Hi @abidaisl. For me it seems to come and go. Sometimes I don't notice any urge to take the deep breath for a few hours. But it happens everyday. On good days maybe 6-10 times a day, lasting maybe 5 minutes to 30 minutes, hard to say exactly. But that urge is almost always apparent, ever so subtly, basically feeling it all the time, trying to suppress it. I think it depends what I'm doing or what I'm concentrating on, or sometimes I think it's after meals more, but there are days I wake up knowing it will be bad because of the dreaded unfulfilling yawns; even while lying in bed before getting up in the morning (ughhh it's here already). On the good days I don't see much of an urge to yawn in order to fulfill and satisfy, only the deep breath urges. Generally it's about 3-6 attempts at a deep breath until it "clicks" or as I like to call it a satisfying breath. I've thought and researched the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The satisfying deep breaths I believe triggers a parasympathetic response; or maybe its the other way around where our lack of satisfaction comes from not having the parasympathetic present..? Any doctors have input here? I'm not a doctor just a curious researcher trying to get to the bottom of this and help those who are suffering... including myself.

I've posted in this forum before, here is a brief background:

The urge to take that deep breath generally followed by unsatisfactory yawns started with me about 4 months ago. I don't smoke, I'm in good shape, 43 yrs old, 5'8 155 lbs, workout lightly with small weights maybe 3 days a week, go for 30+ minute bike rides or longer 2-3 days a week. I can run a 5k tomorrow if I had to. Blood pressure is good, heart rate fine, I take omeperazole for gerd but that's it. I've never been tested for covid but don't recall anytime having symptoms, of course other than shortness of breath. Could this be leftover trauma from a lung infection??
My Dr has given me an albuterol inhaler and allergy medicine: neither do anything for the SOB. Chest x-ray came back fine. I just went for a pulmonary function test and was told it looked fine. Although upon reading into the results it shows my lung capacity is slightly high and I have mild air trapping. ? ( is this a bad thing for my age?) The chest x-ray technician told me I have long lungs. I'm not sure if thats good or bad. And like @fellicityr I don't believe stress is the underlying culprit. Any anxiety is secondary to the SOB.
I also had an appendectomy about a month before the SOB started. Anesthesia is a weird thing, could that have anything to do with it? Has anyone else had anesthesia before starting to experience the mysterious SOB?
So after about two months my symptoms ever so slightly started to improve. I thought, geee maybe I can deal with this just how it is and I'll be fine. I've been dabbling with meditation and focusing on mindfullness since this started... Anything to try and cope... It seems to help but certainly does not fix the issue.
So just recently I went for the pulmonary function test, looking for asthma, I was told everything looks fine. That evening the SOB started to get worse, back to what it was two months ago. The next couple days was also bad. Could I have been straining my lungs to much during the test? Like some people here who get it worse the days after strenuous exercise... I've also experienced symptoms worsening the day after an intense bike ride. But then a few days later I feel ever so slightly less SOB. But of course it never goes away, it is still present...everyday....every...day.
Thank you all for listening. If anyone has ideas or a response to some of my questions above I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm very happy to be part of this discussion, it helps. Let's find some answers. Take care everybody!!

Hi Abidaisi,
This is a good question and an important thing to try and nail down.
When I think of my "shortness of breath", it's defining feature is that (even though I am at rest) I take a normal breath in but it doesn't feel like I have had "enough". I then try for a bigger breath. Sometimes this will "click over" my breathing - give me the feeling that my need for air has been satisfied and i can breathe out, but, sometimes, even a bigger breath can't satisfy the feeling of having 'enough". The drive to breathe is the most basic conscious drive we have. It kicks in the moment we are born (and we are even practicing in the womb before we are born) so when our alarm system tells us we are not getting a big enough breath it is pretty distressing.
I believe this is the moment lots of people with this condition get panicked and then get labelled with a primary panic or anxiety disorder.(I am not arguing that anxiety plays no part in the abnormal breathing patterns of some people, rather that I believe it is NOT the answer for all of them).
For me, when I get to this point I just feel resigned ("here it goes again") and I resort to the other "tricks" I have to try and get a satisfying breathe: wriggling my jaw to start a yawn is my usual first trial. Then I try sitting quietly and letting the feeling of suffocation build while telling myself I have been here many times before and I always come through it. It's a faulty alarm and despite its noise I know my oxygen level is ok. Often this leads eventually to an almost unstoppable large gasp which "clicks over" my breathing again. Occasionally I will lie down if I am standing - but always on my side not my back (because I have this belief that the problem has something to do with low blood pressure within my lung blood vessels). Sometimes I will just jump on the spot to trigger a deeper breathe through exercise.
I'm sorry this is so long winded but for me, the term "shortness of breath" doesn't capture the specifics of what I experience.
But the thing is, instantaneously when my breath "clicks over" relief floods through me and I have NO shortness of breath -maybe for minutes, maybe for hours, until the signal to take a deeper breath becomes evident again and I again feel a building "shortness of breath".
All in all, I have (usually) days to weeks where my breathing goes "off", as I have described above, coupled with periods when I can go for months with no problems at all - I have months where my breathing is essentially normal. Maybe the odd unsatisfying breath that is fixed with a bigger "gasp".
I suppose the key feature for me is the complete relief of any sense of "shortness of breath" the instant I click my breathing over.
Hope this is of some help.
Please if you do have shortness of breath though, don't assume it is this until you have been checked out by your doctor. And if you still don't think it is this, and you feel unwell, seek another medical opinion.
Warm regards (it's getting cold on this side of the world!!)