This breathing pattern sucks.

[Simonecs89]

Is anyone else not able to breath properly? It’s like it’s my new normal now. It’s been weeks where I’m aware of my breath, I’m shallow breathing, I can’t take a full breath, feels tight in my chest. I feel lightheaded and scared from it. I can’t function properly being like this. It would be comforting to know if other people have this happen for a long period of time. Also breathing exercises don’t snap me out of it. I don’t have a trigger, I wake up like this and am like this all day, every day.

[Monicas]

Hi. I'm Monica.
I have exactly the same problem. It is depressing me and draining me a lot. Been 7months for me with this suffering.
If you want to talk with me about any of this. feel free to ask questions and chat on here.

[therising]

Hi Simonecs89

Be interested to know what the breathing exercises were like that you tried. There seem to be a lot around which makes finding the right one a little bit of a trial and error thing.

I find that focusing on the out breath is helpful for me. I will exhaust my breath as much as I can (slowly through my mouth) which leads me to have to take a long slow breath in (through my nose). If I go the other way and start with the in breath, with breathing exercises, I find I'm inflating what are already semi inflated lungs. Not much more breath I can take in from there. I actually came across some non conventional breathing exercises for anxiety which also suggested the importance of focusing on the out breath in order to help exhaust the build up of energy (relaxing the body), before taking a breath in.

Definitely important to get a physical checkup, just to be sure there's nothing going on that you need to see to.

Take care 🙂

[44Max44]

I experience this when I get particularly anxious.
My breathing will get kicked into 'manual' mode, I'll start breathing shallow or too much, and trying to take deep breaths seems like it does nothing at all... I get a tight chest and feel like I'm having problems breathing which gets me more anxious which makes the symptoms worse. makes my anxiety worse which makes the symptoms worse...

I'd highly recommend Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The technique I used slowly taught me that what I was experiencing was due to anxiety and because of that I didn't need to worry about it.
One thing you can think about is that breathing is an automatic thing and your body WILL NOT let you go without oxygen even if you tried. You could try your hardest to NOT breathe, and your body would still kick in and save you.
You breathe normally without a problem every single night while you're sleeping, right? So the only reason you feel like it's difficult to breathe while your awake is because you've taken this thing that is supposed to be 100% automatic and kicked it into manual mode due to your anxiety.


I hope any of this helps, and I wish you all the best.

[Simonecs89]

Hi Monica, Thankyou for you’re reply. As much as it sucks, it is comforting to know I’m not alone. Because this feels very isolating. Do you find anything helps? Is it worse at specific times? I find mine is worse when I have to leave the house, although is always there.

[Monicas]

Hi simonecs89.
I find it worse when I just sit and do nothing. If I keep busy and distracted it gets better. Also trying to be happy even with this breathing might help a little bit. I'm here and happy to talk with you more about this. It's nice this forum. I also feel so much more comforted not being alone with my suffering.