Asthma is a disease caused by environmental and genetic factors. Genetic factors that make people prone to suffer from asthma are unavoidable; the disease is inherited to the parents. It may have been in the family for many, many years or it may have started with the great grandfather being allergic to a certain dust, or dog hair, or whatever that made him asthmatic and passing on the genes to the grandfather and so on. There is nothing that can be done to avoid or stop it.
Environmental causes are almost impossible to avoid. Smoke is in the air, flowers release their pollen into the air, and factories never stop polluting and so on and so forth. But there are environmental factors that we can avoid and these are key factors that will give you a better chance of escaping this disease. Smoking any type of tobacco is one of these factors; tobacco smoke thins and irritates the membranes of the air passages to your lungs. Smokers have less protection from allergens and if they do have asthma and their airways close, their lungs’ capacity for air is much less than that of a non-smoker of the same age and build. In a severe asthma attack it is highly probable that a smoker will lose consciousness before a non- smoker does because of his diminished lung capacity.
Overweight is another factor you can avoid. Overweight is another factor that can trigger an asthma attack when lying down at night. The excessive weight pushes up. Against the lungs and airways making breathing difficult, this condition may trigger asthma. Emotional stress does not only affect your mind and peace, it affects your body too. In more ways than we believe it does. Stress can induce you to eat out of control, or smoke more than a person normally does. Sleeping while under stress makes a person tighten his jaws and turn around and around in bed, waking feeling worst then when you went to sleep. Stress can and will trigger an asthmatic reaction too, and if you combine it with overweight the result can be devastating.
We can’t control the environment around us, we must live with it as is. But there a certain behaviors, like those mentioned above that should be avoided completely. A healthy diet including vegetables and fruit, and reducing fat and carbohydrates; will keep your body strong which in turn will benefit you by reducing the intensity of asthma attacks. A simple exercise plan will also benefit the asthmatic person by allowing his air lung capacity to increase allowing him to take in more air even if his airways are constricting.
Smoking is a dirty habit and it is totally unnecessary and tasteless. If you must go out at night, wear a cap, a hat anything that will protect you from the cold night air. Do not walk around the house barefooted on the cold floor. Take your medication on time every day. Follow your doctor’s instructions exactly. Small details that will not take any time away from your schedule can make great differences when you are trying to avoid asthma and its consequences.