Pursed-Lip Breathing

Do you sometimes feel you can't catch your breath? Do you huff and puff when you climb stairs, walk up a hill, or just walk to the bathroom? Do you often find yourself feeling breathless and have to stop to catch your breath? Using the pursed-lip breathing technique can help your breathlessness.

When you're short of breath, you may feel anxious and try to breathe faster in an attempt to desperately catch your breath. Fast breathing may cause more air may get trapped in your lungs, and then you end up feeling worse. So what should you do when you just can't breathe? Pursed-lip breathing may help.

Use Pursed-Lip Breathing To Get Out of Your Lungs

Relax. Let your neck and shoulders droop.

Breathe in slowly.

Purse your lips in a whistling position, and blow out slowly and evenly. Try to take at least twice as long to blow out as you did breathing in.

Relax and repeat the pursed-lip breathing until you no longer feel breathless. If you begin to feel dizzy, rest for a few breaths.

Choose several times each day to practice pursed-lip breathing. Schedule your pursed-lip breathing at times that are easy for you to remember; better yet, mark your calendar or post a note in an area of your home you visit frequently during the day. Make pursed-lip breathing a habit.

Perform Pursed-Lip Breathing When You Are Breathless

Use pursed-lip breathing whenever you do anything that makes you short of breath, such as climbing stairs, bathing, or doing housework. If you're short of breath, do pursed-lip breathing to help free your lungs of stale air; then, you can breathe in more fresh air.

Perform Pursed-Lip Breathing At Night

During the night, if you have a breathless spell, sit with your feet on the floor, and do pursed-lip breathing until you feel better.

Why Pursed-Lip Breathing is Effective

Trapped, stale air is what causes shortness of breath. So before you can breathe in fresh air, you need to get the old air out. That's hard because of clogged, narrow airways or damaged air sacs deep in your lungs or both. When you breathe out slowly through pursed lips, you keep up the air pressure in your airways. That helps them stay open so that you can breathe out more stale air.

Important: To be sure your diaphragm is moving properly, ask your doctor, nurse, or respiratory therapist to go through the exercise with you.

Source: American Lung Association of Washington
Updated: 12/22/05