Gentle exercises are best, @A MyCOPDTeam Member, and vary for everyone. I prefer to walk and bowl / bocce ball, but many like to bike ride, use the treadmill, do yoga, etc.

Everybody has different exercise tolerances, too, and you have to be careful about exercising when tired.

Talk to your doc, and google “Safe pulmonary exercises to reduce fatigue”, and there’s some good suggestions from the Cleveland Clinic. One thing you need to remember is the 15 minute rule: If you don’t feel more energetic after 15 minutes of trying, take a break. Seriously. You have to keep on moving to have energy, but you also have to set a reasonable pace for YOU and not be competing with anyone else’s stamina.

My doc recommended 2 Vitamin D3 pills each morning to help with constant fatigue, but the biggest thing that helps me is to simply get up and try.

Please remember that the diagnosis of COPD can trigger depression, and that a side effect of depression is also exhaustion.

*** I’m not a doc, and this is not medical advice ***

Do your best to explore all options for feeling better, and I hope you do feel better soon.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/copd-fatigue...

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A MyCOPDT...

try walking and increase every week the distance
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Check with your doc to be sure you know what your limitations are as far as exercise goes. Talk with your pulmonologist about pulmonary Rehabilitation. Some programs have opened up on a limited basis, and if you can get a referral that's the best possibility. There are many different exercise possibilities on the internet, and some of them are quite good while others are so much hockey puck. If PR in person won't work, investigate some of the on-line PR programs that are available. A number of them are quite good, offer good support and can make a difference. If all else fails, you can certainly do your own, but you have to be able to manage to push hard enough to make a difference and keep pushing. While you don't want to push yourself into exhaustion, you also don't want to give up or go rest before you've actually gotten to the point where you're
doing some good.

Because exercise makes us short of breath (sob), most of us are very hesitant to do anything that makes us that uncomfortable, but that's one of the things we really need to get over. We need to learn that we can become very sob, work through it as much as possible and find that we can recover from being sob easily and without panic. Without good support, most people will give up before they actually do some good in an exercise program. That's one of the reasons that PR programs are so important.

You asked what sort of exercise: aerobic exercise that gets your heart pumping, makes you huff and puff and break a sweat and weight/strengthening exercises. Aerobic exercise every day for at least 30 minutes and weight or strengthening exercises for upper, lower and core muscle groups three times a week.

Thank you!

Thank you so much JoanneC!