5 Lifestyle Modifications That Can Help Prevent Asthma Attacks

About half of asthma patients have at least one attack a year according to CDC data, and the attacks are more common in children than in adults. Of course, some people experience multiple attacks per week, or even per day, as a result of a very severe form of the disease and/or inappropriate treatment.

Quality of life is considered a primary measure of the impact a disease has on someone’s life. Asthma-related quality of life highly depends on its severity, and in some cases, it can be significantly lower than in healthy individuals. Although, by definition, people with asthma should be symptom-free between attacks, they cannot always foresee when an attack will happen.

However, there are some lifestyle modifications that can help prevent asthma attacks, and additionally, improve quality of life in asthma patients.

Know your triggers

It is very important to determine the origin of your asthma. Since the most common form of asthma is allergic, knowing to which allergens your body reacts can help you stay away from these specific allergens. Granted, it is hard to avoid tree pollen in the spring or grass pollen during late summer and autumn, but if you know your allergies, you can take preventive measures during these problematic periods. Your doctor may recommend a temporary increase in your daily dose of corticosteroids, taking an antihistamine drug and/or an extra dose of your inhaler before going hiking in nature.

Quit or do not start smoking 

In contrast to some allergens, this trigger can be avoided. Avoid using cigarettes and keep out of rooms that are filled with smoke to avoid second-hand smoke. For people who have asthma and find it difficult to quit smoking, there are nicotine patches, nicotine pills, meditation, and many other methods they can use to reduce or quit smoking and lower the frequency of asthma attacks.

Avoid cold air

When temperatures are low, people with asthma report asthma attacks more frequently. The worst scenario exists when the air is cold and dry. Cold air causes irritation of the airways, and lack of humidity makes it harder to dissolve the mucus which accumulates in the airways in patients with asthma.

The solution could be wearing a scarf over your mouth and nose when you are out in the cold. That way, you will keep some of the moisture in the scarf fabric and the air will get warmed up before it enters your airways. The least you can do, even without a scarf, is to inhale through your nose. While passing through the nasal part of the airway system, the air will warm up more than if you inhale through your mouth.

Try to prevent respiratory infections

Upper and lower respiratory infections can increase the frequency of asthma attacks for obvious reasons – the inflammation and production of mucus are even more intense than in an asthma patient without a respiratory infection. Therefore, the common cold, flu, and bacterial infections can cause great problems in asthma patients.

Some people will say that dressing up in warm layers of clothes will help prevent colds, and that may not be complete nonsense. The rhinoviruses that cause common colds indeed like it when the temperature on the surface of your throat and airways is a bit below normal. Flu can be prevented by receiving a flu shot. It significantly reduces your risk of a flu, but even if you do, the symptoms will likely be much lighter than if you don’t receive the vaccine.

Bacterial infections are often preceded by a viral infection. Namely, viral infections can diminish the local immunity of your respiratory system, making it a perfect environment for bacterial superinfection. If a bacterial infection is suspected, your doctor will either prescribe an antibiotic on an empirical basis, or order a nose and throat culture to determine which bacteria you have. Usually it is Streptococcus pyogenes or Staphylococcus aureus. Bacterial infections need to be treated with antibiotics.

Take your medications

Although this is a crucial advice, it is also very hard to persuade people with asthma to follow it. Simply being in a phase when don’t have symptoms, does not mean that you are cured. It means either that there are no triggers around you or that your treatment is working well. This is the phase in which many people stop using their drugs, most commonly inhalated corticosteroids, which are necessary to keep the chronic inflammation of the airways under control. Your doctor can decide to lower the daily dose of your corticosteroid if your spirometry results are consistently improved, but you should not quit treatment until your doctor orders so, because the symptoms can return and affect your airways even harder if they are not consistently protected.