advise about anxiety and breathing

[rodds]

I have acute anxiety suffer from severe chokeing smothering felling breathing in and out of paper bag do lots of yawning any onyone elese with these symthoms been to doctors all clear thanks

[Templar]

Hi rodds. Its not unusual to get these kind of symptoms from panic attacks and yes, I get these as you describe. Something I found really useful is learning to 'belly breathe', which teaches you to breathe better during an attack. If you look for anxietycoach.com theres a good article on there that I found useful.

[rodds]

Thank u

[SLA]

What makes you think you have acute anxiety?

[Tardisbrain]

Can i just add, I suffered from severe stress and anxiety and my breathing was sooo bad, I tried everything...meditation/yoga/belly breathing and none of it helped...I didn't want to be continuously having to think about my breathing seemingly I'm wired differently (aren't we all!) So I got told to do the opposite. Focus on my outer breath. Belly breathing with the counting etc can cause people to take in more oxygen than they need which sometimes still gives you symptoms. If you focus on your exhale your body will take care on the inhale... i picked this up really quick and it helped me massively. So if you are still struggling with everything please give this a go as I know how horrI've it is. Best wishes

[dorabella]

When I get into that state - not that frequently now but I did in the past - I cup both hands around my nose and mouth and breathe through my nose. Same as the paper bag method but seems to work better and faster. Something to do with breathing back in carbon dioxide which then re-balances the excess in the bloodstream created by hyperventilating or over-breathing.

You calm down within 10 minutes without even noticing, in fact I used to fall asleep sometimes while I was doing it.

Yawning is the symptom of 'air hunger' and common in over-breathers, which is what most HAers are - we all suddenly focus in on our breathing and try to control it, when we should leave it to our body's automatic processes. How do you suppose you breathe when you are unconscious and asleep? the brain's automatic response does it for us. Ever try holding your breath for as long as you can, and eventually your natural breathing response kicks in and makes you start breathing? Try to think of breathing in those terms and switch your focus elsewhere.

[georgewing]

Maybe try some breathing tehniques and aybe you will see good results