect of Supplemental Oxygen on Human Body and Health
Oxygen is the most vital nutrient for the human body. Every cell in the body needs oxygen to complete the metabolic processes that gives life. Oxygen provides the fuel needed by the brain to function properly, and it helps the body fight off infection by boosting the immune system. Mild supplemental oxygen is suitable for all ages including pregnant woman, students, and especially athletes to help eliminate fatigue, and restore somatic function after heavy physical or mental exertion.
Portable Oxygen Concentrators (POC) provide a highly effective way to increase the volume of oxygen in the blood, combats oxidative stress and thus increase the many beneficial effects of quality oxygen in the body:
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Respiratory System: improves lung function. 30 minutes after mild oxygen inhalation, the lung is able to inhale 20% more oxygen and exhale 14.5% more carbon dioxide.
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Blood: increases the number of white and red blood cells, hemoglobin, reticulocyte, blood platelet, globin, heightens pH reading and shortens blood forming time.
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Immune System: improves reflex system and endothelial system and enhances body's anti-disease ability.
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Cardiovascular System: significantly reduces blood pressure, improves cardiac muscle function, and facilitates the dilation of capillary vessel, and the rise of skin temperature, and provides oxygen nutrition to the cerebrovascular system.
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Nerve System: energizes whole body, improves sleep quality, eases pain and tension.
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Metabolism: activates different enzymes in body, reduces blood sugar level, cholesterol, increases blood calcium, increases the amount of nitrogen and creatinine in urine, accelerates bone growth, prevents scurvy, rachitis and vitamin insufficiency.
Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT)
Exercise with oxygen therapy introduces a new, simple way of delivering oxygen into the cells. With a basic exercise routine like rebounding or just walking 15min a day, combined with mild oxygen inhalation from a Portable Oxygen Concentrator (POC), one can oxygenate the cells allowing them to recharge and detoxify efficiently as they uptake supplemental oxygen nutrition.
The simplicity of the POC we endorse makes it safe to operate, delivering 3L p/min continues concentration of 30% pure oxygen. It is the lightest (830g) and smallest in its category, comes with a shoulder and waist bag for athletes. Load shedding free with a powerful onboard battery providing eight hours of continues operation, yet rechargeable on 220/240V or 12V car chargers. It is one of the few Portable Oxygen Concentrators that is electromagnetic radiation free, safe to use in proximity to the body all day long.