Can children with asthma exercise? Pediatric experts actually said

Many parents believe that their children’s asthma will flare up if they exercise, so they don’t allow their children to exercise. This is a misunderstanding. Although exercise may trigger asthma attacks, moderate physical exercise can enhance children's immunity and effectively prevent asthma. Children with asthma are more likely to have asthma attacks because of their emotional stress, long-term inactivity, and poor resistance to disease.

Can I exercise if I have asthma?

On the premise that asthma is under control through long-term and standardized use of asthma control drugs, children with asthma can participate in moderate exercise and will not feel tired after moderate exercise, such as walking, jogging, doing gymnastics, riding a bicycle slowly, etc. Different exercises and exercise durations have different effects on asthma relief. The more intense the exercise, the greater the chance of triggering asthma. Vigorous running, mountain climbing, ball games and other activities have a relatively higher chance of causing exercise-induced asthma; swimming, cycling, rowing and other activities have a lower chance of causing asthma; and light exercises such as walking and gymnastics have an even lower chance of causing asthma.

Best time to exercise for children with asthma

The longer an exercise session lasts, the greater the chance of triggering asthma. Generally speaking, exercise-induced asthma may be triggered after 5 to 10 minutes of intense exercise, and less than 5 minutes rarely causes an asthma attack.

Swimming is the best sport for children with asthma

Since the density of water is hundreds of times greater than that of air, the chest cavity is subjected to great pressure when exercising in water. In particular, when inhaling, one has to overcome the pressure of the water. This is tantamount to a "weight-bearing exercise" for the respiratory muscles. Therefore, swimming can make the respiratory muscles strong, increase the mobility of the chest cavity, and greatly increase lung capacity. When swimming, the body moves forward in a horizontal position. The blood circulation in the body is not affected by gravity; in addition, the water flow has a massaging effect on the blood vessels on the surface of the body, which is beneficial to venous return, thus promoting blood circulation. Therefore, people who swim for a long time have well-developed heart muscles and stronger heart contractions.

In addition, since swimming takes place in water, there are differences between human body temperature, water temperature and air temperature. Even when the air temperature and water temperature are the same, people feel differently. For example, when the water temperature is 20℃, people will feel cold in the water, but feel warm in the air of the same temperature; when the water temperature is 30℃, people will feel cool and comfortable in the water, but feel a little hot in the air of the same temperature. Therefore, regular swimming activities can improve the body's temperature regulation function and play a role in preventing respiratory diseases.