Imagine what is would be like to try to breathe with a 300 pound gorilla sitting on your chest. That’ll give you an idea of the panic and helplessness an asthmatic experience during an attack. If you have asthma yourself, you know just what we mean. Fortunately, asthma isn’t always that bad.

Some days you just wheeze – your airways whistle and rattle as you breathe ever so cautiously. You cough – not a healthy, productive cough but a dry, nagging cough. Exercise seem to be entirely out of the question. If you could peer inside your chest, you’d discover what’s behind that struggle for air.

The muscular fibers around the bronchial tubes, or airways, tighten up or twitch at the least provocation – cold air, air pollution, overexertion. Or they act up after on encounter with something to which you’re allergic – pollen, dust, mold spores, pet dander, food or a dog. At the same time, the linings of the lungs react by becoming swollen and inflamed.

And the lungs produce a sticky mucus that no amount of coughing will force out. All that swelling and tightening blocks the free flow of air. That’s asthma. If your have it, you share the frustration of nine millions Americans. In fact, asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood.

Some asthmatics grow out of the disease, just as some teenagers grow out of acne. For others, the years of wheezing and fatigue go on and on. Either way it's a long wait. What con you do to get the gorilla off your chest?

No doubt you’re already learned a few basic defense tactics – farming out the dog, purging the house of dust and mold, shunning whatever foods give you trouble. For some people, such avoidance tactics alone will take care of the brunt of the problem.

”In children, particularly, I find that taking care of the environment – dust control, pet control - may be more than 50 percent of the secret of allergy relief,” says Constantine J. Falliers, M.D., an allergist in Denver, Colorado, and editor of the Journal of Asthma, ”And I’ve seen many people who have just stayed away from food dyes and preservatives, and all their symptoms suddenly disappeared.”

One of the dyes Dr. Falliers is referring to is tartrazine, or FD&C Yellow No. 5, a common problems for asthmatic who may also be sensitive to aspirin, a notorious asthma trigger. Fortunately, foods containing the dye are required to say so on the label. Others asthma triggers, however, are ever present but less obvious.

The biggest offender are pollen, pollution and unexpected pets in other people’s homes – to say nothing of tobacco smoke, an asthma trigger in the sense that it irritates already sensitive airways. So you need to take the offensive – by stopping asthma before it starts, and knowing how to thwart an attack at the earliest warning signal.

Air filters are a basic defense against asthma. Doctors we spoke to told us that the best models are the High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters, which have been known to relieve asthma symptoms within 10 to 30 minutes. A study at a summer camp for asthmatic children in West Virginia found that the use of HEPA filters in the bunkhouses significantly reduced the number and severity of asthma episodes (West Virginia Medical Journal, July, 1977).

At home, air filters are just as effective. ”I nearly always prescribe air filtration,” says Robert W. Boxer, M.D., an allergist in Chicago. ”I feel that it's helpful. I’ve seen patients for whom adding an air filter to their asthma therapy has helped their asthma immensely.”

Still, you can't always life in a well filtered bubble. Some air borne asthma trigger are bound to slip through, gumming up your lings with mucus and strangling your airways. To unstick your breathing equipment, drink plenty of fluids. Water and other beverages act as natural expectorants, keeping mucus thin and coughable, says Doris J. Rapp, M.D., author of Allergies and Your Family (Sterling Publishing, 1981).

She recommends drinking one half to one cup of liquid every walking hour, if at all possible. Just be sure don't drink cold beverages – the chill can shock sensitive airways into spasms. And be careful to avoid drinks that contain cola or food dyes, common asthma triggers.

Taking your beverages hot helps even more. A warm drink acts as a natural bronchodilator, or airways relaxer, as it glides past respiratory passages. Drinking soup or herb tea when you feel an attack coming on will do fine.

”Sometimes a warm liquid relaxes the bronchial tubes and you mat not even need to use your bronchodilator spray,” says Dr. Falliers. ”We’ve had kids in the hospital for treatment, and when they can't breathe, we try to get them to drink something warm, maybe just water or something with a little more flavor, like hot apple cider. They relax, control the panic and start breathing quietly again.”

Controlling panic is a big part of controlling asthma. If you know you’re an asthmatic and begin to sense an attack coming on, you may tend to panic and fight for air. That tightens your chest further. For children, the anxiety is heightened if they see Mom or Dad panic, too.

If your child has has asthma, you can help by simply trying to appear calm and confident, no matter how frantic you may actually feel. The sight of reassuring adult in itself may help the youngster. ”Some children relax the minute they see their doctor enter the room, even before they’re given any medication,” says Dr. Rapp.

Relaxation, in fact, is such a useful shield against asthma that many doctors are teaching child and adult asthmatics variations of the relaxation technique, described in How to Relax Away an Asthma Attack. Because it a form of protection that can be used whenever an asthmatic feels an attack coming on.

In a subconscious effort no to tax temperamental lungs, asthmatics tend to take short, shallow breaths. Doctors call it ”stingy breathing.” By filling and emptying only the top portion of the lungs, however, asthmatics don't pull in enough oxygen. During an attack they get even less.

”The average asthmatic is breathing at only 60 or 70 percent of capacity,” Dr. Falliers told us. ”And during an asthma attack, that can drop to 20 percent.” In the throes of an asthma attack, you may actually turn blue for lack oxygen.

”But if you’re having an asthma attack, you don't think about breathing psychology and oxygen metabolism,” says Dr. Falliers. ”You just think of how to get your next breath.” By learning to breathe deeply and efficiently, you can increase the amount of oxygen you take in, so an attack isn’t nearly as disabling.

Exercise can also help. Interestingly, school teachers who have asthmatic children in their classes are often confused about exercise. On child has a doctor says, ”This child has asthma, so he can't take gym.” Another child’s doctor says, ”This child has asthma and should be encourage to exercise.”

Who’s right? ”They're both right,” says Dr. Falliers. ”Until the asthma has been treated, a child be excused from exercise. But as treatment progresses, the child should be encouraged to develop and improve his or her fitness.” That’s because improving overall fitness can help keep asthma under control.

”If you’re not fit – if you haven’t exercised in six month – and then you start exercising, your heart will beat very fast,” explain Dr. Falliers. ”But if you’re physically fit, your heart will beat more slowly. And a slower heartbeat means better absorption of oxygen from the lungs. Being fit is like having your carburetor properly adjusted: you run and breathe more smoothly.”

Or course, exercise can also help keep your weight down, which is also beneficial for asthmatics. ”If you have two inches of excess fat around your diaphragm. It's going to make it harder for you to breathe,” says Dr. Falliers. ”For a person with asthma – on any kind of breathing problem – being overweight is like wearing a very tight garment. You don't have enough room for your muscles to expand the lungs.”

The type of exercise your choose will make quite a difference in how well you tolerate exercise. Activities that involves brief spurts of action, separated by rests, are much less apt to trigger asthma attacks than sports that call for continuous exertion. An asthmatic who goes in for baseball or golf, for example, is not as likely to start wheezing and coughing as one who plays basketball or runs the mile.

Swimming, too is ideal for asthmatic, provided that rest is taken at proper intervals. ”So often, it's not the exercise that triggers asthma, but fast breathing of cold air,” says Dr. Falliers. ”Cold air irritates sensitive airways. If you breathe through your nose, instead of your mouth, the air will be warned, and you may not react.”

A light, cotton face mask may also help to protect against cold, dry air – or pollen and air pollution, for that matter. Scientists at the National Asthma Center in Denver observed the effectiveness of face masks on ten boys and girls, all asthmatic. After exercising for six or minutes, the youngsters experienced much less asthma than usual – or none at all.

The researchers concluded that a ”simple face mask may be an inexpensive (nondrug) alternative for alleviation of exercise induced asthma” – especially in runners and skiers with asthma (Journal of the American Medical Association, November 14, 1980). Similar research at Yale University also showed the protection offered by face masks against exercise induced asthma.

In both air conditioned and refrigerated rooms, asthmatics with face masks fared better than those without masks – probably due to the rewarming of air inside the mask, said the researchers, adding. ”We have shown inexpensive and effective form of (protection)” (Annals of Allergy, January, 1981).

Wearing a scarf pulled up over your mouth before going outdoors in winter achieves the same effect. During the nineteenth century, it was noticed that sailors with scurvy stopped wheezing when they ate citrus fruit. Modern research shows that vitamin C may help to widen air passages during exercise or exertion.

In one study, volunteers who customarily suffered asthma after exercise were given 500 milligrams of vitamin C before an exercise test. Their tolerance of exercise was doubled (Journal of the American Medical Association, February 13, 1981). Vitamin C also seems to help asthmatics whether they tolerate exercise or not.

In another study, asthmatics who took 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day had less 25 percent as many asthma attacks as those receiving an inactive dummy pill. When they stopped taking vitamin C, however, they once again suffered the same number of attacks as the untreated people (Tropical and Geographical Medicine, vol. 32, no. 2, 1980).

So breathe easier. By definition, asthma is a reversible condition. And relief depends largely on factors that you can control. ”Proper education of the public and the right health attitude not waiting until the damage is done, but preventing it – will be the secret of success in controlling asthma,” says Dr. Falliers. ”And if that puts us allergist out of a job, that’s just fine.”