Shortness of breath anxiety is no fun. You feel faint. Your legs wobble. Your vision is blurry and you worry that you might faint or worse in front of people. Maybe you are on your way to speak in an important meeting or maybe you’re in the process of a house move. Maybe you were just sitting there minding your own business when you were suddenly gripped by tightness in the chest and a feeling of impending doom. You panic because you can’t breathe properly, so you panic even more.
When this happens over and over again, just the fear of an attack can trigger panic until you don’t want to leave the house because you are afraid of having a panic attack. It’s as disabling as a ‘real’ illness. Luckily, it’s treatable.
To begin with, you should see a doctor to rule out any problems with your heart or lungs. If the doctor decides to call it ‘panic attacks’ or ‘anxiety’, don’t feel insulted. Feel relieved. Those are just unfortunate labels for a genuine illness.
The problem is with the sympathetic nervous system, the ‘fight or flight’ response. Our ancestors, the cave men, relied on this response to a life-threatening situation. Stress hormones triggered physiological changes that redirected blood flow to the muscles, where it was needed to either confront the foe or run away from it. Nowadays, as we sit at our desks sifting through an onslaught of emails in an open plan office with telephones ringing and people chattering in the background, there’s nowhere to run and nobody to kill, so the stress hormones keep on circulating and eventually making us feel ill.
Drugs like tranquillizers, antidepressants or beta-blockers can help, although it may take weeks or months until the medication and the dosage are strong enough to manage the symptoms without causing undesirable side effects.
These episodes are one of the easiest conditions to treat using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT. Your therapist will teach you the anatomy and physiology behind the attacks. You will learn that the symptoms, however unpleasant, should pass within the space of about half an hour. With time, they disappear completely.
Managing your breathing is a great way to feel better fast. Breathe deeply into your belly slowly through your nose and count to ten. Hold the breath, then release it, again slowly counting to ten. Repeat this cycle over and over until you start to feel better. Stick with it. There are many, many ways to control anxiety and shortness of breath. Exercise, herbal tea, fresh air or a good book can all produce results. It’s not in your mind, and you don’t have to put up with it.
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