What is COPD? COPD or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a common lung disease that makes us getting a hard time to breath. There are two types of COPD, emphysema, andchronic bronchitis. Chronic bronchitis is a long-lasting cough and mucus while emphysema involves the damage to your lungs over time. What is the cause of COPD? Smoking, most of the people that have COPD are people who smoke from a very long time. What are the symptoms of COPD? Having a hard time to breathe when engaging into physical activities, chest tightens, wheezing, having mucus on your throat every time you wake up because of the excess mucus from your lungs, unwanted weight loss, swelling of your feet or ankles, lacking energy and blueness from your lips and nails.
How can our community prevent COPD?
As an individual, we always have to start from ourselves if we want to help our community. If I am a smoker I need to try to stop it or at least minimize it for the sake of my health and others that may get second-hand smoke coming from me. It is understandable that smoking is addictive and once you started smoking it is very hard for you to stop we can help give you some tips in order for you to stop or minimize smoking and spread awareness to others on your community. First things first is you need to have a reason, find a reason that can make you motivated that can help you on quitting, for example, make your family your reason, you do not want to leave them very early because of the chance of you getting lung cancer is very high and you might die at a very young age or even. Second is you got to be prepared, quitting on smoking will always have drawbacks your body will experience withdrawal symptoms because of being used of having a high amount of nicotine in it, consult your doctor first and ask medications if withdrawal occurs. Make your family and friends help you on what you are trying to achieve, they can motivate you and can stop you whenever you are very eager to smoke. You can also try going to a therapist and ask them for some tips on how to stop smoking. Do not rush yourself into quitting, it is always a slow process. Start first by minimizing the number of cigarettes you smoke every day until your addiction will slowly fade. Be engaging in physical activities such as exercising, making it a habit will disappoint you on smoking because you will be afraid to lose all your gains once you smoke that one stick of cigarette. Surround yourself with a group of people that do not smoke, first of all, you started smoking because of peer pressure, having people around you that does not smoke makes it easier for you to adopt instead of going with people who smoke heavily that can always tempt you into smoking.
