Panic Attacks Fear of Suffocation

From my own personal experience, one of the symptoms that frightened me the most was that I was going to suffocate, simply because I just couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. It felt like someone had a strangle hold on my lungs – preventing me from getting deep enough breaths. Fortunately I’m still here to tell the story. And I’m pretty sure no one has ever been reported has having suffocated during an attack. So the good news is that a panic attack won’t make you suffocate – your parasympathetic system will always kick in to calm you down again.

When you experience a panic attack, your body naturally increases your speed and depth of breathing – your body is gearing up for a fight or flight response, and needs a lot of oxygen to prepare itself. So effectively, you start to hyperventilate, which can lead to feelings of breathlessness, and sensations of suffocating and choking – and even chest pains.

On several occasions, during a panic attack I would feel like my body could no longer manage to breathe by itself, so I would take over and physically try to slow my breathing. This didn’t work at all, as my body was still in control – it just didn’t feel like it – so the end result was that I made myself even worse, as I was further restricting my oxygen intake.

One of the less obvious side effects of the increased breathing rate, is that blood flow to your brain actually decreases. Although the decrease is slight, and not dangerous, it can make you feel dizzy and lead to blurred vision, hot flushes and disorientation.

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