Love Your Lungs Week
A week of fundraising to leave a lasting lung health legacy for your business.
We are Asthma + Lung UK and we fight for everyone’s right to breathe
For too long, the nation’s lung health has been sidelined and under-resourced. Over the past decade, outcomes for people with lung conditions have not improved to anywhere near the same extent as in other disease areas, including cardiovascular disease and cancer.
- 1 in 5 of us will develop a lung condition in our lifetime.
- There are more people living in the UK with a lung condition than heart disease and cancer combined.
- Lung conditions are the UK’s third biggest killer and a leading cause of death in children.
At Asthma + Lung UK, we are fighting for a world where good lung health and the ability to breathe freely are a basic right for all. From research and campaigning to advice and support, as the nation’s lung charity we are on a mission to change the way that lung health is perceived and transform lung health now and for future generations.
What is Love Your Lungs Week?
We rely on our lungs for every single breath we take. Yet, despite how fundamental they are, too many of us take our lungs for granted. Love Your Lungs Week is the opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of good lung health with your colleagues, all while fundraising to change the future of lung conditions in the UK.
Who?
Your team can get involved in any of the flexible activities of our Love your Lungs Week challenge.
What?
Pick the fundraising challenges and events that suit you and your colleagues best. This leaflet offers exciting and engaging ideas to help you run a successful week of fundraising!
Where?
Whether your employees work in-person, at home or hybrid, our engagement activities can be adapted to suit every working pattern.
When?
23–29 June 2025
Why?
Love Your Lungs Week is a great way to engage your employees and encourage team building. By taking part, you’ll also be supporting your employees to protect their lung health and transforming the lives of people with lung conditions across the UK.
You’ll have support from us every step of the way throughout the planning, organising and running of Love Your Lungs Week.
Get fit while fundraising
Love Your Lungs Week is a chance to improve the health of your workforce, their families, and inspire your colleagues to get out of breath for those who are fighting for breath.
While exercise is known to provide a range of benefits, almost half of people with lung conditions are too scared to try even gentle exercise, as they’re terrified of becoming breathless or ending up in hospital. This means people with breathing difficulties are missing out on the very benefits which physical activity has been proven to bring them.
47.8% of people with a breathing condition are inactive, exercising less than 30 minutes a week.
(Sport England Active Lives Nov 20/21, 177,000 participants)
Our fitness-based fundraising ideas offer a variety of ways to stay active, whether that’s through small daily changes or much bigger sports challenges.
Regularly exercising can improve your health and the health of people with lung conditions by:
- reducing the risk of obesity and other conditions, which can increase the risk of asthma or make asthma worse
- improving lung function and supporting the management of lung conditions
- supporting your immune system, helping fight colds and viruses
- lowering your stress levels, which can be a trigger for lung conditions like asthma
- improving mental health.
Our ideas for getting fit while fundraising
Step to the summit
A team stair challenge to climb the height of Mount Everest (8,849m!)
Swim for seven
A 7-day swimming challenge requiring colleagues to commit to swimming every day
Bingo board
A bingo board of low impact challenges to promote physical activity and good lung health over the course of the Love your Lungs event.
Feel good Friday Zumba
Improve mobility and general wellbeing at our virtual chair Zumba sessions
Activate your active
Encourage your employees to take the active option into work, whether that’s walking, running or cycling instead of driving to the office.
Bespoke challenges
In addition to the engagement activities outlined in this brochure, we can also support you in creating bespoke challenges for your company.
Fundraise for wellbeing
You don’t have to be hitting 10,000 steps a day to fundraise during Love Your Lungs Week. Wellbeing is equally as important as staying fit, so why not try one of our wellbeing challenge ideas?
For people with a lung condition, practicing mindfulness can help decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as helping them to cope with shortness of breath and fatigue. Our wellbeing challenge ideas could help your colleagues to:
- improve motivation, productivity and performance
- learn coping techniques to relieve stress and tension
- promote a positive outlook on life, creating good relationships with others.
All the Zoom groups I attend are important to my mental health as well as my physical health. It’s important to talk about mental health. I’ve had clinical depression since an early age. Most people with lung conditions have depression as they have to say goodbye to a lot of things. It’s a type of grief. The activities I do help me to feel better mentally as well as physically. It’s not easy because when you’re depressed you don’t want to do anything but if you have the strength to come along once you will be feeling better and that gives you a boost.
Our wellbeing challenge ideas
Nourish to flourish
Eating well is very important for your overall health. A well-balanced diet can help you to stay strong and fit. Why not encourage your colleagues to commit to getting their 5-a-day every day in Love Your Lungs week? We have lots of information on our website on how to eat well here.
Wellbeing Wednesday
Take the time to break up the week and offer your employees the chance to take an extra hour for their wellbeing. Encourage them to spend the hour on a walk, doing a guided meditation, or simply calling a loved-one for a well needed catch up!
Dig the outdoors
Encourage employees to enjoy the fresh air with a gardening club and demonstrate the importance of good air quality.
Sign for your lungs
Take part in our singing for lung health sessions over Zoom, designed to help raise awareness of breathing habits and reduce feelings of isolation and anxiety.
Boost your fundraising
Raise awareness of Love Your Lungs Week across your organisation and outside of the office by:
- Adjusting email signatures to reference Love your Lungs Week: I’m Taking part in Love your Lungs Week!
- Adjust Teams backgrounds and update your Twitter and LinkedIn headers to a Love your Lungs Week banner for all to see.
- Have colleagues promote their fundraising by sharing on social media pages.
- Place educational pieces up in the office, promoting the importance of staying active with frequent movement and lifestyle changes.
- Share colleagues’ experiences in participating in the challenges through internal newsletters and encourage others to join in on Love your Lungs Week!
Thank you
If you’d like to take part in Love Your Lungs Week by hosting fundraising at work, please get in touch with us at corporate@asthmaandlung.org.uk to learn more about how you can get involved and for help with your fundraising! We look forward to having you and your company taking part and helping us to create a world where everyone has healthy lungs.