Personal hygiene and physical training for women

by Anna M. Galbraith

When the woman has conquered these first principles of respiration, she is ready to put them into practice in the standing posture. They should be learned before a mirror, and after that taken before an open window. The hands should be placed on the hips; first elevating the collar-bones and the shoulders to the utmost, while still holding the breath, she expands the chest, always breathing in from above downward, and, lastly, the diaphragm is depressed. With the lungs thus expanded to their utmost capacity, the breath is held as long as possible, then the lungs are emptied by an abrupt and forced expiration.

These exercises should be repeated at first ten times, gradually increasing to thirty times. It is well to take one or two ordinary respirations between the forced ones.

It will be found that, as these exercises proceed and the lungs are filled with purer air, the breath can be held for a longer period of time, and that with practice the length of time that the breath can be held is greatly increased; it should be held for half a minute. Public speakers, singers, and divers are all skilful in this respect.

When these simple breathing exercises have been mastered, breathing exercises can be combined with other exercises, which have as their aim the development of the muscles of the chest.

Reading aloud, singing, talking, laughing, are all good exercises for developing the capacity of the lungs.

The Cure of Chronic Bronchitis by Deep-breathing Exercises.—The upper part of the body must be nude and the exercises taken before a mirror, so that the woman can watch the movements of the chest and abdomen, see that all the hollows of the chest are filled out during forced inspiration, and that the muscles of the abdomen are properly retracted. For the average woman this last will be the most difficult; in beginning these exercises she will find that it will require all her concentrated energy and will power to cause a retraction of these disused muscles.

Patients with chronic bronchitis do not have the ability to perform forced respiration properly. The respirations are too superficial, and the respiratory movements are not properly performed.

As respiration is ordinarily performed, the partial expansion of the upper part of the chest is accompanied by a contraction of the abdominal muscles, whereby the diaphragm is forced upward, with the result that the lower part of the lungs remains very slightly expanded, whereby the circulation as well as the removal of mucus is imperfectly performed. This lack of forced respiration is a frequent cause of acute bronchitis running into a chronic form.

In chronic bronchitis it is especially in the lower part of the lungs that stagnation of the secretions takes place, and they can only be dislodged from the mucous membrane by forced abdominal expiration and the ascent of the diaphragm. This causes a cough which expels the mucus, and forcible abdominal expiration and cough are the only means of drainage of the lower and deep-seated parts of the lungs. Further, in forced respiration the muscle tissue of the bronchial tubes contracts, which certainly does not take place in ordinary respiration, but, on the contrary, this tissue atrophies.

Other beneficial results from forced respiration are increased oxygenation, improved nutrition, changes of a mechanical nature, ventilation, and disinfection of the lungs, massage of the lungs and pleura, and drainage.