Do you experience worse asthma at night? Well, you’re not alone. I used to experience it too, and so do many other people with asthma. Let’s take a look at the top 5 reasons why this happens.
- Low Cortisol Level
Your circadian rhythm regulates the amount of cortisol that your body produces. At night, you make less cortisol. Cortisol is a natural steroid hormone that helps reduce inflammation and keeps asthma away. So less cortisol at night means worse asthma.
Low Cortisol levels is one of the main reasons why asthmatics are often asked to take medicines with steroids. Steroid medications, whether inhaled, swallowed, or injected, will take the role that cortisol should be doing for your body.
You can read more about steroids and asthma medicines in this blog post: https://breathingexpert.com/asthma-medicines-over-the-counter/
- Exposure to allergens and irritants
Imagine putting allergens like dust mites, or irritants like fabric conditioners right next to your nose? Doing so will make you easily inhale these irritants and give you an asthma attack.
Well, this is exactly what happens when you lie down and put your face on your pillow. Your bed and pillow is a hotbed for dust mites, dust and molds that accumulate on it during the day. Your pillow may also be reeking with the scent of fabric conditioner which can also trigger asthma. So aside from keeping your bed sheet and pillows clean, I recommend that you avoid using fragrant detergents and fabric conditioners on them.
- Changes in Cold Air and Temperature.
Changes in temperature and humidity levels play a role in triggering your asthma at night. Cold air can constrict airways, making it harder to breathe, while high humidity can create the perfect environment for mold growth, another common asthma trigger.
- Acid Reflux
A very common trigger of asthma is Acid Reflux. As your body digests your dinner it produces more acids. What’s worse is that when you lie down to sleep, your body tilts to its side, causing this acid to “spill” from your stomach to your throat area. This acid in your throat causes you to repeatedly cough and trigger an asthma attack. I explained this in this short video: https://youtube.com/shorts/jsu0X6wSRLg?si=5_pjbUM0ePAct5y7
- Heavy Breathing
The late Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, discovered that people with asthma tend to breathe harder and deeper than those without asthma. This “overbreathing” is one of the causes of the reduced cortisol in your body, increased inhalation of allergens, and can even cause an imbalance in your body’s acid levels. At night, your breathing becomes even deeper when you are exposed to allergens, chemicals, cold air, and humidity.
The most effective management I have discovered is to use the Buteyko Method.
The Buteyko Method is a holistic approach that was developed by Dr. Buteyko himself. After mastering the Buteyko Method, I experienced significant improvement of my night time asthma attacks. Since then, I developed a good way of teaching the Buteyko Method called “Beat Asthma.”
You see, in my masterclass, I will teach you how to maximize cortisol production so that you will have cortisol levels similar to someone without asthma. When this happens, you will feel a significant reduction of your asthma attacks as early as the first week. You can significantly reduce your medicines and possibly even give them up altogether. You can experience being asthma-free and medicine-free for life, just as I have.
I would like to share with you the experience of one of my recent patients. Charm (not her real name), was a 40 plus year old mother from Negros, Philippines. She would wake up every night due to an asthma attack and would nebulize with Salbutamol to get relief.
Within one week of starting the Beat Asthma masterclass online, she noted a reduction on the need to take her medicines. Instead of using her nebulizer every night, she only used it once during the week. As her confidence in using the program improved she eventually had no more night time attacks, and was able to give up her medicines.
The Beat Asthma masterclass is truly one of the best ways to stop your asthma attacks. If you would like to learn more about this masterclass, you may use this link:
https://breathingexpert.com/beat-asthma
