Looking after your mental health and wellbeing when you have a lung condition

It’s quite common for people with long-term conditions, including lung conditions, to have anxiety and depression. For many people, living with a lung condition affects their quality of life.

You can have physical symptoms, like getting out of breath and feeling tired. But living with a long-term health condition can also affect your mental health and your ability to cope with daily life.

Living with a lung condition can have mental and emotional challenges, including:

• living in fear of a flare-up or an asthma attack or of not being able to breathe
• feeling frustrated when employers, family, or friends do not understand your condition, or when you feel you’re not always supported or listened to by healthcare professionals
• worrying about how your lung condition is affecting family, partners, friends, and carers, and feeling unhappy about needing regular treatment and support from others
• feeling depressed because it’s hard to do things due to your symptoms
• feeling anxious about finances and work, or about the future, and what will happen if your lung condition gets worse
• dealing with loneliness, because your symptoms mean you miss out on socialising, or because other people do not understand what you’re going through
• feeling stressed and anxious after spending time in hospital, particularly if time in intensive care means you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A lack of sleep can affect how you feel too. Often people with lung conditions find sleeping difficult because symptoms keeping them awake at night. This could be because of other related conditions like obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Find out more about how to sleep better when you have a lung condition.  
 

Your mood can also be affected by side effects from your medicines. These side effects can include mood swings.

Your healthcare team can support you to manage your lung condition well. Once you’re managing your condition well this may help improve your low mood. They can also support you with your mental and emotional health directly.

It’s important to ask for help because stress, anxiety, or depression can sometimes affect all areas of your daily life, including how you manage your lung condition.

If you’re being treated in a specialist centre or clinic you should have access to a team of different specialists. This should include specialists to help you with your emotional wellbeing, as well as with common mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.

You could:

• Ask your GP or specialist team about counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), treatments for anxiety or for depression
• Talk about the medicines you’re taking, and whether side effects could be affecting your mood
• Keep a symptoms diary. Take it to your appointments to help your healthcare team see any patterns. Together you can talk about the things that are making your lung condition worse, such as side effects, or the stress and anxiety of living with a long-term condition.

Find out more about the support available, including mental health charities that you can call.

Alongside support from your GP or specialist team, there are lots of things you can do to support your emotional wellbeing.

Breathing exercises

Depending on your lung condition, there are different breathing exercises that help with your breathing and calm you down if you’re feeling anxious or stressed.

A respiratory physiotherapist or respiratory nurse can explain about the best techniques for you, which could include:

• pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) courses can help you learn effective breathing techniques. You can ask your GP or specialist for a referral.
• Buteyko breathing techniques can help your breathing,  and studies also show they can also be helpful for anxiety and panic symptoms.

When you’re doing breathing exercises, try to stay calm and relaxed, and sit somewhere comfortable that supports your back.

Find out about breathing control and breathing techniques in our breathlessness information.

Join our Body Breathing support group to learn gentle breathing techniques and the relationship between breathing, the body, the mind and your emotions.

The NHS also have breathing exercises for stress.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness helps you focus on what is happening to you right now. It usually involves meditation and breathing exercises. It could help you to feel less anxious.

There’s evidence that mindfulness can improve the health and wellbeing of people with long-term conditions.

You can try out mindfulness by joining a group, like our Mindfulness for lung health support group, finding one-to-one help, using an online course or app, or finding a self-help book.

Read more about how mindfulness can help your mental wellbeing on the NHS website.

Relaxation techniques

Relaxation involves being quiet, relaxing the muscles in your body, and breathing slowly and deeply.

You can try relaxation techniques on your own, or you could join a relaxation or yoga class. There are also a lot of books and apps that could help you.

Complementary therapies like massages and yoga can help reduce stress and anxiety for some people.

Find out more about complementary therapies and how to use them safely.

Keep as active as you can

Staying active is one of the most helpful ways to boost your mood. Physical activity has been shown to help with low mood and depression.

Sometimes the fear of getting out of breath may put you off doing an activity that makes you more breathless.  But not being active can make your breathlessness worse in the long term.

Getting out of breath when you’re active is completely normal and is good for your lungs. In fact, keeping active strengthens your muscles and can improve your breathing and general health.

As well as improving your lung symptoms, keeping active could help you to feel less anxious. Even a gentle walk or a chair Zumba session could improve your mood.

You can also ask your GP for a referral for pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). Completing a course of PR is a good way to learn how to exercise safely and at the right level for you.

Find out more about keeping active when you have a lung condition.

You can also try our Keep Active programme to get moving in your own time at a pace that suits you.

Eat and drink healthily

Eating a balanced diet is important for your mental health and eating healthy foods can help you avoid a low mood.

• Some people find that cutting out caffeine helps them to feel less anxious. Caffeine gives you a burst of energy when you first drink it. But drinks that have caffeine in them, like tea, coffee, and some fizzy drinks, can cause your heart to beat faster or make you feel shaky later.
• Foods high in sugar can add to feelings of anxiety.
• Drinking alcohol can affect your mental health. It can make depression symptoms worse. If you can drink alcohol less, or avoid it altogether, you should notice fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Alcohol can also be a trigger if you have asthma.

The charity Mind have more information about which food and drink can affect your mood.

Read more about eating well for healthier lungs.

Connect with others

• Talking to other people who understand what you’re going through can be a big help. Join one of our support groups – we have a range of in-person and online groups. Mind also have support groups for mental health.
• You can also join our online communities on HealthUnlocked, where you can chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week about whatever’s on your mind – we have a forum for anyone with a lung condition and a forum for people with asthma
• Find support to help you manage loneliness and improve your wellbeing. Mind and Age UK have useful information on practical things you can do and places you can look to for support.
• Keep active and meet people by signing up to our exercise or singing groups or ask for a referral for a pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) course.

Avoid smoking and drugs

Stopping smoking is one of the best things you can do for your overall health. It will help you cope with your lung condition symptoms, like breathlessness and coughing.

If you smoke, you may want to smoke more when you’re stressed or anxious because you think it will calm you down. But smoking can make feelings of anxiety worse. As well as improving your physical health, the NHS also recommends quitting smoking to help your mental health.

Most recreational drugs affect your mood, sometimes causing feelings of anxiety or depression. They can also trigger symptoms if you have a lung condition.

Try a new hobby or learn something new

Trying a new hobby, or learning something new, can boost your mood. It can give you something positive to focus on and take your mind off negative things you might be feeling. It can also be a great way to meet new people.

A lot of people with lung conditions find that making music and singing or playing an instrument helps them manage their physical and mental health.

Why not try our music groups?

• Singing for Lung Health (Motivational Mondays)
• Lift Your Lungs Choir
• Harmonica for Lung Health 

Spend time outside

Spending time outside has been shown to improve your physical and mental wellbeing. It can help improve your mood and reduce feelings of stress.

And studies suggest that being around nature is good for your breathing. Try visiting your local park or getting out in the garden if you have one.

Spending time outside has been found to help with mental health problems, including depression. Being outside in natural light can also be helpful if you experience seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Read more about how nature benefits our mental health on the Mind website.

We know from our online community on HealthUnlocked that it can feel frustrating to struggle with daily tasks.

• The charity Age UK can help older people with food shopping in some areas – find out more about the help for shopping available in your area
• Talk to your GP if you need help travelling to and from hospital for your appointments – they can help organise support available for you.

There are lots of services that specialise in the support they give:

• The Silver Line is a confidential, free helpline for older people providing friendship, conversation and support.
• Cruse Bereavement Support is a charity that helps people who have lost loved ones to understand their grief and cope with their loss. They have a free helpline and local support services, including support groups and information sessions.
• Reading Well for mental health has a list of books that can help you understand your mental health better. All Reading Well books are recommended by health experts, as well as people with lived experience of the conditions. There are lots of books available to help you understand and manage your mental wellbeing, so it’s worth doing a search online to find books that are of interest to you. Most bookshops now also have a section on mental health.

Find out about lots of useful contacts for mental health support from the charity Mind, including phone apps you can use to look after your mental health.

Mind also have useful contacts of organisations and services that offer mental health support for children.

For a complete list of mental health charities, organisations and support groups across the UK, you can also take a look at this list on the NHS website.