How do I accelerate lung regeneration after quitting smoking

Seigla

Hi I'm Jasper and I am new here!

So, I have this question (skip to the end if you want to jump right to it).

But, to give some background: I recently quit smoking, about a year ago, and I will never smoke again. Every time I see (and smell) people smoking it disgusts me. Not in a judgmental way, but the smoking itself is what I really dislike.

The reason for this is that I came to realize how bad smoking is for your body. And this concerns me, not just for the potential health risks, but also just because fitness level can get lower.

I am a 27 year old guy and I have quite some potential to be a sportsman. I feel lucky for this and since a year ago I started to get really serious about my health. Not only did I quit smoking, but I also started exercising very regularly, I eat much more healthy now and I lost 18 kilos.

Anyways, now I am thinking about my lungs, so here's my ***question*** : I know I can't completely regenerate my lungs, but what strategies are effective in regenerating my lungs as much as possible? Are there specific sports/types of exercise that help clean the lungs? Do steam baths help? Or is there some diet that helps? Of course I will avoid inhaling any smoke in the rest of my ilfe; I will not smoke myself and I will not inhale other people's smoke!

I tried googling this a lot but can't find good help. I have strong motivation and discipline to follow your best advice, because I know how important healthy lungs are. After all, breathing is something we do as long as we live!

Thanks in advance!

PS: Some additional info: I smoked on average 5 cigarettes per day between age 23 and 26. Some calculator on the web somewhere said that I lost 60 days of my life. Which is of course just based on statistics, but it tells me 2 things: 1 - 2 months of my life is quite something.... a long summer holiday worth of time 2 - I quit relatively quickly, it could be a lot worse. This means that the damage is limited - I presume that I can regenerate my lungs further than people who smoked 2 to dozens of times as much.

kgeyser

I don't think there is any exercise, food, or magic pill that will cause the cilia to regenerate more quickly. I also wouldn't go placing any bets on necessarily being better off than someone who smoked more, you never know how smoking is going to affect your health in the long term.

hill8570

Most cells in your lungs are replaced anywhere from a few weeks to a year, so any non-permanent damage has probably already cleared up. And I'd be surprised if five cigs a day for three years did a whole lot in the way of permanent damage.

If you're trying to increase fitness, any old aerobic activity will increase your VO2(max) capacity (the ability of your whole lung/heart/blood system to move oxygen to your cells).