Hi everyone,

Happy and sad to join the conversation at the same time. I had no intention of posting, but so many people have shared their experiences.. And Sueran, I share the anxiety trait with you.

I had a terrible "attack" last night. It started with a shortness of breath. At first I didn't realize the connection, but that shortness of breath I believe caused a tension headache in my neck/right side of my face. It was not painful, but a classic rubber band feeling of pressure that spanned from my neck up through my face and up around the eye and temple. Just on the right side of my face. Me being my normal anxious self, I begin to think I have symptoms of a stroke and lay in bed fighting in my head for a couple hours about whether I am okay or if I need go to a hospital. In retrospect, as I sit here with shortness of breath and taking deep breaths, that struggle to take the deep breath puts a pressure on the exact muscles that I felt were exhibiting those stroke like symptoms - which again I believe was just a tension headache. I have had this same experience a couple of times before as well.

To note, as well as the anxiety, I am also 100℅ a mouth breather. I didn't even realize this was an issue or abnormal until recently (I'm not super young either, not sure how I missed the memo!). I have also been told by my wife my sleep is terrible - from convulsing to teeth chattering and grinding. I'm beginning to work through this with my doctor. I recently requested a sleep study for this - as well as for the fact I have a very low resting heart rate. I use Whoop to monitor it, and at sleep it usually ranges between 34-37. I exercise daily and eat, in my opinion, very well. But that's not always been the case..

Back to the SOB (that's a great acronym for it btw), I've always sort of attributed it as being a symptom of the anxiety. But honestly I can't ever say which is which. Is the anxiety from the SOB or is the SOB from the anxiety?

I can say that over the last 15 minutes at least, focusing on deep breaths through my nose has helped. I feel like I'll never be comfortable consistently doing it though.

Sorry for the long introductory post! Hope everyone is breathing well tonight.