Breathing Rapidly

WHEN TO SEE YOUR DOCTOR

* The onset of rapid breathing is sudden and severe, and there is no numbness or tingling around your mouth or in your hands. (Such numbness and tingling is a symptom of hyperventilation, which is usually not serious.)

* You also feel shortness of breath, pain in your chest or your feet or legs are swollen.

* Recurrent rapid breathing is not in response to a physical activity.

What Your Symptom Is Telling You

If you just crossed the finish line of a potato-sack race, you have a good reason to huff and puff: You put a big demand on your body and it needed more air.

But if you're sprawled out on the sofa watching TV and you begin to pant like a dog on an August afternoon, you don't have a good reason—or at least not a healthy one—for your rapid respiration.

Most people breathe between 8 and 15 times a minute at rest, says Henry Gong, Jr., M.D., professor of medicine in the Pulmonary Division of the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center. But, he explains, that rate can go up (or down), depending on your level of physical fitness, your emotions and how much stress you're experiencing.

That third factor—stress—is perhaps the most common cause of lungs going into fifth gear. People who spend their days feeling nervous and tense are more likely to suffer bouts of rapid breathing that doctors call hyperventilation. And once you start hyperventilating, you'll feel even more hyper: That fast breathing disturbs the body's balance of blood gases, numbing the mouth and hands and depriving the brain of oxygen. Yellow alert turns to red alert, and the emotions go into overdrive: You're having what's known as a panic attack and breathe even faster. Luckily, none of this causes physical damage. But the emotional cost—the disruption and scariness of the attack and the added anxiety and nervousness about having more panic attacks—is quite high.

Rapid breathing isn't always caused by emotions. Sometimes it has a physical cause: a problem in your lungs. "Asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, pneumonia, tuberculosis—anything that affects the lungs can cause a rise in respiration," says Mark J. Rumbak, M.D., an assistant professor of pulmonary medicine at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa.

Occasionally, rapid breathing is a symptom of nervous system disorders and brain problems that scramble the messages to the lungs.

And rapid breathing can also mean you should move rapidly to the emergency room: Along with chest pain, it's an early warning sign of a heart attack and other serious heart malfunctions.

Symptom Relief

A doctor should treat a serious lung disorder. But hyperventilation—though it certainly seems serious when it's happening—can be treated at home. Here are three ways to convince your lungs to calm down.

Brown-bag it. Breathing into a paper bag to balance your blood gases is the standard short-term treatment for hyperventilation, says Dr. Rumbak. Here's the technique: Scrunch the opening of the bag closed with one hand; with your other hand, stick a finger into the opening to create a small hole; now take out your finger and hold the bag to your mouth and breathe slowly and evenly for four or five minutes, inhaling your exhaled air from the bag. If your hyperventilation doesn't let up, get to a doctor or the emergency room, says Dr. Rumbak.

Pay attention to your stress level. You can put an episode of hyperventilation in a brown bag, but there's a landfill's worth of stress that's behind this symptom. One way to cope with the stress, says Dr. Gong, is with breathing exercises.

Many stress experts recommend "diaphragmatic" breathing to help you unwind. To practice this form of breathing, sit up straight in a chair or lie flat on the floor. Place one palm on your chest and the other palm on your abdomen. Now inhale through your nose for a slow count of five. Your hand on your stomach will feel like it's being pushed out with the air that's going deep into your lungs. Make sure your hand on your chest stays perfectly still. Then exhale through your nose to a slow count of five. Repeat the deep breath three times, rest for a moment then repeat it three more times.

If your hyperventilation and panic attacks are frequent, consider seeing a doctor or psychologist for help.

Go with the flow meter. Asthmatics sometimes can't tell the difference between hyperventilation and a full-fledged asthma attack (and those attacks can kill). Needless to say, this causes even more anxiety, which can push a hyperventilating asthmatic over the edge into a panic attack. That's why Susan R. Wynn, M.D., an allergist in private practice with the Fort Worth Allergy and Asthma Associates in Texas, suggests that asthmatics use a device called a peak flow meter. This device measures the strength of your exhalations. If the meter shows your normal maximum exhalation, you're hyperventilating. If the meter shows less than your normal maximum, you're having an asthma attack. "People find it reassuring to know if it's hyperventilation or an asthma attack," says Dr. Wynn. (You can buy a meter from medical supply stores or your doctor can order one for you.)

See also Anxiety; Wheezing