Singing with asthma
I haven't seen this topic discussed here much. But did you know singing is another way to help asthma? Not when you're having a flare up or an attack, but like on a good day. When you do breathing exercises and sing properly you are actually helping your lung capacity! I haven't seen this topic discussed here before. (but granted I'm pretty new here haha) But are there any other asthmatic vocalists around here?
Hi Wild Tech - you've brought up an interesting topic regarding asthma and singing. In fact, we do have some material, published right here in our asthma.net community, which speaks to this topic. For starters, here is a link to one of them: https://asthma.net/living/friendly-exercises.
I thought this might be a good place to start.
I also thought you might gain some additional insight from this article (which was cited in the references from that asthma.net article): https://www.nature.com/articles/npjpcrm201680
Pretty cool stuff!!
Wishing you well,
Leon (site moderator asthma.net)Super cool!
I agree, Wild Tech!!
Stay well and enjoy the weekend and holiday if you are celebrating.
Regards,
Leon (site moderator asthma.net)Actually, one of the respiratory therapists here,
, is a singer and musician. 😀 I also tagged her above so she can stop by and speak for herself if and when she has the time. 😀
I do not have asthma (as far as I know), but I do have a bit of a smaller lung capacity because of my premature birth. When I was younger, I learned to play the clarinet and joined the school band when I was around 11. That was actually a huge factor in increasing my lung capacity and feeling stronger generally.
I don't play clarinet these days -- it is gathering dust in my closet -- but I have been singing in a women's choir recently. It's amazing how much you learn about your body and lungs by singing properly, especially when it's been a long time! Talk about a workout. Once again, I find that after about a year of practice I tend to breathe deeper now, from the diaphragm. My singing has gotten better during this time too because of better breath support. Yay!
How about you? Thanks for bringing up this fun topic. -Melissa, asthma.net team
Hi, yes I'm a singer and have asthma 😀 I do find it helps - although sometimes if my voice is a bit weird I take my inhaler and that usually fixes it! Yeah I'm joining choir in the fall! I'm so excited! Exciting! Is this a school choir or a community group? I joined a choir for women in my area back in February 2020 ... I bet you can guess how that went! We had 5 rehearsals before we had to stop. We had a couple stop-and-starts, and by the time we had our first concert, it was May of 2022 and over half the group had left! Yikes. But we are rebuilding now and I am excited to be singing again ... I sang in my school years but stopped afterward. I was so anxious getting back out there after all those years, but it was so rewarding. I hope you have a great time! -Melissa, asthma.net team
