Automatic breathing stopped

after reading this.. I do feel better I'm not the only one.. I suffer from anxiety and I'm the exact same.. I've suffered from anxiety for a long time and got control of it and in the end stopped taking medication but recently after feeling sick.. only what I've been able to do is focus on my own breathing I even check my pulse to make sure my heart is beating and even though it's normal and I tell myself I'm all okay I cant seem to snap out of it.

I'm forgetting to breathe too. A few months ago I started forgetting to breath when I was falling asleep. I'm trying to drift off then I suddenly bolt upright and gasp for air. It sometimes happens in my sleep also. Now I'm getting it the daytime too, when I'm concentrating on something I'm watching or reading, I'll suddenly gasp for air like i forgot to breathe.

It's almost 5am, I have to be up for work in a few hours but I'm still awake because I just can't take this anymore. I've been doing it a couple of times a minute whilst trying to get to sleep & it's so scary that I'm too afraid to sleep tonight now. It's giving me panic attacks too. I'm often convinced there's something really wrong with me but also wonder if it could be anxiety. I feel for everyone going through this.

Yes, of course it's anxiety. Of course your body automatically breathes on its own when you're not obsessively monitoring it otherwise you'd die overnight when you're asleep!

This starting happening to me about 3 months ago. At first, only a couple time a week, now almost every night. My lungs will completely empty of air and my body will have almost like a small firework go off to jerk my body to move and breathe and it will go on like this for up to an hour. sometimes my chest really hurts and sometimes not I did a sleep study, but of course I had one of the best nights sleep I had had in a long time they have put me on bupropion 300 mg and 5 mg of melatonin per day. just started the regiment about 2 weeks ago,,so far no change. My dr is totally lost on what this may be.

Hi, ive been suffering with exact same for nearly a month now and its taken over everything i do, i cant even watch tele without concentrating on it, i cant even walk without focusing on it, sometimes it makes me feel wobbly too, i have no idea how to get rid of this, did you find a solution? when i do something that really takes my attention i dont think about it, but it soon comes back and it makes me feel like if i dont do it myself its just going to stop, i have no idea how or why its there!

i am going through this at the moment and it's taking over my life and ruining everything i do. I don't know how much i should be breathing and sometimes i feel like i'm hyperventilating. If i physically stop breathing and i just hold my breath. My GP asked if I wanted to start some medication but i don't really want to start down that route. This all started when I started experiencing some issues and having tests on my heart. They have all come back clear but I can't shake the feeling there's something wrong.

I've been having this for about 3 or 4 days .

I have to manually breathe all day long.

i can't to get sleep at night have to lay there all night manually breathing.

I keep an oximeter to monitor my heart rate. when I try to sleep I stop breathing and my heart rate gets down to the 50s

it is also a possibility could be nerve damage on the vagus nerve on the lungs because involuntary and voluntary breathing believe it or not come from 2 different parts of then brain

voluntary comes from the cerebellum

involuntary from the medulla

has this stopped for you? I've been dealing with this for 2 weeks. I've made myself sick over it.

how have you been??? im dealing with this currently.. it started a few months back 4 or 5 months back i started feeling like i was having heart problems which scared me because it runs in my family.. that finally stopped but its like it just turned into breathing problems and i tend to convince myself its all kinds of things it's definitely the worst at night when i try to go to sleep it keeps me up half the night which sucks cause i work early in the mornings but even when exhausted i dread night time because i know its going to happen ive always had anxiety but this is the first time its taken control like this ive stopped smoking marijuana ive stopped drinking energy drinks smoking cigarettes i even stopped drinking sodas to see if it was caffeine from them and its still happening. all day long i am fine but night time is always a freaking nightmare...

Hi Natalie,

It's been 4 days since I was rushed to the hospital thinking that I was having a heart attack.

I thought I was the only one facing this issue. My chest feels slightly tensed.

I do force myself to breath as it automatically stops. If I am breathing via my nose I feel like I am not breathing air so I need to breath via my mouth and take deep breathes.

I had ECG, Heart ultra sound, blood, urine test done & CT scan. All my results have come back fine.

I really don't know what has caused this & why I am feeling like this. I do not really have any worries.

I really hate this feeling. I know its my anxiety kicking in. I am so focused on my breathing & it's annoying.

Hi,

How are you coping with this? so for years I've had this thing where I hold my breath and hold it for longer than I should and have to sort of jerk myself out of it to be able to exhale.

I will often exhale lots of little breaths and make a weird noise (typing this makes me sound so ridiculous!) or I have the opposite where I inhale lots of little breaths.

I will also often clench my back teeth on my tongue.

it usually only lasts a few days but it's been over a week now and it tires me out so much and I try to maintime a normal life like still going to work but if someone asks me a questions or I'm in the middle of a sentence I can't speak because I'm either holding my breath or trying to force myself to exhale.

I've no idea why I do it and have not seen a doctor. I don't feel stressed, or at least nothing that I can pin point that I would think was anxiety or stress but it's more a habit. I don't know. maybe I am anxious.

It is 4 am here and I cannot sleep because of this stupid thing. It all started yesterday when I woke up at night gasping for oxygen. It feels like you are about to die because of not breathing while the reality is that I don't breath because I panic about not breathing. It can be less intense especially when I am busy with work but at nights it happens a lot. it happened like 10 times in the last 30 minutes. when I think about it it can happen every minute actually. I had all these stupid symptoms about 6-7 years ago but they all went away so I am kinda hopeful it will go away again. It is the feeling like something is in my trout hat doesn't allow me to breath to I eventually gasp for oxygen. My mouth gets dry because I try to swallow my saliva repeatedly to make room for breathing. I have general anxiety disorder but nothing crazy like this. The last time I experienced something like this was like 6-7 years ago....To everyone seeing this, I went through this ordeal one and let me tell you it is just stupid mind trick your mind plays like any other OCD. It will go away eventually and we are all in this together and will be fine eventually. Just remember, it is a stupid trick your brain plays. you are not stop breathing, it is the second you think about it that makes you tense up and then make you panicky about being tense. Human brain is such as complex phenomena. I have a lot of homework to do tomorrow 😦((( I don't want to go to bed feeling this way 😕

I hope one day one time these will go away on its own.... It's been 5 months for me since I started experiencing this thing, my baby is 5 months old and since I gave birth have never stopped focusing on my breath and it has affected me in many ways, at times I feel like something is stuck on my throat, my chest being heavy and mostly affects me when maybe driving am unable to breath in and out properly I find myself controlling my breath.... These has been too much for me.. I hope I'll overcome these because it has affected me and my little baby since I can't focus on her I focus more on my breath....