Multiple Models 05-31

How Two Business Models Complement Each Other

Simultaneous investment in LAN Airlines’ passenger and cargo businesses creates a virtuous circle by increasing volume and aircraft utilization, which decreases the break-even load factor and increases the attractiveness of new routes. Adding more routes leads to greater economies of scale and scope, boosts customers’ willingness to pay, and increases revenues and profits—thereby providing a funding source for further expansion.

Are Your Business Models Complements or Substitutes?

Business models are more likely to be complements rather than substitutes—and to generate greater value together than apart—if, when you consider these two questions, your answers fall closer to the right side of the spectrum than to the left.

QUESTION 1 To what extent do the business models share major physical assets?

QUESTION 2 To what extent are the resources and capabilities that result from operating each business model compatible?

When One Business Model Isn’t Enough 05-31

When One Business Model Isn’t Enough

Trying to operate more than one business model at a time is devilishly difficult—and frequently cited as a leading cause of strategic failure. Yet situations abound where a company may wish or need to address several customer segments, using a particular business model for each one. To crowd out competitors or forestall potential disruptors in its current markets, to expand into new markets, to make more efficient use of fixed assets and other resources, or to develop new income streams may all ideally require distinct business models that operate in tandem.

IBM and Compaq, for instance, supplemented their reseller distribution model with a direct-sell model to counteract Dell’s growth in the 1990s. Netflix runs two business models for its DVD-by-mail and its streaming-video services. In emerging markets a bank sometimes creates a separate company to offer credit to low- and middle-income customers, as Banco Santander-Chile has done with Banefe. The forestry company Celulosa Arauco turns its trees into paper pulp under one business model and into wood panels for high-end furniture under another.

Nowhere have the perils of running tandem business models been more evident than in the airline industry, where so many full-service carriers have met with so little success in introducing no-frills offerings to compete with low-cost competitors such as EasyJet and Southwest. Witness what happened to British Airways’ Go Fly, Continental Lite, KLM’s Buzz, and Delta’s Song.

That’s what makes the case of LAN Airlines, which successfully operates three business models at once, so remarkable. The Chilean carrier has thrived by integrating a full-service international passenger-airline business model with an air-cargo business model while separately operating a no-frills passenger model for domestic flights. In fact, the word “thrived” is too modest: From 1993 to 2010, LAN posted 17% compound annual revenue growth through good times and bad (from $318 million in 1993 to $4.2 billion in 2010), while steadily raising annual net profits from zero to $420 million. 

LAN’s market capitalization, at $8.9 billion as of March 11, 2011, exceeds that of most of its main global rivals—US Airways ($1.5 billion), American Airlines ($2.2 billion), Korean Air ($3.7 billion), British Airways ($6.9 billion), and United-Continental ($8.1 billion). It even tops that of upstart Ryanair ($6.9 billion) and every other Latin American airline. From 1998 to 2010 LAN’s share price, adjusted by dividends and splits, has grown by more than 1,500%.

LAN Airlines has succeeded where its rivals have not through a more subtle appreciation of the way different business models relate to one another. Certainly, many business models conflict, as in Netflix’s high-profile case. Others, like the models for digital and film photography, are clear substitutes for each other. No doubt such models should be operated separately, and perhaps, only sequentially.

As LAN Airlines’ experience makes clear, however, other business models are complementary. Indeed, they may be so mutually reinforcing that together they turn otherwise unviable possibilities into profitable opportunities. A company that recognizes which models are substitutes that must be kept separate and which are complements that strengthen each other can build a uniquely sustainable competitive advantage. Let’s look at how LAN has used that insight to its benefit.

How LAN’s Three Models Interrelate

LAN operates its full-service international passenger-carrier business in much the same way as other global carriers do. It offers frequent flights to major destinations through its own hubs and via alliances with other airlines. It has two classes (coach and business) of amenity-filled service, featuring complimentary hot meals and beverages, multilingual personal-entertainment units in coach, and fully flat beds in business class. 

Likewise, its no-frills domestic operation has essential elements in common with Southwest’s and Ryanair’s: It is a lower-cost, lower-overhead model characterized by fewer amenities, internet ticketing, shorter turnaround times, and a uniform fleet of single-aisle planes from which the kitchens have been removed to increase seating capacity.

Some complementary business models may be so mutually reinforcing that together they turn otherwise unviable possibilities into profitable opportunities.

What sets LAN apart is its cargo business—a premium service like its international passenger operation. It transports salmon from Chile, asparagus from Peru, fresh flowers from Ecuador, and other such perishables to the U.S. and Europe while flying high-value-to-weight merchandise such as computers, mobile phones, and small car parts from the U.S. and Europe to Latin America.

LAN is unusual among passenger carriers in its reliance on cargo revenue—accounting, by the second quarter of 2011, for 31% of its total revenue (compared with less than 5% for American, Delta, and United-Continental). Although Korean Air and Cathay Pacific both also derive about a third of their revenue from cargo, LAN is distinctive in that it transports fully 35% of its shipments in the belly of wide-body passenger aircraft, which serve most of its cargo destinations. In fact, the bulk of LAN’s cargo business operates on the same route network with its passenger business.

In all three of LAN’s models, the key to profitability is the same: flying more planes, more fully loaded, to more places. However, when LAN set out in 2007 to introduce no-frills flights on domestic routes, it knew it could not do that by combining passengers and cargo on those routes. The goal was to increase profitability and preempt the threat from some Latin American version of Ryanair or Southwest, initially on flights within Chile and Peru and later on routes to Argentina, Ecuador, and Colombia.

But on the one hand, demand for air-cargo transport was far lower in domestic markets than it was internationally, given that goods could instead be carried by truck, train, or boat. What’s more, its local markets generated little demand for the perishables that LAN was transporting farther abroad. And perhaps most critically, the narrow-body aircraft used on the short-haul routes were not big enough to carry sufficient cargo.

On the other hand, passenger demand for LAN’s domestic air travel is highly elastic: By lowering fares on short-haul routes by 20%, LAN could attract up to 40% more passengers, enabling it to invest in newer, more efficient planes, which could fly more hours per day. The implication was that the most direct (perhaps the only) way to increase capacity utilization for domestic flights was with low fares, made possible solely by offering a basic level of service to drive down costs.

LAN also has the largest market share of passenger traffic to and from Chile, Peru, and Ecuador, as well as approximately 37% of the Latin American air-cargo market, as its complementary full-service passenger and cargo operations have yielded many mutually 
reinforcing advantages. These include:This logic has been borne out, as lower fares have led to dramatic increases in demand: From 2006 to 2010, the number of passengers on LAN’s domestic flights increased 83% within Chile, 123% in Peru, and 200% in Argentina, allowing LAN to reach its goal of increasing aircraft utilization on its short-haul routes from eight to 12 hours a day. LAN now holds the largest market share of passenger traffic within Chile and Peru and is increasing its market share in other South American countries.

Maximal use of physical assets.

Consider the following example: A LAN flight from Miami arrives in Santiago, Chile, at 5:00 AM. It continues to another Latin American city, say Bogotá, Lima, or Buenos Aires, to deliver cargo from the U.S. Then it returns to Santiago to fly customers back to Miami or New York, because passenger flights to the U.S. from South America are at night. Meanwhile, competitors with no cargo operation are forced to park their aircraft at Santiago’s airport for most of the day. The advantages of increased utilization of as costly an asset as a wide-body aircraft are easy to see.

Reduction of the break-even load factor (BELF).

By combining cargo and passenger operations, LAN can profitably fly where other airlines cannot, because the number of passengers or amount of cargo it needs to break even on each flight is lower than if LAN were transporting only one or the other. In 2010, for instance, the BELF percentage for LAN’s Santiago-Miami route would have been 68% if the aircraft had flown only passengers, but transporting cargo as well lowered it to 50%. What’s more, without cargo, LAN’s Santiago-Madrid-Frankfurt route, to take just one, would have terminated in Madrid, because going on to Frankfurt is not profitable when carrying only passengers.

Diversification of revenues and profits.

By transporting both cargo and passengers, LAN can keep flying routes profitably when demand falls, as the two businesses seldom dip to the same degree in tandem. Even in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, when cargo demand was down 10.1%, passenger travel dropped by only 3.5%. So LAN did not have to contract operations as much as its cargo-only competitors did, and it consequently was ready the next year to take advantage of renewed demand that those carriers could not accommodate.

Reduced threat of entry by other airlines.

As LAN increases the number of routes it serves, it decreases the probability that other carriers can profitably enter into its markets.

One-stop shop for cargo in Latin America.

The ability to fly more routes profitably creates a virtuous circle. More routes mean more value for customers, enabling LAN to charge premium prices, thereby generating revenue to support even more routes and to eventually become the one-stop shop for cargo distribution in Latin America. (See the exhibit “How Two Business Models Complement Each Other.”) The rock group The Police, for instance, used LAN to transport a stage show that filled two jumbo jets for an eight-concert Latin American tour. Less exotic clients, such as smartphone and computer hardware makers, have proven similarly willing to pay a premium for the convenience of having a single company handle all their shipping needs in Latin America.

The Challenge of Managing Multiple Models

Why doesn’t every airline do what LAN does? Part of the answer is historical: The Cueto family, one of the two groups that purchased LAN when the Chilean government fully privatized it, in 1994, had begun in the cargo business with Fast Air during the 1970s. So the family knew the business well and could readily see, in the context of a combined cargo and passenger service, the profit potential of LAN’s international routes, its wide-body aircraft, and its reputation for reliability.

But to recognize the potential and to capitalize on it are two different things. To say that two models complement each other is not to say that combining them is easy. In fact, the learning curve can be steep, favoring those, like LAN, that climb it first. Among LAN’s chief challenges in combining its cargo and international passenger models, while keeping its low-cost model separate, were these:

Additional complexity.

To plan for both businesses, LAN must dynamically coordinate a sophisticated passenger-yield management system, which raises and lowers ticket prices to manage demand levels, with an active cargo-capacity management system that similarly varies rates on cargo. LAN also needs to assign that cargo optimally to either the passenger or the freight planes, which it does through a complex logistics system that coordinates cargo and passengers. Given that both divisions are profit centers, possible conflicts must be managed carefully.

 Therefore, LAN has imposed an additional criterion for passenger fares that its global long-haul competitors do not need: The lowest passenger fare must be at least as large as the revenue that LAN would obtain if the weight burden of the passengers were allocated to cargo. In this way, LAN gives priority to carrying people in its wide-body passenger aircraft but also ensures that the minimum passenger fare covers the cost of cargo of similar weight.

Broader organizational skills.

LAN’s three businesses require different sales and marketing efforts and a sometimes mind-boggling variety of technical skills to maintain its premium services. For instance, at the same time that LAN was extensively training its flight and maintenance crews for its passenger business (ultimately winning it several awards for service), it needed to train employees in how to care for pigs and horses in its cargo-only planes.

Greater employee flexibility.

Flying more planes to more places means that LAN’s pilots must fly even on two hours’ notice, half the time typical for a U.S. legacy airline. That would not be possible if LAN had not created a culture that fosters flexibility by instituting a performance-related pay and bonus structure, both for management and for administrative and flight personnel. Notably, though, in 2010 LAN’s wages were a lower percentage of its total costs relative to the percentage at many U.S. and European carriers.

No two business models share all resources, of course. In Miami, for example, where LAN’s cargo operations are headquartered, the company has almost 500,000 square feet of dedicated warehouse space and other cargo facilities that its passenger competitors do not need. Furthermore, to serve Latin America comprehensively, regulatory constraints preventing non-national companies from operating within certain countries have impelled LAN to create a series of separate companies for its no-frills short-haul passenger service: LAN Peru, LAN Ecuador, LAN Colombia, and LAN Argentina. It has also set up additional operating structures through alliances in Mexico and several other countries.

Distinguishing Complements From Substitutes

Operating three business models is clearly not without its risks—but meeting the challenge offers uniquely sustainable benefits. LAN was able to minimize the risks and capture the benefits by combining two complementary models and carefully keeping a competing model separate. But how did it tell which was which?

Our analysis suggests that to determine whether two business models are complements or substitutes, executives should consider two questions:

• To what extent do the business models share major physical assets?

• To what extent are the resources and capabilities that result from operating each business model compatible?

The greater the number of critical assets the models share, and the greater the number of shared capabilities and resources that result from the operation of the models, the more likely that combining the two models will yield a more valuable result. (See the exhibit “Are Your Business Models Complements or Substitutes?”)

In LAN’s case, the major physical assets are its wide-body planes, which the cargo and international passenger models share but the low-cost domestic operations do not. Equally critical is the cascade of advantage-enhancing resources and capabilities produced by combining the cargo and full-fare passenger models:

• Decreasing the break-even load factor by combining cargo and passengers, thereby allowing LAN to fly to more places, creates value in both businesses and, thus, expands LAN’s markets and revenues.

• Using the growing revenues provided by cargo operations to underwrite better service to passengers and vice versa further increases customers’ willingness to pay for both offerings.

• Flying to more places makes it harder for other airlines to enter and grow in the Latin American market for either cargo orpassengers, which sustains LAN’s advantage.

• The skills that LAN has had to develop to optimize the use of aircraft and the network of routes for both passengers and cargo have further increased barriers to imitation in both markets.

• LAN has become the leading passenger airline connecting Latin America to the rest of the world and the one-stop shop for cargo in the region. That increases switching costs for cargo customers and convenience for passengers, further boosting demand for both passenger and cargo service and thereby strengthening LAN’s advantage.

LAN teaches its crews to provide award-winning passenger service while training employees to care for pigs and horses on its cargo-only planes.

LAN’s low-cost domestic business does share in some of those capabilities and resources—the skills developed to efficiently schedule flights and maintain aircraft, the flexibility of its workforce, its understanding of the regulatory requirements for its various Latin American operations, and its capacity to fly customers and cargo to, from, and within Latin America. But LAN’s critical physical assets can’t be shared, and most of the capabilities and resources essential to the domestic operation—the brand, the reputation for low fares, the emphasis on efficiencies to lower costs—conflict with those of a premium, higher-cost offering. Those realities dictate that LAN operate the no-frills model separately.It’s far rarer for two business models to havecritical assets, capabilities, and resources in common than not. That fact no doubt contributes both to the high failure rate of companies that use more than one model at a time and to the sense that firms that even contemplate running multiple models do so at their own risk.

But the lesson of LAN Airlines points to another form of risk—for LAN’s competitors. By mastering three models—and by deeply understanding how complementary models generate unique opportunities—LAN has built, in both passenger and cargo service, formidable competitive advantages that are becoming increasingly difficult for competitors to overcome.

LAN’s competitive advantage in international passenger service would vanish if the company did not have a thriving cargo business; likewise, its advantages in cargo would not exist without a blooming passenger business. Competitive strategy is all about building advantage by protecting a unique position and exploiting a distinctive set of resources and capabilities. Viewed in this light, the implementation of multiple business models is not a risk but rather a new tool for strategists. Properly applied, it will help firms boost their ability to create and capture value—and to gain durable advantage.

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Are You Ready for Personalized Predictive Analytics? 05-11

Are You Ready for Personalized Predictive Analytics?

Predictive analytics have the potential power to "produce remarkable services and longer lives," says James Heskett. But can businesses make bets in this area without first understanding the social consequences? What do YOU think?

In 2002, the film Minority Report introduced many of us to the world of predictive analytics. In it, an innovative technology allows Washington, D.C. to go without a murder for six years by helping Tom Cruise, chief of the Precrime Unit, to identify, arrest, and prosecute killers before they commit their crimes.

This was a case of the movies catching up to the business world. At that time, predictive analytics had been applied to the continuing maintenance of everything from CAT scan machines produced by GE to elevators made by Otis. It enabled these firms to sell "up time" rather than just products, thanks to a number of sensors and the continuing remote surveillance of the performance of these products.

Predictive analysis applied to humans is now one of the hottest concepts to come along. It is being made possible by a system of customer loyalty programs, big data, and cloud computing that enables the continuous collection, storage, combination, and analysis of data about each of us from a number of disparate sources. Pretty exciting, no?

Some years ago, we heard the story about the GE maintenance engineer who, based on information from the firm's advanced monitoring and predictive analytics, visited one of his hospital accounts to repair a CAT scan machine that had not yet failed. As he was confronted by puzzled hospital administrators, the machine indeed stopped functioning. More recently, many of us have heard the story about the Target customer who was sent information about products of interest to pregnant women before she knew she was pregnant. Target's Big Data analysis of hers' and others' purchases, combined with related information, had placed her in a cohort with other women known to be pregnant.

Predictive analytics will be essential to the development of concepts such as 30-minute package delivery that companies like Amazon have been contemplating. For years, logistics have been managed by principles such as that of "postponement and speculation." The idea is that to approach the best match between supply and demand at a reasonable cost, a supplier has two basic choices. One is to delay (postpone) committing inventory to a particular supply point for as long as possible through such things as careful forecasting of demand, rapid manufacture, and fast transport. The other is to invest (speculate) in long but economical production batches, slow but economical transportation, and large amounts of inventory that ensure an in-stock position when an order is received.

An argument can be made that any forecast and inventory is based on predictive analytics. But in the past, these analytics were applied to data that described behaviors of large groups of decision-makers. By contrast, tomorrow's version of this technique will be based on the analysis of massive files of individual profiles, from which predictions will be built that establish stock levels needed to support 30-minute deliveries. Personalized logistics will take a lot more than just drones.

Predictive analytics have the potential to produce remarkable services and longer lives. But before we become too enamored with them, it's important to remember what happened to Tom Cruise in the movie. He is eventually accused on a precrime basis of murder, with only 36 hours to determine whether the charge is accurate and, if not, who implicated him wrongly.

How important are these concepts to our future? Is this a big deal or just another buzz term in business for the next several years? Are you ready for predictive analytics applied to you? If not, what are you going to do about it? What do you think?

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It’s Not a ‘Stream’ of Consciousness 05-11

It’s Not a ‘Stream’ of Consciousness 

IN 1890, the American psychologist William James famously likened our conscious experience to the flow of a stream. “A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described,” he wrote. “In talking of it hereafter, let’s call it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective life.”

While there is no disputing the aptness of this metaphor in capturing our subjective experience of the world, recent research has shown that the “stream” of consciousness is, in fact, an illusion. We actually perceive the world in rhythmic pulses rather than as a continuous flow.

Some of the first hints of this new understanding came as early as the 1920s, when physiologists discovered brain waves: rhythmic electrical currents measurable on the surface of the scalp by means of electroencephalography. Subsequent research cataloged a spectrum of such rhythms (alpha waves, delta waves and so on) that correlated with various mental states, such as calm alertness and deep sleep.

Researchers also found that the properties of these rhythms varied with perceptual or cognitive events. The phase and amplitude of your brain waves, for example, might change if you saw or heard something, or if you increased your concentration on something, or if you shifted your attention.

But those early discoveries themselves did not change scientific thinking about the stream-like nature of conscious perception. Instead, brain waves were largely viewed as a tool for indexing mental experience, much like the waves that a ship generates in the water can be used to index the ship’s size and motion (e.g., the bigger the waves, the bigger the ship).

Recently, however, scientists have flipped this thinking on its head. We are exploring the possibility that brain rhythms are not merely a reflection of mental activity but a cause of it, helping shape perception, movement, memory and even consciousness itself.

What this means is that the brain samples the world in rhythmic pulses, perhaps even discrete time chunks, much like the individual frames of a movie. From the brain’s perspective, experience is not continuous but quantized.

Another clue that led to this discovery was the so-called wagon-wheel illusion, in which the spokes on a wheel are sometimes perceived to reverse the direction of their rotation. This illusion is easy to induce with a strobe light if the rotation of the wheel is such that each strobe flash captures the spoke location slightly behind the location captured on the previous flash, leading to the perception of reverse motion. The illusion results from “sampling” the scene in discrete frames or time chunks.

The telling fact, for perceptual scientists, is that this illusion can also occur during normal observation of a rotating wheel, in full daylight. This suggests that the brain itself, even in the absence of a strobe light, is sampling the world in discrete chunks.

Scientists have uncovered still more clues. It turns out, for example, that our ability to detect a subtle event, like a slight change in a visual scene, oscillates over time, cycling between better and worse perceptual sensitivity several times a second. Research shows that these rhythms correlate with electrical rhythms of the brain.


Consider a study that I conducted with my colleagues, forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science. We presented listeners with a three-beat-per-second rhythm (a pulsing “whoosh” sound) for only a few seconds and then asked the listeners to try to detect a faint tone immediately afterward. The tone was presented at a range of delays between zero and 1.4 seconds after the rhythm ended. Not only did we find that the ability to detect the tone varied over time by up to 25 percent — that’s a lot — but it did so precisely in sync with the previously heard three-beat-per-second rhythm.

Why would the brain do this? One theory is that it’s the brain’s way of focusing attention. Picture a noisy cafe filled with voices, clanging dishes and background music. As you attend to one particular acoustic stream — say, your lunch mate’s voice — your brain synchronizes its rhythm to the rhythm of the voice and enhances the perceptibility of that stream, while suppressing other streams, which have their own, different rhythms. (More broadly, this kind of synchronization has been proposed as a mechanism for communication between neural networks within the brain.)

All of this points to the need for a new metaphor. We should talk of the “rhythm” of thought, of perception, of consciousness. Conceptualizing our mental experience this way is not only more accurate, but it also situates our mind within the broader context of the daily, monthly and yearly rhythms that dominate our lives.

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How to Detox Your Lungs Naturally 05-03

WikiHow is a community of voluntary contributors who contribute simple do it yourself "How to" articles. There are at present more than 190,000 or more articles.  Shyam has been associated with wikiHow since April 2010. He has contributed 23 articles out of which 8 have been featured with a total page views exceeding 7,91,000. Shyam has also edited about 423 articles contributed by others. You can view Shyam articles Here

How to Detox Your Lungs Naturally

Two Methods:Using Verified MethodsUsing Unverified Methods

Keeping yourself detoxified is one of the best things you can do to stay healthy. Your lungs are some of your most important organs, and most human beings can live for mere minutes without air. Therefore, it is important to keep your lungs healthy to ensure that they can perform at their best throughout your life. Although you have little control over the air you breathe, you can take steps to detox your lungs using verified methods that are backed up by science, and unverified methods rooted in naturopathic healing and folk medicine.

Method 1 of 2: Using Verified Methods





1. Cook with oregano to reduce inflammation and congestion. Oregano's primary benefits are due to its carvacrol and rosmarinic acid content. Both compounds are natural decongestants and histamine reducers that have direct, positive benefits on the respiratory tract and nasal passage airflow.[1]

The volatile oils in oregano, thymol and carvacol, have shown to inhibit growth of bacteria like staphylococcus aureus and pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Oregano can be used in cooking in its dried or fresh forms.

A few drops of oregano oil in milk or juice can be taken once a day for as long as you want to receive health benefits.

2. Inhale lobelia to relax your lungs and break up congestion. Lobelia contains an alkaloid known as lobeline, which thins mucus and breaks up congestion.[2]

Additionally, lobelia stimulates the adrenal glands to release epinephrine, relaxing the airways and allowing for easier breathing.

Also, because lobelia helps to relax smooth muscles, it is included in many cough and cold remedies.

Extracts of lobelia inflata contain lobeline, which showed positive effects in the treatment of multidrug-resistant tumor cells.

You may add 5-10 leaves of lobelia and vaporize them for inhalation. Inhale the vapors for 10 minutes each day, morning and evening.




3. Steam treat yourself with eucalyptus to take advantage of its expectorant properties. Eucalyptus is a common ingredient in cough lozenges and syrups and its effectiveness is due to an expectorant compound called cineole, which can ease a cough, fight congestion, and soothe irritated sinus passages.




As an added bonus, because eucalyptus contains antioxidants, it supports the immune system during a cold or other illness.

You may add a few drops of eucalyptus oil into hot water and do a steam inhalation for 15 minutes each day to cleanse the lungs.[3]

4. Take mullein to clear mucus and cleanse the bronchial tubes. Both the flowers and the leaves of the mullein plant are used to make an herbal extract that helps strengthen the lungs.

Mullein is used by herbal practitioners to clear excess mucus from the lungs, cleanse the bronchial tubes, and reduce inflammation present in the respiratory tract.

You can make a tea can from one teaspoon of the dried herb and one cup of boiled water.
4].Alternatively, you can take a tincture form of this herb.



5.Use peppermint to soothe your respiratory muscles. Peppermint and peppermint oil contain menthol, a soothing ingredient known to relax the smooth muscles of the respiratory tract and promote free breathing.

Paired with the antihistamine effect of peppermint, menthol is a fantastic decongestant.[5]
Many people use therapeutic chest balms and other inhalants that contain menthol to help break up congestion.

Additionally, peppermint is an antioxidant and fights harmful organisms.

You may chew on 3-5 peppermint leaves each day to enjoy its anti-histaminic benefits.




6. Drink an infusion of elecampane to reap its soothing and expectorant benefits. The root of the elecampane plant helps kill harmful bacteria, lessens coughs, and expels excess mucus.[6]

Elecampane contains inulin, a phytochemical that coats and soothes the lining of the bronchial passages and acts as an expectorant in the body.

In the respiratory system, it gradually relieves any fever that might be present while battling infection and maximizing the excretion of toxins through perspiration.

If you have a tickling cough or bronchitis, elecampane may be able to help.
Because of its action on excess mucus and toxins in the respiratory tract, it is often helpful with emphysema, asthma, bronchial asthma, and tuberculosis.

You can use one teaspoon of herb per cup of water in an infusion, or one-half to one teaspoon of tincture, three times a day for about 3 months.




7. Take hot showers to clear your lungs. Taking a shower with hot water for twenty minutes can be really helpful in clearing out your lungs.

If you can sit in a sauna, the hot air will be even more effective in clearing your lungs.
It is very important to allow your body to get rid of toxins through sweating.

A sauna or hot water increases the secretion of sweat, and helps the lungs rid themselves of toxic substances.

8. Stop smoking to protect your lungs from toxins. Smoking tobacco is a great way to introduce a variety of toxins directly into your lungs.

Tobacco smoke, nicotine, and the variety of other unhealthy substances found in cigarettes wreak havoc on your respiratory tract.

In addition to lowering your lung capacity, smoking puts you at risk for cancer and other long-term health complications.




9. Stay away from common toxic products. Eliminate household toxins that are part of detergents, cleansers, bleaches, and chemically scented air fresheners that have strong fragrances and might harm the lungs.

Pesticides must go as well, and there are alternatives that aren't toxic for humans.
All toxic commercial pesticides emit caustic gases or vapors that irritate the lungs.
Simply get some nice indoor plants that add life to your dwelling while removing toxins.

Method 2 of 2: Using Unverified Methods



1. Drink sage tea to dispel lung disorders. Sage’s textured leaves give off a heady aroma, which arises from sage’s essential oils. These oils are the source of the many benefits of sage tea for lung problems and common respiratory ailments.

Sage tea is a traditional treatment for sore throats and coughs.

The rich aromatic properties arising from sage’s volatile oils of thujone, camphor, terpene and salvene can be put to use by inhaling sage tea’s vapors to dispel lung disorders and sinusitis.

Alternatively, brew a strong pot of sage tea and place it into a bowl or a vaporizer.
Inhale the vapors for about 5-10 minutes 2-3 times a day, or for as long as you wish, since it is healthy and perfectly safe.





2. Eat boiled plantain leaf to soothe irritated mucous membranes. With fruit that is similar in appearance to a banana, plantain leaf has been used for hundreds of years to ease coughs and soothe irritated mucous membranes.

Many of its active ingredients show antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, as well as being anti-inflammatory and antitoxic.

Plantain leaf has an added bonus in that it may help relieve a dry cough by spawning mucus production in the lungs.

One may eat a boiled plantain fruit or sip on a decoction of 1-2 brewed plantain leaves.
You may continue this each day for about 2-3 months to take advantage of its healing benefits on the lungs.




3. Drink licorice root tea to clear out mucous in the lungs. Licorice is one of the most widely consumed herbs in the world to eliminate toxins from the lungs. Licorice is very soothing, and softens your mucous membranes in the throat, lungs, and stomach.

It reduces the irritation in the throat and has an expectorant action (loosening phlegm to be expelled).

It loosens the phlegm in the respiratory tract, so that the lungs can expel the mucus.
It also has antibacterial and antiviral effects which help fight off viral and bacterial strains in your body that can cause lung infections.

You can use one teaspoon of licorice root per cup of water in an infusion, or one teaspoon of tincture, 3 times a day.




4. Vaporize cannabis to open up your airways and sinuses. If it's legal in your area, use vaporized cannabis for about 5 minutes each day to open up your airways and sinuses.

Vaporizing cannabis mitigates the irritation to the oral cavity that comes from smoking.
Cannabis is perhaps one of the most effective anti-cancer plants in the world.

It also stimulates your body’s natural immune response and significantly reduces the ability of infections to spread.

Cannabis has even been shown to treat and reverse asthma.




5. Drink watercress (Nasturtium Officinale) tea to eliminate toxins. Watercress has the ability to eliminate the toxins from tobacco and decrease the chance of these toxins resulting in lung cancer.

This ability is due to an active ingredient that acts on a series of enzymes, preventing the development of cancer cells.

Watercress is used to make a simple and delicious soup, which efficiently cleanses the lungs of toxins.

It is recommended that you consume this soup twice a month, especially if you are an active or a passive smoker.

Watercress soup:

1 kg of watercress (flowers and stems)
2 cups of dates
4 cups of water

Put all ingredients in a pot over a low flame. When it boils, reduce the heat and allow it to simmer for a minimum of four hours. If the foam starts forming at the surface of the soup, remove it with a spoon. Once the soup is ready, season it according to your taste.

Note: It is very important to use the correct ratio of ingredients and cook the soup for a minimum of four hours. After such a long cooking time the soup becomes tasty, nutritious, and effective in detoxifying the lungs.




6.Try ginger to prevent lung cancer. Ginger is a powerful tool for detoxification of the lungs and prevention of lung cancer.

You can use it in many ways including ginger root tea mixed with lemon, which facilitates breathing and promotes the elimination of toxins from the respiratory tract.

You can also create a warm bath with powdered ginger. The bath should last at least twenty minutes.

The ginger bath opens pores and stimulates sweating, which helps eliminate toxins.
The steam you inhale goes directly into the airways and eases the process of purifying the lungs.

With every meal, you may eat a tiny piece of ginger.

This will improve your digestion and will contribute to the process of cleansing the body.

7. Use castor oil packs to draw toxins out of the body. Castor oil packs are easy to make at home and are great for drawing toxins out of the body. Castor oil has long been appreciated as a general health tonic and is believed to stimulate circulation and waste elimination.

Castor oil packs can be placed on your chest, perhaps similar to a vapor rub, and can break up congestion and toxins.

While the packs are not expensive to make, it is essential to use only organic, cold-pressed castor oil.

By using cold-pressed oil, you can be reasonably certain it will contain the vital compounds such as phytonutrients, undecylenic acid, and especially ricinoleic acid that are beneficial to the body.

Carefully warm about 8 oz. of castor oil in a pot on the stove to a comfortable temperature and then soak 12″x6″ strips of cloth in the oil.

Being careful not to spill the oil, take the pot with you to where you plan to lie down. Use a small piece of plastic like a “glove” to handle the packs.

Lie down on a plastic sheet, and then lay 3-4 strips over your chest and sides covering the lung areas. Do this on the right and left sides.

Then, cover the packs with a larger section of plastic and lay your heating pad over the plastic covered castor oil packs. Keep it there for 1-2 hours.

Alternate the heating pad from right to left sides.

It is believed that this helps by break up and draw out stored toxins and congestion from the lungs.

8. Take an osha root extract to increase circulation to the lungs. Osha roots contain camphor and other compounds that make it one of the best lung-supporting herbs. One of the main benefits of osha root is that it helps increase circulation to the lungs, which makes it easier to take deep breaths.

Also, when seasonal allergies inflame your sinuses, osha root can produce a similar effect to antihistamines and may help calm respiratory irritation.

An infusion prepared with the roots of osha can be taken orally to cure a number of medical conditions.

In addition, fresh liquid extract of the herb's roots can also be used internally.
The standard dose of the infusion prepared with osha root is one or two teaspoonful of cut and crushed, freshly obtained root infused for approximately 25 minutes.

If you are taking the root in a liquid extract, ensure that its strength is at a ratio of 1:1:8.
Take 20 to 60 drops of this root liquid extract once to four times every day.

9. Drink a lungwort tea to relieve various lung conditions. Lungwort is a tree-growing lichen that actually resembles lung tissue in appearance, and hence is used for various lung conditions.

Lungwort clears tar from the upper respiratory tract, nose, throat, and upper bronchial tubes, while helping the body soothe the mucous membranes in these regions.

It also has an anti-inflammatory action and is good for bronchitis.

As an infusion, mix one to two teaspoons of dried herb per cup and drink one cup three times a day.

10. Maintain a healthy diet to detox your whole body. Like all other types of detoxification, lung cleansing necessitates dietary changes.

A healthy diet is important because it stimulates the natural cleansing mechanisms of the body and strengthens the immune system.

During cleansing, it is recommended that you consume more water, fruits and vegetables.
Drink a cup of lemon juice before breakfast; lemon helps the lungs renew themselves with its high vitamin C content and is easy to digest.

Drink a glass of grapefruit juice because it contains natural anti-antioxidants and enhances the detoxing of your circulatory system.

Have a cup of carrot juice in the period between breakfast and lunch. Carrots contain vitamins A and C, which help to clean the respiratory system and boost immunity.

11. Consume a good amount of potassium. Potassium is one of the most detoxifying nutrients, especially when taken in liquid form.

To prepare a cup of juice rich in potassium, place some carrots, celery, spinach, parsley, and green algae in a blender.

12. Eat spicy foods to break down excess mucus. Chilies help break down excess mucus in the lungs and the body in general.

That is why when you eat spicy foods, you can immediately feel your nose beginning to run.

In the same way, spicy foods affect the excess mucus and tar in the lungs, helping your body eliminate them more easily.

13.Drink water to stay hydrated. Plain water is the best thing to drink while you are detoxing. Good hydration is key to good health and speeds up the process of detoxification.

Try to avoid sodas, coffee, and alcohol.

14. Do breathing exercises to facilitate clear lungs. Breathing exercises are one of the best ways to cleanse your lungs. There are many types of exercises for detoxifying your lungs. 

Try this one:

Take a standing position. Be relaxed. Keep your arms at your sides and your feet slightly apart. Take a few deep breaths and exhale through the nose.

Now, breathe in through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth deeply until you cannot exhale anymore.

But don't stop here, because there is still air left in your lungs. Some air always remains in the lungs and is not replaced with fresh air as we breathe.

Now, force your diaphragm to exhale all the air from your lungs with a wheezing sound.
Do this several times, exhaling through your mouth with a deep puff until you feel there is no more air in the lungs. At this point you will notice that you have pulled in your belly toward the spine.

Through your nose, slowly inhale fresh, clean air into your empty lungs.

Fill your lungs with fresh air, and then hold your breath for five seconds, counting them slowly.

Repeat the process to expel the remaining air out of the lungs. Repeat as many times as you like but at least 50 times each day.

Besides purifying the lungs, this exercise has another benefit: your stomach muscles will eventually become strong and taut.

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