What are your thoughts on cause of unexpected panic?

[jayke]

LHaving a bad time with anxiety and wanted to ask if anybody can relate, and for thoughts...

For a good few weeks I've had air hunger (had this on and off most of my life) - wanting to yawn or breathe deeply to get a satisfying breath. Often I can't and it feels stressful.

It isn't constant but is frequent.

Tonight I was making dinner and feeling okay (other than the usual sense of dizziness on occasion and indescribable head fog) and then suddenly had a strong wave of lightheadedness. I carried, trying to ignore it, and then:

- Feeling of lightheadedness
- Pressure in my sinuses
- Stuffy/congested sensation in my heart
- Skipped beats
- Panic

I calmed down and am now typing this.

I'm thinking it's my body's way to reset an imbalance in blood gases (due to the over-breathing) - or similar. I say this because it has happened like this before, but it always feel different; I was close to calling an ambulance but my wife helped calm me down.

Or perhaps it's not a blood gas rebalance but a rebalance of thoughts, as I have had a lot of anxious thoughts and unhealthy anxiety-inducing behaviours, such as checking my blood pressure.

Can you relate.


What are your thoughts?

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

Hi Jayke....

Yes I can relate to what your saying cause I can get exactly the same symptoms as you especially when the anxiety is high, I can also get them after the anxiety as come down which always puzzled me till I read Claire Weekes Books and she explains it all and why...
The over breathing can certainly cause lightheadedness and most of the time your not even aware you are doing it, but without a doubt anxious thoughts and constant checking of your Bp will certainly cause the anxiety to rise and along with that will come the symptoms, can I just ask why you keep checking your Bp, as the dr told you to monitor it or is it just you. Xx

[jayke]

Hey! Thanks for the reply ☺️ Good points! I read Claire Weekes about 20 odd years ago - from a library. Just bought a copy on Amazon - thanks for the reminder. I take my blood pressure because I got it tested randomly a while back and it was high...but I know it's because I was stressed. There are so many things that you shouldn't do leading up to getting your pressure checked, but they never tell you or ask at the time. It's all really inaccurate. So I bought a monitor. Anyway, it's all fine. I'm trying to adopt healthy behaviours and trying to chill. It's reassuring to know that other people experience the same/similar - even though objectively thinking I know it's all 'okay'. Thanks again.

[ponybro123]

- Feeling of lightheadedness
- Pressure in my sinuses
- Stuffy/congested sensation in my heart
- Skipped beats
- Panic
Yeah I used to get this a lot when I was younger and less familiar with my anxiety. I still sometimes get the air hunger, lightheadedness and skipped beats to the point where I'll have multiple day stretches of worrying about it. The congested sensation in the heart is really freaky but I find it happens when I'm tensing those musculoskeletal regions without realizing it, it's usually accompanied by shallow breathing due to me having already been anxious about something else.
If you're concerned please speak to your GP, this is not medical advice.
Best regards!