Making an Allergy Asthma Relief Personalized Plan
Do you have a personalized allergy asthma relief plan? You should! I originally got the idea from the HALT of Alcoholics Anonymous. Since I’m not a member, forgive me if I get this wrong (and feel free to correct me in the comments), but the way I understand it is that the HALT acronym is a reminder to check in with yourself regularly and see if you’re:
- Hungry
- Angry
- Lonely, or
- Tired
If you find any of these are true for you, you fix that before taking any other actions or making any decisions.
The acronym for a personal Allergy Asthma Relief plan is BECS and it stands for:
- Breathing
- Exercise
- Care
- Stress
Any time I feel my anxiety rising, I check in on these four areas. I ask myself, “How’s my breathing?” and then I make a conscious effort to improve it if I can (sometimes, I just need to focus on breathing out more fully, but sometimes the best solution is to just acknowledge that I’m having trouble breathing, and to remind myself that that does make me feel anxious).
The next question in this personal Allergy Asthma Relief plan is: Have I gotten some exercise today? This is always a great place for me to start, even when I’m having trouble breathing. Obviously, I want to avoid exercise-induced asthma, so when my breathing is labored, I choose exercise that helps increase my lung capacity gently like stretching or very slow yoga. I find the exercise often helps me reduce any anxiety I might be feeling as a result of my asthma.
Third, I ask myself, “Have I done anything to take care of myself today?” I start with the usual suspects for treating allergic asthma and then move on to those things that help me feel cared for like sipping a cappuccino out on the patio.
Fourth, I check in on my stress levels and make sure that, if I need to, I give myself a breathing break to reduce any stress that I’m feeling.
For three of the four steps in this system, the solution is usually really straightforward–exercise, breathe deeply, etc. But, for the “care” step, I’ve found that sometimes that’s a stretch to impliment in my allergy asthma relief plan. So, what I’ve done is written up a list (this is where the “personal” part of the plan comes in) of all those things that help me feel cared for. Some of the things on the list have no relation to allergy asthma at all (like bringing fresh flowers into the house–careful with this one if you’re allergic to flowers!!) and others are directly related like listening to my meditation tape for a few minutes.
Today, take some time to come up with your own ten items that’ll make you feel cared for–having the list will make it so much easier to ask and answer these four questions and then take action on something that’ll fulfill each of these areas.
Once you’ve created your personal Allergy Asthma Relief plan, post it here in the comments–I’d love to know what’s working for you!
Comments
Leave a Reply