The airways of people with asthma are extremely sensitive. The airways tend to overreact and narrow due to even slightest trigger. These can include: emotional upsets and stress, upper respiratory tract infections, breathing cold air and even exercising too hard. Airborne allergens, such as bee pollen, animal dander, dust mold and smoke can also trigger an attack, as can certain foods or medications.

Asthma attacks can be both mild and severe. The severity of an attack, however, can escalate rapidly, so it is important to treat these symptoms immediately once you recognize them. In any case, it is important to work with your primary health care provider when you look to treat this health concern. Fortunately, there are a number of things that you can do to help reduce severity or eliminate asthma from your life.

Recommendations for Wellness

To help control an attack:

As a regular guest, I was fascinated by form but, in height of my coolness-conscious years, also acutely aware of overwhelming dork factor. These people lived to square dance.

They skipped around for two or three hours at a time, twirling and smiling and dabbing at their foreheads between dances. They hunted for holiday-themed fabric months before special dances in order to whip up perfect ruffled dress and matching shirt for each occasion. They packed their petticoats and headed to Penticton, British Columbia every summer for a regional square dancers' convergence.

The square dance girls were just as boy-crazy as my regular friends, but they had a built-in way to hold hands with guys they liked. As for me, I had a major crush on my friend's older brother who, at 15, was an articulate, ambitious student body president with piercing blue eyes and blond hair to his shoulders (it was 1972, after all).

In one of our (for me, anyway) excruciating conversations involving much blushing, he told me that square dancing was like meditation. "It's a way to forget about everything except what's going on right now. You have to pay attention to what caller says, and let your mind and body make sense of it naturally, without trying too hard."

At time, I had only a fleeting familiarity with meditation, and I didn't see much similarity between these suburban, gingham-clad dancers and Hare Krishnas that offered carnations to passersby on downtown street corners.

Years later, I have to marvel at his insight.