Constant desire to take a deep breath. Constantly want to take a deep breath or yawn reasons

When we breathe easily, we don’t even notice this process. This is normal, since breathing is a reflex act that is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. Nature intended it this way for a reason. Thanks to this, we can breathe even in an unconscious state. This ability in some cases saves our lives. But if even the slightest difficulty appears with breathing, we feel it immediately. Why does constant yawning and shortness of breath occur, and what to do about it? This is what the doctors told us.

Dangerous symptoms

Sometimes difficulty breathing occurs for physiological reasons, which are quite easily remedied. But if you constantly feel like yawning and taking deep breaths, this could be a symptom of a serious illness. It’s even worse when, against this background, shortness of breath (dyspnea) often occurs, appearing even with minimal physical exertion. This is already a reason to worry and see a doctor.

You should go to the hospital immediately if difficulty breathing is accompanied by:

pain in the chest area;
changes in skin color;
nausea and dizziness;
severe coughing attacks;
increased body temperature;
swelling and cramps of the limbs;
feeling of fear and internal tension.

These symptoms usually clearly indicate pathologies in the body, which need to be identified and eliminated as soon as possible.

Causes of lack of air

All the reasons why a person may go to the doctor with the complaint: “I can’t breathe fully and I’m constantly yawning” can be roughly divided into psychological, physiological and pathological. Conditionally - because everything in our body is closely interconnected, and the failure of one system entails disruption of the normal functioning of other organs.

Thus, prolonged stress, which is attributed to psychological reasons, can provoke hormonal imbalance and cardiovascular problems.

Physiological

The most harmless are physiological reasons that can cause difficulty breathing:

It is difficult to breathe in the heat, especially if you are severely dehydrated. The blood becomes thicker, and it is harder for the heart to push it through the vessels. As a result, the body does not receive enough oxygen. The person begins to yawn and try to breathe deeper.

Medical

Shortness of breath, yawning and a regularly felt lack of air can cause serious illnesses. Moreover, often these signs are the first symptoms that allow diagnosing the disease at an early stage.

Therefore, if you constantly have difficulty breathing, be sure to go to the doctor. The most common possible diagnoses are:

As you can see, most diseases are not just serious - they pose a threat to the patient’s life. Therefore, if you often feel short of breath, then it is better not to delay your visit to the doctor.

Psychogenic

And again, we cannot help but recall stress, which is one of the main causes of the development of many diseases today.

Yawning under stress is an unconditioned reflex inherent in us by nature. If you observe animals, you will notice that when they are nervous, they yawn constantly. And in this sense, we are no different from them.

When stressed, a spasm of the capillaries occurs, and the heart begins to beat faster due to the release of adrenaline. Because of this, blood pressure increases. In this case, taking a deep breath and yawning perform a compensatory function and protect the brain from destruction.

When you are very frightened, there is often a muscle spasm, which makes it impossible to take a full breath. It’s not for nothing that the expression “takes your breath away” exists.

What to do

If you find yourself in a situation where frequent yawning and shortness of breath occur, do not try to panic - this will only make the problem worse. The first thing to do is to provide an additional flow of oxygen: open a window or vent, if possible, go outside.

Try to loosen as much as possible the clothing that prevents you from fully inhaling: take off your tie, unbutton your collar, corset or bra. To avoid dizziness, it is better to take a sitting or lying position. Now you need to take a very deep breath through your nose and an extended exhalation through your mouth.

After several such breaths, the condition usually improves noticeably. If this does not happen, and the dangerous symptoms listed above are added to the lack of air, call an ambulance immediately.

Before medical professionals arrive, do not take medications on your own if they are not prescribed by your doctor - they can distort the clinical picture and make it difficult to make a diagnosis.

Diagnostics

Emergency doctors usually quickly determine the cause of sudden difficulty breathing and the need for hospitalization. If there are no serious concerns, and the attack is caused by physiological reasons or severe stress and does not recur, then you can sleep peacefully.

But if you suspect heart or lung disease, it is better to undergo an examination, which may include:

general blood and urine analysis;
X-ray of the lungs;
electrocardiogram;
Ultrasound of the heart;
bronchoscopy;
computed tomogram.

What types of research are needed in your case will be determined by your doctor during your initial examination.

If lack of air and constant yawning are caused by stress, then you may need to consult a psychologist or neurologist, who will tell you how to relieve nervous tension or prescribe medications: sedatives or antidepressants.

Treatment and prevention

When a patient comes to the doctor with the complaint: “I can’t breathe fully, I’m yawning, what should I do?”, the doctor first of all collects a detailed medical history. This allows us to exclude physiological causes of oxygen deficiency.

In the case of overweight, treatment is obvious - the patient should be referred to a nutritionist. Without controlled weight loss, the problem cannot be solved.

If the examination results reveal acute or chronic diseases of the heart or respiratory tract, treatment is prescribed according to the protocol. This requires taking medications and possibly physiotherapeutic procedures.

A good prevention and even a method of treatment is breathing exercises. But in case of bronchopulmonary diseases, it can only be done with the permission of the attending physician. Incorrectly selected or performed exercises in this case can provoke a severe coughing attack and a deterioration in the general condition.

It is very important to keep yourself in good physical shape. Even with heart disease, there are special sets of exercises that help you recover faster and return to a normal lifestyle. Aerobic exercise is especially beneficial - it trains the heart and develops the lungs.

Active games in the fresh air (badminton, tennis, basketball, etc.), cycling, walking at a fast pace, swimming - will not only help get rid of shortness of breath and provide an additional flow of oxygen, but also tighten your muscles, making you slimmer. And then, even high in the mountains, you will feel great and enjoy the journey, and not suffer from constant shortness of breath and yawning.

Yawning represents a physiological reaction of the body, trying to make up for the lack of oxygen, which, with active and sufficiently deep inhalation, is forced into the bloodstream, thereby ensuring the saturation of brain tissue. The feeling of lack of air can have many reasons that contribute to its formation, and it is to get out of this state that the body reacts with the desire to yawn.

Links of the physiological chain

Regulation of maintaining a constant level of oxygen in the blood flow, and its stable content when the level of load on the body increases, is carried out by the following functional parameters:

The work of the respiratory muscles and the brain center for controlling the frequency and depth of inspiration;
Ensuring air flow, humidification and heating;
Alveolar ability to absorb oxygen molecules and diffuse it into the bloodstream;
The muscular readiness of the heart to pump blood, transporting it to all internal structures of the body;
Maintaining a sufficient balance of red blood cells, which are agents for the transfer of molecules to tissues;
Fluidity of blood flow;
The susceptibility of cellular level membranes to absorb oxygen;

The occurrence of constant yawning and lack of air indicates a current internal violation of any of the listed links in the chain of reactions, requiring timely implementation of therapeutic actions. The development of the symptom may be based on the presence of the following diseases.

Pathologies of the heart system and vascular network

A feeling of lack of air with the development of yawning can occur with any damage to the heart, especially affecting its pumping function. The appearance of a fleeting and quickly disappearing deficiency can occur during the development of a crisis condition against the background of hypertension, an attack of arrhythmia or neurocirculatory dystonia. In the most common cases, it is not accompanied by cough syndrome.

Heart failure

With regular disturbances of cardiac functionality, which results in the development of insufficient activity of the heart, a feeling of lack of air begins to arise naturally, and intensifies with increasing physical activity and manifests itself in the night interval of sleep in the form of cardiac asthma.

The lack of air is felt precisely during inhalation, forming wheezing in the lungs with the release of foamy sputum. To alleviate the condition, a forced position of the body is adopted. After taking nitroglycerin, all alarming signs disappear.

Thromboembolism

The formation of blood clots in the lumen of the vessels of the pulmonary arterial trunk leads to constant yawning and lack of air, being the initial sign of a pathological disorder. The mechanism of development of the disease includes the formation of blood clots in the venous network of vessels of the extremities, which break off and move with the blood flow to the pulmonary trunk, causing blockage of the arterial lumen. This leads to the formation of a pulmonary infarction.

The condition is life-threatening, accompanied by an intense lack of air, almost reminiscent of suffocation with the appearance of coughing and the discharge of sputum containing impurities of blood structures. In this condition, the coverings of the upper half of the torso acquire a shade of blue.

VSD

Pathology results in a decrease in the tone of the vascular network of the entire body, including the tissues of the lungs, brain, and heart. Against the background of this process, the functionality of the heart is disrupted, which does not provide the lungs with a sufficient amount of blood. The flow, in turn, with low oxygen saturation enters the tissues of the heart, without providing it with the necessary volume of nutrients.

The body's reaction is a voluntary attempt to increase the pressure of the blood flow by increasing the frequency of heartbeats. As a result of a closed pathological cycle, constant yawning appears during VSD. In this way, the autonomic sphere of the nervous network regulates the intensity of the respiratory function, providing oxygen replenishment and neutralizing hunger. This protective reaction avoids the development of ischemic damage in tissues.

Respiratory diseases

The appearance of yawning with a lack of inhaled air can be provoked by severe disturbances in the functionality of the respiratory structures. These include the following diseases:

Asthma of the bronchial type.
Tumor process in the lungs.
Bronchiectasis.
Infectious lesions of the bronchi.
Pulmonary edema.

In addition, the formation of shortness of breath and yawning is influenced by rheumatism, low mobility and excess weight, as well as psychosomatic reasons. This spectrum of diseases with the presence of the symptom in question includes the most common and frequently detected pathological disorders.

Breathing is a natural physiological act that occurs constantly and to which most of us do not pay attention, because the body itself regulates the depth and frequency of breathing movements depending on the situation. The feeling of not having enough air is probably familiar to everyone. It may appear after a quick run, climbing stairs to a high floor, or with strong excitement, but a healthy body quickly copes with such shortness of breath, bringing breathing back to normal.

If short-term shortness of breath after exercise does not cause serious concern, quickly disappearing during rest, then long-term or suddenly occurring sudden difficulty breathing can signal a serious pathology, often requiring immediate treatment. Acute lack of air when the airways are blocked by a foreign body, pulmonary edema, or an asthmatic attack can cost life, so any respiratory disorder requires clarification of its cause and timely treatment.

Not only the respiratory system is involved in the process of breathing and providing tissues with oxygen, although its role, of course, is paramount. It is impossible to imagine breathing without the proper functioning of the muscular framework of the chest and diaphragm, the heart and blood vessels, and the brain. Breathing is influenced by blood composition, hormonal status, activity of the nerve centers of the brain and many external reasons - sports training, rich food, emotions.

The body successfully adapts to fluctuations in the concentration of gases in the blood and tissues, increasing the frequency of respiratory movements if necessary. When there is a lack of oxygen or an increased need for it, breathing becomes more frequent. Acidosis, which accompanies a number of infectious diseases, fever, and tumors, provokes increased breathing to remove excess carbon dioxide from the blood and normalize its composition. These mechanisms turn on themselves, without our will or effort, but in some cases they become pathological.

Any respiratory disorder, even if its cause seems obvious and harmless, requires examination and a differentiated approach to treatment, therefore, if you feel that there is not enough air, it is better to immediately go to a doctor - a general practitioner, cardiologist, neurologist, or psychotherapist.

Causes and types of breathing problems

When a person has difficulty breathing and lacks air, they speak of shortness of breath. This symptom is considered an adaptive act in response to an existing pathology or reflects the natural physiological process of adaptation to changing external conditions. In some cases, it becomes difficult to breathe, but the unpleasant feeling of lack of air does not arise, since hypoxia is eliminated by an increased frequency of respiratory movements - in case of carbon monoxide poisoning, working in breathing apparatus, or a sharp rise to altitude.

Dyspnea can be inspiratory or expiratory. In the first case, there is not enough air when inhaling, in the second - when exhaling, but a mixed type is also possible, when it is difficult to both inhale and exhale.

Shortness of breath does not always accompany illness; it can be physiological, and this is a completely natural condition. The causes of physiological shortness of breath are:

Physical activity;
Excitement, strong emotional experiences;
Being in a stuffy, poorly ventilated room, in the highlands.

Physiological increased breathing occurs reflexively and goes away after a short time. People in poor physical shape who have a sedentary “office” job suffer from shortness of breath in response to physical effort more often than those who regularly visit the gym, pool, or simply take daily walks. As general physical development improves, shortness of breath occurs less frequently.

Pathological shortness of breath can develop acutely or be a constant concern, even at rest, significantly worsening with the slightest physical effort. A person suffocates when the airways are quickly closed by a foreign body, swelling of the laryngeal tissues, lungs and other serious conditions. When breathing in this case, the body does not receive the required even minimum amount of oxygen, and other severe disturbances are added to shortness of breath.

The main pathological reasons why it is difficult to breathe are:

Diseases of the respiratory system - pulmonary shortness of breath;
Pathology of the heart and blood vessels - cardiac shortness of breath;
Disorders of the nervous regulation of the act of breathing - central type shortness of breath;
Violation of the blood gas composition - hematogenous shortness of breath.

Heart reasons

Heart disease is one of the most common reasons why it becomes difficult to breathe. The patient complains that he does not have enough air and notes the appearance of swelling in the legs, fatigue, etc. Typically, patients whose breathing is impaired due to changes in the heart are already examined and even take appropriate medications, but shortness of breath can not only persist, but in some cases it gets worse.

With heart pathology, there is not enough air when inhaling, that is, inspiratory shortness of breath. It accompanies, can persist even at rest in its severe stages, and is aggravated at night when the patient is lying down.

The most common reasons:

Arrhythmias;
and myocardial dystrophy;
Defects - congenital ones lead to shortness of breath in childhood and even the neonatal period;
Inflammatory processes in the myocardium, pericarditis;
Heart failure.

The occurrence of breathing difficulties in cardiac pathology is most often associated with the progression of heart failure, in which either there is no adequate cardiac output and the tissues suffer from hypoxia, or congestion occurs in the lungs due to failure of the left ventricular myocardium ().

In addition to shortness of breath, often combined with dry, painful pain, in persons with cardiac pathology, other characteristic complaints arise that make diagnosis somewhat easier - pain in the heart area, “evening” swelling, cyanosis of the skin, interruptions in the heart. It becomes more difficult to breathe in a lying position, so most patients even sleep half-sitting, thus reducing the flow of venous blood from the legs to the heart and the manifestations of shortness of breath.

symptoms of heart failure

During an attack of cardiac asthma, which can quickly turn into alveolar pulmonary edema, the patient literally suffocates - the respiratory rate exceeds 20 per minute, the face turns blue, the neck veins swell, and the sputum becomes foamy. Pulmonary edema requires emergency care.

Treatment of cardiac dyspnea depends on the underlying cause that caused it. An adult patient with heart failure is prescribed diuretics (furosemide, veroshpiron, diacarb), ACE inhibitors (lisinopril, enalapril, etc.), beta blockers and antiarrhythmics, cardiac glycosides, oxygen therapy.

Diuretics (diacarb) are indicated for children, and drugs of other groups are strictly dosed due to possible side effects and contraindications in childhood. Congenital defects in which a child begins to choke from the very first months of life may require urgent surgical correction and even heart transplantation.

Pulmonary causes

Pathology of the lungs is the second reason leading to difficulty breathing, and both difficulty in inhaling and exhaling is possible. Pulmonary pathology with respiratory failure is:

Chronic obstructive diseases - asthma, bronchitis, pneumosclerosis, pneumoconiosis, pulmonary emphysema;
Pneumo- and hydrothorax;
Tumors;
Foreign bodies of the respiratory tract;
in the branches of the pulmonary arteries.

Chronic inflammatory and sclerotic changes in the pulmonary parenchyma greatly contribute to respiratory failure. They are aggravated by smoking, poor environmental conditions, and recurrent infections of the respiratory system. Shortness of breath is initially disturbing during physical exertion, gradually becoming permanent as the disease progresses to a more severe and irreversible stage of its course.

With lung pathology, the gas composition of the blood is disrupted, and a lack of oxygen occurs, which, first of all, is lacking in the head and brain. Severe hypoxia provokes metabolic disorders in the nervous tissue and the development of encephalopathy.

Patients with bronchial asthma are well aware of how breathing is disrupted during an attack: it becomes very difficult to exhale, discomfort and even pain in the chest appears, arrhythmia is possible, sputum is difficult to separate when coughing and is extremely scarce, the neck veins swell. Patients with such shortness of breath sit with their hands on their knees - this position reduces venous return and the load on the heart, alleviating the condition. Most often, it is difficult for such patients to breathe and lack air at night or in the early morning hours.

In a severe asthmatic attack, the patient suffocates, the skin becomes bluish, panic and some disorientation are possible, and status asthmaticus may be accompanied by convulsions and loss of consciousness.

In case of breathing problems due to chronic pulmonary pathology, the patient’s appearance changes: the chest becomes barrel-shaped, the spaces between the ribs increase, the neck veins are large and dilated, as well as the peripheral veins of the extremities. The expansion of the right half of the heart against the background of sclerotic processes in the lungs leads to its failure, and shortness of breath becomes mixed and more severe, that is, not only the lungs cannot cope with breathing, but the heart cannot provide adequate blood flow, filling the venous part of the systemic circulation with blood.

There is also not enough air in case pneumonia, pneumothorax, hemothorax. With inflammation of the pulmonary parenchyma, it becomes not only difficult to breathe, the temperature also rises, there are obvious signs of intoxication on the face, and the cough is accompanied by sputum production.

An extremely serious cause of sudden respiratory failure is considered to be the entry of a foreign body into the respiratory tract. This could be a piece of food or a small part of a toy that the baby accidentally inhales while playing. A victim with a foreign body begins to choke, turns blue, quickly loses consciousness, and cardiac arrest is possible if help does not arrive in time.

Thromboembolism of the pulmonary vessels can also lead to sudden and rapidly increasing shortness of breath and cough. It occurs more often in people suffering from pathology of the blood vessels of the legs, heart, and destructive processes in the pancreas. With thromboembolism, the condition can be extremely severe with increasing asphyxia, bluish skin, rapid cessation of breathing and heartbeat.

In children, shortness of breath is most often associated with a foreign body entering during play, pneumonia, or swelling of the laryngeal tissue. Croup- swelling with stenosis of the larynx, which can accompany a wide variety of inflammatory processes, ranging from banal laryngitis to diphtheria. If the mother notices that the baby is breathing frequently, turning pale or blue, showing obvious anxiety or breathing and stopping altogether, then you should immediately seek help. Severe breathing disorders in children are fraught with asphyxia and death.

In some cases, the cause of severe shortness of breath is allergy and Quincke's edema, which are also accompanied by stenosis of the lumen of the larynx. The cause may be a food allergen, a wasp sting, inhalation of plant pollen, or a drug. In these cases, both the child and the adult require emergency medical care to relieve the allergic reaction, and in case of asphyxia, tracheostomy and artificial ventilation may be required.

Treatment of pulmonary dyspnea should be differentiated. If the cause is a foreign body, then it must be removed as quickly as possible; in case of allergic edema, the child and adult are advised to administer antihistamines, glucocorticoid hormones, and adrenaline. In case of asphyxia, a tracheo- or conicotomy is performed.

For bronchial asthma, treatment is multi-stage, including beta-adrenergic agonists (salbutamol) in sprays, anticholinergics (ipratropium bromide), methylxanthines (aminophylline), glucocorticosteroids (triamcinolone, prednisolone).

Acute and chronic inflammatory processes require antibacterial and detoxification therapy, and compression of the lungs with pneumo- or hydrothorax, obstruction of the airways by a tumor is an indication for surgery (puncture of the pleural cavity, thoracotomy, removal of part of the lung, etc.).

Cerebral causes

In some cases, breathing difficulties are associated with damage to the brain, because the most important nerve centers that regulate the activity of the lungs, blood vessels, and heart are located there. Shortness of breath of this type is characteristic of structural damage to brain tissue - trauma, neoplasm, stroke, edema, encephalitis, etc.

Disorders of respiratory function in brain pathology are very diverse: it is possible to either slow down or increase breathing, and the appearance of different types of pathological breathing. Many patients with severe brain pathology are on artificial ventilation because they simply cannot breathe on their own.

The toxic effect of microbial waste products and fever leads to an increase in hypoxia and acidification of the internal environment of the body, which causes shortness of breath - the patient breathes frequently and noisily. In this way, the body strives to quickly get rid of excess carbon dioxide and provide tissues with oxygen.

A relatively harmless cause of cerebral dyspnea can be considered functional disorders in the activity of the brain and peripheral nervous system - neurosis, hysteria. In these cases, shortness of breath is of a “nervous” nature, and in some cases this is noticeable to the naked eye, even to a non-specialist.

With intercostal neuralgia, the patient feels severe pain in half of the chest, which intensifies with movement and inhalation; especially impressionable patients may panic, breathe quickly and shallowly. With osteochondrosis, it is difficult to breathe, and constant pain in the spine can provoke chronic shortness of breath, which can be difficult to distinguish from difficulty breathing due to pulmonary or cardiac pathology.

Treatment of difficulty breathing in diseases of the musculoskeletal system includes physical therapy, physiotherapy, massage, drug support in the form of anti-inflammatory drugs, analgesics.

Many expectant mothers complain that as their pregnancy progresses, it becomes more difficult for them to breathe. This sign may be quite normal, because the growing uterus and fetus raise the diaphragm and reduce the expansion of the lungs, hormonal changes and the formation of the placenta contribute to an increase in the number of respiratory movements to provide the tissues of both organisms with oxygen.

However, during pregnancy, breathing should be carefully assessed so as not to miss a serious pathology behind its seemingly natural increase, which could be anemia, thromboembolic syndrome, progression of heart failure due to a defect in the woman, etc.

One of the most dangerous reasons why a woman may begin to choke during pregnancy is pulmonary embolism. This condition is life-threatening and is accompanied by a sharp increase in breathing, which becomes noisy and ineffective. Asphyxia and death without emergency assistance are possible.

Thus, having considered only the most common causes of difficulty breathing, it becomes clear that this symptom can indicate dysfunction of almost all organs or systems of the body, and in some cases it can be difficult to identify the main pathogenic factor. Patients who have difficulty breathing require a thorough examination, and if the patient is suffocating, emergency qualified assistance is needed.

Any case of shortness of breath requires a trip to the doctor to find out its cause; self-medication in this case is unacceptable and can lead to very serious consequences. This is especially true for breathing problems in children, pregnant women and sudden attacks of shortness of breath in people of any age.

Video: what prevents you from breathing? Program “Live Healthy!”

It’s even worse when, against this background, shortness of breath (dyspnea) often occurs, appearing even with minimal physical exertion. This is already a reason to worry and see a doctor.

You should go to the hospital immediately if difficulty breathing is accompanied by:

pain in the chest area;
changes in skin color;
nausea and dizziness;
severe coughing attacks;
increased body temperature;
swelling and cramps of the limbs;
feeling of fear and internal tension.

These symptoms usually clearly indicate pathologies in the body, which need to be identified and eliminated as soon as possible.