Anxiety and breathing difficulties

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Patient information factsheetPhysical symptoms of anxiety on the body• Rapid or pounding heart• Tight or aching muscles• Headaches, dizziness or feeling faint• Excessive sweating• Shaking or trembling• Pins and needles, especially in the hands or around the mouth• Butterflies or a churning feeling in stomach or nausea• Loss of appetite• Passing urine frequently or diarrhoea.Effects of anxiety on thoughts and feelings• Constant worrying, fearing the worst or that the problem is permanent• Feeling on edge all the time• Thinking negatively• A sense of fear• Unable to concentrate• Feeling irritable and less patient than you were• Feeling preoccupied or obsessed with what you are worried about• Not noticing other things.Anxiety and breathingSome people experience panic attacks when they are feeling anxious. This is when the feelings of anxietybecome overwhelming and take over. You may feel like you might faint, be sick, you are breathing rapidly orthat you are finding it difficult to breathe.Rapid breathing is known as hyperventilating. Hyperventilation can be a normal response when you areanxious. Having a panic attack can be a very frightening and intense experience. The symptoms youexperience can be distressing. This often causes more anxiety, making things worse, which can be quiteuncomfortable and unpleasant. If you have difficulties breathing anyway, this is really scary as it feeds intoyour real worries about not being able to breathe.This diagram shows how a panic attack may be triggered when people start to feel short of breath and itscares them. They begin to have thoughts about not being able to breathe. Their body responds by breathingmore quickly and this can make their chest feel more restricted. This in turn, makes the person feel even morepanicky and really believe that they will not be able to breathe or that they might collapse.www.uhs.nhs.uk
Patient information factsheetTriggerFor example, pushing yourself to go for a long walk and starting to feel more short of breathFeeling anxiousPanicBodyBreathing becomes rapidand chest becomes tightThoughts“I can’t breathe”This is what we call a vicious circle as the more anxious people get, the more they feel as if they cannot breathe.Breathing problems increaseAnxiety increasesYou can break this cycle and reduce your anxiety by learning what helps you to cope or manage your anxiety.Learning to breathe properly can help with the panic attacks and reduce hyperventilating.How to cope with and manage anxietyGetting to know your anxietyAnxiety affects people in different ways. You need to understand your own anxiety and then you can usedifferent techniques to help manage it. Initially, it is useful to ask yourself the following questions:• What things or situations trigger my anxiety? For example, it might be a physical sensation, or doingexercise, or thinking “is my breathing getting worse?”• What are my feelings and thoughts when I am anxious?• What do I tend to do when I am anxious?• What helps me to cope or lessen my anxiety?It might also be helpful to keep a record of when you are feeling anxious and make a note of how you feel,think and what you do in the situation. Once you have started to notice what invites anxiety in for you orlessens it, here are some ideas that might help.www.uhs.nhs.uk
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Anxiety and breathing difficulties

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