Waking up gasping for air/rapid heart beat/stopped breathing?

[MidnightCalm]

A lot of the time through the day I feel like I have to consciously make the effort to breathe, sometimes to the point where I spend the whole day light headed, sore and just manually breathing and unable to do anything else.
Recently I've been feeling like when I'm falling asleep or rested I stop breathing, sometimes I notice it and start again and others I don't notice until I get terrible sensations like I'm going to pass out.
I keep getting it in my sleep, a lot of the time it happens as I just fall asleep or can happen throughout, it's happened up to 5 times in one night.
I jump up, gasping for air and my heart is racing, I feel disoriented and heavy and dizzy like my blood pressure dropped like when you get up fast. It's terrifying me that I might die in my sleep. I am awake now from doing it and I'm scared to go back to sleep. I feel clammy and heavy and swaying and I just generally do not feel right at all but this has happened so many times before and eventually I do sleep and end up sleeping a good few hours.
Can anybody help/relate???

[HalfJack]

I've had something similar! I often get dizzy and short of breath, feel like I'm not breathing right or taking enough air in, especially when I lie down to sleep. For weeks I thought it was a health problem but then it went away over night.
For me I think it was a mix of stress and dehydration.

I'd go to a Dr just to make sure?

[mummyanxious]

I had this a week ago. I felt like something was in my thrust and I couldn't breath. Think it was when my avid reflux was at a height. Do you have acid reflux?
But also remember that sleep is badly affected with anxiety. In bad periods of anxiety I have had bad dreams, jolts, felt like my heart was stopping when I drifted off to sleep.

[Serenity1990]

I had this (in fact it's what kicked everything off). It turned out to be Laryngopharyngeal reflux, the "silent" version of GERD. There's a massive correlation between this and anxiety, nobody really seems to know why but some papers suggest reverse causality too (it can cause inflamed sinuses which some believe can cause the chemical conditions for anxiety as the eye sinuses are very close to the brain).

My doctor prescribed omeprazole which is fantastic. I hope it's something as simple for you!

[claireypoo]

I used to do this, a lot. Just as I am falling asleep, waking up Gasping, a huge intake of breath and feeling of adrenaline running through my body. Not sure why it kept happening, really, but I do know it DRASTICALLY reduced when I cut out tea and coffee after 4pm. X I only get it now with certain meds or if I am super duper stressed. X

[Fishmanpa]

While we can control our breathing through various methods such as meditation etc., it is an automatic reflex function like our hearts, or blinking our eyes. You cannot stop yourself from breathing. You may pass out trying but you'll start breathing again once you do.

I remember as a kid, some other kid got so bent out of shape he held his breath until he passed out all because he didn't want to eat his lunch. I recall thinking... "What a dufus!" ~lol~

Positive thoughts