“You Can Control Your Asthma” The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) strives to step up asthma awareness and educate the masses about this inflammatory disorder of the airways. To get asthma onto the global agenda, May 3rd, 2011, has been dedicated as World Asthma Day. The main objective of this initiative is to dispel myths and fear about asthma. Healthcare professionals, civic health officials and GINA put their hands together to make asthma patients aware about the condition and to help reduce the prevalence of asthma, morbidity and deaths.

Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world. Perhaps the most commonly discussed respiratory disease after the common cold. The attack can be seasonal when the pollen count is high in the atmosphere. An attack of asthma leads to breathing difficulties and the attack can be acute when it lasts for a short period or chronic when it lasts for days. The attack can also be mild or severe and a life threatening one.

The word asthma is derived from a Greek work meaning 'breathlessness or panting" both of which accurately describe an attack of asthma. Asthma is a condition that affects airways the small tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs. In children with asthma, airways are swollen and inflamed. When these inflamed airways come into contact with an asthma trigger, symptoms of asthma appear.

Yoga is an ancient Hindu discipline that uses postures and breathing techniques to increase the lung's airflow, air capacity, stamina and reduces stress. The Benefits of yoga, or any other relaxation techniques, are additional to the benefits of conventional drug treatment, and it is vital that patients continue to take their prescribed medication. Yoga helps one to stay calm during an asthma attack.

Human beings like other land animals breathe though their nostrils in noses and with the help of lungs. A pair of lungs are located in the airtight thoracic cavity that is bounded by a convex muscular and elastic sheet called diaphragm. Functionally, the lungs are elastic bags resembling rubber balloons. In normal breathing, through the nose, air travels through the nasal passages that are lined with ciliated mucous epithelium.