Activities Ideas

Short of Breath Relays

Time:  As long or short as you like

Materials: Plastic coffee stirrers for each person (it is best to use the kind that look like a miniature straw with the open hole, rather than the flatter kind with a divided hole in the middle), plus any equipment you would need for games or relays.

Note: Be sure to determine any special health needs of those in your group. Obviously, do not allow someone to participate who already has breathing difficulties, such as asthma or bronchitis.

Objective: For participants to become sensitized to the discomfort of emphysema induced from long-term smoking.

Hands On: Distribute one coffee stirrer to each student as you explain the exercise. Ask them to put them in their mouth, pinch their nose, and breathe only through the straw in their mouth. Explain that this gives them an idea of what it feels like to have emphysema, a disease almost exclusively related to smoking. It is difficult to exhale and almost impossible to "catch" your breath. Many people must take an oxygen tank with them wherever they go (students may know someone like this and want to share about it).

Have the groups compete in simple relays or running games to help them understand how the diminished lung capacity would affect them (Option: have half of the group compete with the breathing impairment and half without it).

(Option: Invite a respiratory therapist or physician to bring a tank and mask and explain about smoking-related lung disorders while the group breathes through their straws. If you have a volunteer with emphysema who would feel comfortable talking to the group, that can be very powerful as well.)

Discussion: Many teens feel that they are immortal. A survivor of emphysema wisely said "I was 18 when I started smoking. I went away to college and thought it made me more grown up. At that time, I didn't care whether I lived to be 70 or 80. I knew if I smoked I would die younger, but it didn't matter to me. But no one told me about the misery I would suffer between 50 and 70, though. Dying wouldn't be so bad if it were a bullet through the head. This is slow, painful death. I get worse every month, but I won't die for 10 more years. I wish someone had told me this when I started to smoke."