COPD: Treating Chronic Obstructive
Pulmonary Disease

By Alan B. Densky, CH

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a chronic health problem that develops because of injury to lung tissue. This term is used to refer to three different medical diagnoses that are all categorized as COPD. These include emphysema, asthma, and chronic bronchitis.

Asthma is a breathing problem that develops because a person's body views something in the environment, such as chemicals, tobacco smoke, or foods, as a dangerous intruder. The body activates the immune system to release proteins called histamines. Histamines cause inflammation in the lungs to help the body recognize and fight intruders. Over time, the lungs stiffen, making breathing difficult for the asthma sufferer.

People can develop asthma in childhood or even later in life. One of the most important things family members and friends can do to help a person with asthma is to stop smoking cigarettes, because secondhand smoke is deadly. Of course, if a person just diagnosed with asthma smokes, he or she should stop smoking immediately.

Medical doctors also classify chronic bronchitis as a form of COPD. This disease develops when a person has smoked for a long time. Cigarette smoke causes tar, other chemicals, and bacteria to become trapped in the lungs. The bacteria cause repeated infections in the airway passages, or bronchi, of the lungs.

Chronic bronchitis scars and stiffens these passages. People who suffer from this condition find deep breathing and strenuous exercise difficult. Since their lung tissues are stiff and scarred, it causes them to be short of breath, even with only small amounts of activity. Sometimes, if these people quit smoking, some of their symptoms will diminish.

The third lung disease categorized as COPD is emphysema. The lungs contain tiny air sacs at the end of the bronchi. These sacs, called alveoli, inflate and deflate when a person breathes in and out. People with emphysema, however, cannot exhale completely because the air remains trapped in these sacs. Therefore, people with emphysema become short of breath and cannot take deep breaths. If they can find ways to stop smoking, some of these symptoms improve.

Medications and breathing exercises can be prescribed to help people with these lung conditions. Despite medications and exercises, however, people with COPD have high anxiety levels. Having COPD is like being underwater and holding your breath. Although you try to stay under longer, you need to breathe - right now! So you rise to the surface and take a deep breath. Unfortunately, people with COPD cannot just surface and take a deep breath. 

Some stop smoking programs help people with COPD. Most of these people understand that smoking makes their breathing problem worse. The majority have been smoking for most of their lives, however, which can make consciously quitting very difficult. Living with this anxiety can be difficult. 

Although many stop smoking programs are available, most actually encourage people to use conscious effort to quit smoking. Because the habit of smoking is deeply ingrained at the unconscious level of mind, relatively few people who make a conscious decision to stop smoking are able to stay quit without making changes at the unconscious level. Furthermore, most of these programs focus on a smoker's physical addiction to nicotine, which addresses only about 10 percent of a person's cigarette smoking addiction.

Many quit smoking programs claim to help people learn how to relax. The most effective of these programs are the ones that use Ericksonian hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Polarity responses are all too often the case when one uses traditional hypnosis and direct post-hypnotic suggestions.

Ericksonian hypnotherapy relies on metaphors, which communicate suggestions for peace to the unconscious in such a way as to overcome one's propensity to do the opposite of what one is told to do. Many people who learn to relax using the NLP Flash technique often find themselves able to manage their anxiety and panic attacks much better. And that helps them to breathe more easily. 

Ericksonian Hypnosis offers an exciting alternative strategy to help people learn how to quit smoking. Professionals who practice this school of treatment understand that the problem is rooted in the unconscious. Therefore, they assist people to attack the problem at the unconscious level, through stop smoking hypnosis. Unlike traditional programs, hypnosis to quit smoking focuses on stress reduction, the psychological addiction, and the habit. Together these aspects of the smoking behavior total 90 percent of a person's smoking addiction. 

Through Ericksonian hypnotherapy and NLP, COPD patients can live a longer, fuller life. These approaches teach people with breathing problems how to control all forms of anxiety. They also help the person to eliminate the unconscious associations one creates between cigarettes and their environment over a lifetime of smoking. By doing this, cravings and compulsions to smoke are extinguished. These two therapies offer new hope to people with chronic lung problems.

Summary: Three chronic lung conditions are categorized as COPD. These include asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema. Controlling anxiety related to breathing and finding ways to quit smoking are two of the best ways to help people with COPD live longer, fuller lives. Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP strategies are very successful at helping people learn to control anxiety and stop smoking.
 

© 2007By Alan B. Densky, CH.  This document may NOT be re-printed without permission. All Rights Reserved.  We are happy to syndicate our articles to approved websites.