Experts typically recommend sleeping on the side as the best position for breathing problems like snoring and pauses in breathing caused by obstructive sleep apnea.
Sleeping. Lie on your side with a pillow between your legs and your head elevated with pillows. Keep your back straight. Lie on your back with your head elevated and your knees bent, with a pillow under your knees.
Back straight, either supported by chair, or leaning forward to reposition diaphragm. Standing leaning back: against a wall. High side lying: lying on side, rolled well forward to let abdomen incline forward onto bed. Head of bed raised or whole bed tilted up.
Positioning yourself on your side or stomach can help the airways stay open to reduce snoring and alleviate mild apnea, Salas says. Reflux and heartburn: If you suffer from heartburn, sleeping on your right side can make symptoms worse, Salas says.
This technique requires you to lie on your side instead of your stomach. Your hips should be higher than your chest. To do this, place pillows under your hips. This posture tilts your lungs and gravity moves the mucus out.
Lying a patient prone on their front can improve 'ventilation' and open-up these partially deflated areas. Lying prone can improve breathlessness and help get more oxygen into the body. Lying prone can also help your cough to be more effective. This helps with clearing out any secretions that are in your chest.
In adults with unilateral lung disease, arterial oxygenation improves when they are positioned with their good lung down because of improved matching of ventilation and perfusion.
Pursed-lips breathing.
Breathe in quickly through your nose (like smelling a rose) for about 2 seconds. Breathe out slowly through your mouth and keep your lips puckered. This creates a resistance to the air flow and keeps your airways open. (They tend to close up when you breathe out quickly.)
As much as possible, avoid breathing allergens and environmental toxins, such as chemical fumes or secondhand smoke. Avoid extremes in temperature. Activity in very hot and humid or very cold conditions may magnify the dyspnea caused by chronic lung diseases.
Shortness of breath (dyspnea) is most commonly caused by heart or lung conditions. Other causes include anemia, anxiety, lack of exercise or living with obesity.
The position that your body is in during sleep can have a big effect on the airway's posture and your ability to breathe throughout the night. It is normal to use different positions during sleep, but some are better than others.
Inhaling steam from a hot shower or boiling pot of water can open the airways and help loosen and clear mucus from the lungs. Breathing in steam may also provide temporary relief to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients who experience labored breathing.
Pursed Lip Breathing
More air is able to flow in and out of your lungs so you can be more physically active. To practice it, simply breathe in through your nose and breathe out at least twice as long through your mouth, with pursed lips.
Part of pre-intubation and emergency rescue breathing procedures, the head tilt–chin lift maneuver and the jaw-thrust maneuver are 2 noninvasive, manual means to help restore upper airway patency when the tongue occludes the glottis, which commonly occurs in an obtunded or unconscious patient.
Water and your respiratory system: Research has shown that dehydration vastly affects all of the systems in your body including your respiratory system. Drinking water helps to thin the mucus lining your airways and lungs.
Bronchodilators are a type of medication that make breathing easier by relaxing the muscles in the lungs and widening the airways (bronchi). They're often used to treat long-term conditions where the airways may become narrow and inflamed, such as: asthma, a common lung condition caused by inflammation of the airways.
Respiratory failure can also develop slowly. When it does, it is called chronic respiratory failure. Symptoms include shortness of breath or feeling like you can't get enough air, extreme tiredness, an inability to exercise as you did before, and sleepiness.
Secondhand smoke, chemicals in the home and workplace, mold and radon all can cause or worsen lung disease.
The worst sleeping position is anything that has you lying flat, especially sleeping on your stomach but also sleeping flat on your back. Sleeping on your side is considered the best position for keeping airways open. You'll also want to keep your head propped up with a pillow.