Shortness of breath occurs when you're not getting enough oxygen, leaving you to feel like you need to breathe harder, quicker and/or deeper. And, if you feel like you're not getting enough oxygen, your organs aren't either — which can have serious short-term and long-term consequences to your health.
Shortness of breath is often a symptom of heart and lung problems. But it can also be a sign of other conditions like asthma, allergies or anxiety. Intense exercise or having a cold can also make you feel breathless.
Conditions that can cause a quick onset of dyspnea include asthma, anxiety, or a heart attack. Conversely, you may have chronic dyspnea. This is when shortness of breath lasts beyond a month. You may experience long-term dyspnea because of COPD, obesity, or another condition.
Anxiety affects the heart, respiratory system, and energy levels. These can all cause breathlessness, yawning, and feelings of stress. If a person experiences a lot of anxiety, they may find themselves yawning more often than other people, or more often than when they are not feeling as anxious.
If shortness of breath happens when you're clearly not exerting yourself, when you're doing something you normally could do without feeling winded, or comes on suddenly, those are warning signs that a heart issue could potentially be to blame.
Deep breaths are more efficient: they allow your body to fully exchange incoming oxygen with outgoing carbon dioxide. They have also been shown to slow the heartbeat, lower or stabilize blood pressure and lower stress. To experience deep breathing, find a comfortable place to sit or lie down.
Seek emergency medical care if your shortness of breath is accompanied by chest pain, fainting, nausea, a bluish tinge to lips or nails, or a change in mental alertness — as these may be signs of a heart attack or pulmonary embolism.
"Chest pain, rapid heartbeat and breathlessness may result when an insufficient amount of blood reaches the heart muscle," says Tung. (See "Symptoms" below.) One of the key distinctions between the two is that a heart attack often develops during physical exertion, whereas a panic attack can occur at rest.
After doing a physical exam and listening to your heart and lungs, your doctor may order additional tests. Commonly these include blood tests, imaging tests such as a chest X-ray or CT scan, lung function tests or an echocardiogram.
Most cases of shortness of breath are due to heart or lung conditions. Your heart and lungs are involved in transporting oxygen to your tissues and removing carbon dioxide, and problems with either of these processes affect your breathing.
Both aerobic activities and muscle-strengthening activities can benefit your lungs. Aerobic activities like walking, running or jumping rope give your heart and lungs the kind of workout they need to function efficiently.
Here's the Home Solution
A common method is using a Peak Flow Meter, a handheld device that measures the strength of your breath. You simply breathe into one end and the meter instantly shows a reading on a scale, typically in liters per minute (lpm).
If your shortness of breath symptoms last for four weeks or longer they may be considered chronic. Many conditions can cause chronic breathlessness including: Chronic lung diseases, including COPD, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension. Heart disease or congestive heart failure.
If left untreated, dyspnea on exertion can progress to acute respiratory failure with hypoxia or hypercapnia, further leading to life-threatening respiratory or cardiac arrest or both.
As with exercise or meditation, deep breathing will be most beneficial if you treat it as a daily practice, says Lin. “It can help in the moment — I've had patients who were anxious lower [their] blood pressure and heart rate significantly with just a minute of deep breathing.
A problem with your lungs or airways
Sudden breathlessness could be an asthma attack. This means your airways have narrowed and you'll produce more phlegm (sticky mucus), which causes you to wheeze and cough. You'll feel breathless because it's difficult to move air in and out of your airways.
Deep breaths help oxygenate your muscles, but they can also make your heart work a little harder — which is a good thing! Breathing exercises can improve your circulation, lower your blood pressure, enhance your mental outlook, improve the quality of your airways and even strengthen your bones.
Drinking water helps to thin the mucus lining your airways and lungs. Dehydration can cause that mucus to thicken and get sticky, which slows down overall respiration and makes you more susceptible to illness, allergies and other respiratory problems.
Very strenuous exercise, extreme temperatures, obesity and higher altitude all can cause shortness of breath in a healthy person. Outside of these examples, shortness of breath is likely a sign of a medical problem.