Keeping your Lungs Healthy│National Healthy Lung Month

Saturday, October 24, 2015 Sara Wallflower 9 Comments

Hello everybody!

As you may or may not know, October is National healthy lung month and because of that I was asked by a lovely Heather Von St. James to help raise awareness. At first I was a bit sceptical, as I thought how can a seventeen year old girl help to raise the awareness of such an important thing as keeping your lungs healthy and lung diseases such as cancer? Would people even take my words serious or would my voice just vanish in a crowd of more important voices?  

I know how it is to lose someone you love due to cancer. My grandmother died because of cancer before I was even born, so I didn’t get a chance to meet her. And it sucks that people lose their family, friends, neighbours etc. because of cancer. And that encouraged me in writing about Healthy lung month. Because it doesn’t matter how old are you, if you have survived cancer or if you know someone who has cancer... We all have the power to spread our words about anything we want and if those words can bring something good to other people or can help them in any way possible- then we shouldn’t remain silent.

You may ask yourself, why should we even talk about lung cancer?
Well lung cancer is the number one killer of women (and also men) and the lung death rate in women has more than doubled over the past 35 years. Here in Slovenia, the incidence of lung cancer in women has been continually increasing, and in 1998 (the year when I was born), the lung cancer represented 5% of all cancers.

And anyone can get lung cancer. Some people may think that they don’t need to care about lung cancer, because it hadn’t affected them or people close to them. But we shouldn’t just care about the things that are affecting us and we should do our best to help people that have survived cancer, have cancer and people that have lost someone due to cancer.

So how should we keep our lungs healthy and at least try to prevent lung cancer? Here are some of the causes of lung cancer and some tips on how to prevent it:

Smoke

I’ve just realised that this may turn into a total personal rant, but I hate people that smoke. Smoking is the main contributor to lung cancer and cigarette smoke contain at least 73 known carcinogens. That’s why I hate seeing people smoking, especially seeing young mothers holding baby in one hand and a cigarette in other hand.
And the most disgusting thing I find about smokers- people that surround them can get lung cancer too. Passive smoking causes about 3400 deaths from lung cancer each year in the USA.
So don’t smoke. Especially if you have children, don’t smoke. Don’t increase the chances of getting a lung cancer and don’t make them passive smokers. Smoking doesn’t only harm your lungs, but if affects nearly every organ of your body and also your overall health.

Radon gas and asbestos

Since I think that those two causes are more common in USA, I admit I haven’t known much about the affects of radon gas and asbestos before, so I had to do a little research. Usually, the time from exposure to onset of illness is long, as people fall ill after 20 to 40 years after exposure.
Asbestos can cause variety of lung diseases, including asbestosis and lung cancer- it can cause a rare form of cancer, called mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer that most commonly attacks the lining of the lungs. Since mesothelioma is quite a rare form of cancer and not many people know about it, you can read about it here.
 Asbestos is used in many consumer and construction products and is not yet banned in the U.S. and Canada, but it is banned in Slovenia since 2003. Cigarette smokers who are also exposed to asbestos are about 50 to 84 times more likely to develop asbestos related diseases.

Air pollution

Outdoor pollution has a small effect on increasing the risk of lung cancer, but we’re breathing dangerously high levels of polluted air every day. I know we can’t do much to prevent air pollution, but we can at least ride a bike or walk to school/ work, work from home...

Genetics

Lung cancer can be genetic, in relatives with lung cancer, the risk is increased 2.4 times. If your family has a history of cancer, you should monitor your symptoms carefully.

It’s true that October is the National healthy lung month, but you should try and keep your lungs healthy throughout the whole year. You can do that by practising deep breathing exercises or any other breathing technique, by staying hydrated, because drinking enough water is important for your lungs and also for the rest of your body and by exercising.

And finally, in my opinion the most important thing to keep your lungs healthy, is laughing. Believe it or not, laughing is a great exercise to work the abdominal muscles and increase lung capacity, so don’t forget to laugh every day!

I’m really grateful to Heather, who really encouraged me in researching and writing about lung cancer with her heartbreaking story. You can read her story about surviving cancer here.

Here are some of Heather's photos:



Love, Sara 

9 comments:

  1. Your Blog is really cool !!
    Like your posts :-)

    Swanted
    www.swanted.de

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great feature, love. We need to be aware of the polution and the bad modern lifestyle which may cause us deseases.
    Heather is amazing and I'm really happy she overcame it! Amazing story :)

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  3. Thank you for this wonderful feature! Lung cancer is a big deal & people don't realize that you don't have to be a smoker to get it. Here's to staying healthy! :]

    // ▲ itsCarmen.com ▲

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  4. Thanks for sharing this. Not very many bloggers write about topics that actually matter. I had no idea October was healthy lung month. But now I know :)

    Just found your blog and I'm glad I did. I'm now following you on GFC, Bloglovin, and Instagram (@azucena_robledo).

    xo Azu

    www.raven-locks.blogspot.com

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  5. I had the WORST asthma attack a couple of nights ago... lung health is SUPER important to me! Great post, thank you for sharing! <3 - www.domesticgeekgirl.com

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  6. I had the WORST asthma attack a couple of nights ago... lung health is SUPER important to me! Great post, thank you for sharing! <3 - www.domesticgeekgirl.com

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  7. Great post! I really liked it:)
    Happy sunday,
    xoxo
    http://stylishpatterns.blogspot.com.es

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Sara for knowing us such informative healthy tips.
    BeautyTips

    ReplyDelete

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