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I stop breathing while falling asleep.

Sleep Health | Last Active: Jun 10 11:39am | Replies (21)

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@brittni79

Has anyone experienced doing deep breathing while falling asleep and when you fall asleep you wake up gasping for air? This only happens if I do deep breathing while falling asleep. I keep assuming that maybe my body isn’t used to getting so much oxygen so when it does it triggers to not breathe because it just got so much? Idk, I tried searching online everywhere and don’t see anything on this situation. It scares me

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Replies to "Has anyone experienced doing deep breathing while falling asleep and when you fall asleep you wake..."

Never heard of this in particular but just my thought as a possibility? Deep breathing is normally done to help someone relax, reduces stress, anxiety, etc. Possible to me that it is relaxing your body including your throat muscles to a point that your breathing is affected which is similar to what happens to many with sleep apnea. Just my 2 cents . I do tend to have gasping for air issues when I take an over the counter sleep aid I have noticed. I'm guessing it may relax me just a little too much so I try and avoid taking these now. It also always happens within 30 to 40 or so minutes of falling asleep which is very odd, seems to be before I enter another sleep cycle. I have been tested for sleep apnea a couple of times and told I don't have it or if I do it's very mild. Best to you!

I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea nearly 25 years ago.

This would happen to me. I knew that I would wake up gasping for air, so I'd try to prevent that by breathing deeply before falling asleep. It didn't work; sometimes I'd wake up gasping after just a few seconds.

Have you had a sleep study? I'd highly recommend it. Getting one (I actually had two) saved my life.