Massage Therapy For Asthma

Asthma can cause a slouching posture. This in turn causes an inefficient breathing pattern which can even play a part in triggering further attacks: a self-perpetuating cycle. Can massage help you get out of this cycle? Can it help you manage your asthma?

- Adele Kannemeyer

‘Breath is life’ – a phrase from a yoga book I picked up by chance a long time ago. As someone who lived with asthma then, that simple phrase had a profound impact.

BREATH AND POSTURE: THE SYMBIOSIS 

Each and every cell in our bodies needs oxygen to function. Air flow, lung volume, gas exchange and respiratory muscle strength dictates how efficiently your body performs and in so doing will affect your health and wellbeing.

People who live with asthma typically have a slumping posture, with rounded shoulders, a degree of hunching of the upper back, a hollow chest and a forward-poking head. 1,8 A slouching posture restricts movement of the ribcage and diaphragm, which directly impacts your lung capacity which leads to a poor respiratory flow. When you inhale, your belly and chest should expand as they fill up with air, like a balloon. First your lungs fill up, there is an exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen after which the chest relaxes when you exhale. 2 This seems pretty straight forward and simple, however, if you live with a breathing pattern disorder the muscles and structures used for breathing become tight and tense, their movement becomes restricted, which in turn leads your breathing to become less efficient and results in an imbalance in your body.

While asthma is not specifically a condition of the muscles, incorrect breathing patterns lead to chronic muscle spasm and pain. Since the breathing pattern is inefficient, you can also seem breathless, and fatigue more easily. Leon Chaitow, a leading osteopath who specialisesin breathing pattern disorders, claims that breathing affects almost all aspects of your health and wellbeing therefore ‘there is probably no more important an issue for massage therapists to give attention to than breathing function and dysfunction.’