Health Anxiety- Sports (breathing problem)

[xromarx]

Hello, I made a post but I couldn't find it anymore. I made a long introduction about my panic disorder and what I've done to beat it. It was too long for me to rewrite so I'll just post my main concern. here we go...

I use to be an athlete all my life, growing up I played competitive tennis. Although after a vehicle accident, I developed a panic disorder (Health anxiety) that my heart would just give out. Now everytime I would play and would feel my heart racing, I would start to feel panicky and stop playing.

My main concern is that as I would run back and forth, my heart rate would increase but my breathing would stay normal, I'm not running out of breath or anything. My heart would just keep beating faster and faster. This freaks me out because isn't the heart and lungs suppose to be in sync? Sometimes I feel myself purposely breathing harder to mimic how I would normally breath if this weren't a concern.

Does this happen to anybody? is this normal?

[Jull]

I think it's just the symptoms of shortness of breath :)
It's like when you go over your usual level of physical activities with high altitudes and lack of oxygen, it's normal.
However, there are health problems whose symptom is breathlessness such as chronic bronchitis, allergies, anemia, some diseases or infections of the respiratory system and heart diseases. Also people with lung cancer will constantly experience this symptom.
Most periods of breathlessness are not severe. However, you will need to consult the doctor in case shortness of breath happens with no obvious trigger, while you are resting, causing trouble to your sleep at night as well as having such symptoms as chest pain, fever, wheezing and tightness at chest or throat.
I just can share you some simple tips to help you out, you can read them in this article https://authorityremedies.com/home-remedies-for-shortness-of-breath/

[willheal]

Hey,

Heart rate is mediated by a lot of different systems, and I think in this case your concern is the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.

Racing thoughts and feeling like you're in danger will suppress the systems that normally slow your heart down, making it effectively speed up. On top of that releasing cortisol and adrenaline which essentially slow circulation to your extremities to protect you. I get worried that my heart is going to stop after a scary trip to the hospital. I'm sorry you're going through this.

Breathing is regulated by how much CO2 is in the blood stream. Your heart can race without triggering the other, and vise-versa. No worries there if they're out of sync. Let yourself relax and you'll be fine. In fact it's good you're not hyperventilating at rest because that causes some other (harmless, but very uncomfortable) feelings of tingling that usually get people nervous.

If you're worried, general practitioners can screen you for basic heart issues. I just had another screening done and I was a-ok, even though they had me in there the same time I was feeling "chest feelings".

Hope this helps