I’m currently day 4 of Covid-19 symptoms, I’ve not needed to go to hospital so haven’t been tested, but have had all the symptoms. A rapid fever started on Monday night with high heart rate, headache and nausea. Quite unpleasant symptoms, but what was particularly alarming was the shortness of breath through the night and for about 12-24 hours. Thankfully this has passed and now I just have a cough and fatigue.
However, there were a couple of things that I remember from my time working on the respiratory wards in the NHS that I found quite useful to deal with the shortness of breath. The first one is that the best position for the lungs is to be upright. If you are suffering from shortness of breath try to sit up rather than lie flat and prop yourself up with pillows in the night. Try to focus on controlled breathing. This can be difficult when you are suffering anxiety and difficulty breathing but concentrate on your breath and you can stay in control.
Try to breathe into the lower portion of your chest with slower controlled breaths. If you place your hands on your lower rib cage and try to focus your breath there and let your ribs expand to the sides you are breathing correctly.
The second thing that I found very useful was doing the following breathing exercise. Take a deep breath in through your nose, when you feel you have inhaled as much as you can, take another quick sip of air in through your nose. Then exhale. This exercise is useful for opening up the air sacks in your lungs and oxygenate the blood, thus control the shortness of breath. Take 10 breaths like this every 30 to 60 minutes or as you need.
These tips are suitable for mild to moderate shortness of breath, if you are suffering I hope they help you.