Stop a painful cough in 3 simple steps – no cough syrup required!

Whether it’s persistent or comes with a hack and a wheeze before leaving you breathless, a cough is more than an annoyance. For some, troubled breathing and a consistent cough seem like a part of life they’ll never get away from. Others were considerably luckier.

Using specific breathing technique called the Buteyko Emergency Procedure has helped over a quarter of a million of asthmatics fall asleep more easily. A cough is never welcome, but you’ve got to ask it to leave when it’s time for bed – and the cough always overstays its welcome.

Doctors in Russia (and USSR) have been using the Buteyko breathing method for over 40 years, and teaching it to patients with asthma, COPD, bronchitis, emphysema, cystic fibrosis, and other respiratory conditions. It works for a dry cough at night, a nagging cough, even excessive to severe coughing.

So What’s The Technique?

First, let’s discuss coughing. When you cough you breath about 3-5 times more air than normal. Usually referred to as hyperventilating, this deprives your body of much-needed oxygen. Overbreathing reduces oxygen levels in the brain, heart, and all the other vital organs.

There are 3 preliminary steps to breathing better and stopping coughing at night:

Go to sleep when you are really tired, not earlier.
Before and during sleep, breathe only through your nose.
Don’t sleep on your back.

Just Relax

When you get in bed relax all your muscles, lying on your stomach or the left side.
Pinch your nose and hold your breath until it’s uncomfortable.
If you start to cough, cough only through your nose – inhale through your nose too.

When you can no longer hold your breath, take in a small inhalation through your nose.

If you have a persistent cough, limit your inhalations and exhalations. After you inhale, relax your body – especially your upper chest and shoulders, while exhaling slowly. When you breathe out, it should be natural and unforced. Repeat the small inhalation, relaxed exhalation process.

Control The Cough

With each repetition take a smaller inhalation. The goal is to gently create the hunger for more air while your body relaxes. You’ll start to experience a light hunger for air, symptomized by your arms and feet getting warmer (in 1-2 minutes) and your nasal passages becoming moist and cool.

Continue this comfortable level of air hunger for as long as it takes to fall asleep. You’ll breathe less and therefore cough less, and be able to fall asleep more easily and naturally. This technique can be used during the day as well when you have the chance to be calm and relaxed.

In this way, meditation and yoga can help with a cough as well, as long as the yoga is not too demanding. Any way to relax your muscles and mucous membranes will help ease a cough. If you can control your breathing, you can control your cough.

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