Chest Congestion and Yoga
During the rainy season, that mix of humidity, heat, and air-conditioning creates the perfect set-up for lingering coughs and chest congestion. It’s why you sometimes hear a cough right when the room goes quiet in Savasana.
A cough isn’t the enemy. It’s a protective reflex - your body clearing irritants and excess mucus. Yoga doesn’t “cure” an infection, but it can support what the body is already trying to do. Think of it as working alongside medication, rest, hydration, and good nutrition.
The key is using the breath on purpose. When we’re congested, it’s easy to panic and breathe shallowly. Breath-led movement interrupts that cycle. Slower, diaphragmatic breathing improves oxygen exchange and, with its warmth and moisture, can help loosen thick mucus so the body can clear it more easily. It brings both physical relief and emotional ease - instead of fighting discomfort, you’re helping the body manage it.
It helps to separate symptom relief from cure. Yoga, gentle movement, and breathwork ease tension, anxiety, and congestion. Meanwhile, sleep, water, and food give the immune system what it needs to do the actual healing. They work together, not against each other.
So what about that sudden cough in Savasana? Once the nervous system settles, muscles release and the breath deepens. Lying flat also shifts how gravity moves mucus. Secretions that were stuck earlier in class can finally shift, and the cough reflex does its job. The body isn’t interrupting relaxation - it’s using it.
These effects make sense based on respiratory physiology, but research directly testing yoga or Savasana as mucus-clearing treatments is still limited. So treat these responses as useful support, not a cure.
Let the reflex happen. Return to stillness afterwards. That, too, is part of recovery.
P.S. This isn’t a substitute for medical treatment. If your cough or breathlessness persists, please consult a doctor.
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