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Lately I forget to breathe when falling asleep. Somehow I'm still not dead.
Maybe it's good you are falling asleep and your body takes over the breathing. Unless you have sleep apnea of course, then good luck to you!
I wasn't aware I wasn't breathing, I was between wake and sleep and needed air. It's a weird sence of calm
Oh I just forget to breathe all the time. Like even alone. I swear my brain thinks it's a good practical joke.
"Haha I almost let you die!" -My brain, probably.
It's anxiety and yes, I've done it all my life. I don't have much real advice except that you can train yourself to do body check-ins frequently. You can learn to recognize situations where it will be the most severe. Listen a little less intently and breathe and be chill. Remind yourself that if anything surprising happens, you can easily handle it. You don't need to grip the wheel so tightly.
I only recently managed to notice it clearly most of the time. Before, it seems like I would just keep pushing myself harder and harder. And then be sick or in shutdown for days.
You need to start building a breathing system. Body scan, breathe. Train yourself to check in and then breathe. I'm not sure if there is a metric on a smart watch or ring to watch for oxygenation levels that you can use an alert to remind yourself to breathe. I've not tried that. I did just get in the habit to do a body scan and give myself a reminder. It's marginally effective.
I don't really use smartwatches because I would forget to charge them. But my regular watch can vibrate from time to time, so maybe I can use that as a reminder to check-in.
The problem for me seems to be that it takes quite a long time after I notice it to regulate it again. Sometimes I need to pay attention to my breathing for like 30 minutes before I calm down again.
If that happens often, I can't really get much done.
While you're on a screen, there are a bunch of apps and browser plugins that have a breathing reminder you set at your internal. Might not fix everything but could help a little.
Also, if you're doing this, you should be checked for Central Sleep Apnea. You likely do it while sleeping as well.
How do you get checked for sleep apnea? And is the only way to treat it those cpap machines?
You need a full sleep study to determine. An overnight at a sleep center. They are literally quiet facilities with few people about. I recommend talking to your primary care physician (if you're in the US) to tell them what you're doing with breathing and mention a concern of central apnea. They can request the sleep study to make sure your insurance covers it. And yes, a bipap machine would be necessary to correct it. Which might sound awful but your doctor would likely give you a small talk about the strain this can put on your heart. I hold my breath when there's any kind of stress in dreams because I've forced myself to wake up from naps and realized I wasn't breathing. To some degree, a bipap machine will retrain your brain as well. Maybe to a degree where it fixes things in the rest of your day for long periods. The new nose and/or mouth pieces are also much smaller and less intrusive than they used to be.
You sound fairly young and are likely to ignore medical stuff but please don't. At least talk to your doc about it (or find a doc if you don't have one. Again, assuming you're in the US, make an appointment at a hospital satellite office not a doc in the box). This is a psychological issue that is largely fixed by physical medicine.
I'll mention it next time to my doctor. I think she would take it serious. But are there no people who ever managed to get rid of sleep apnea with other interventions?
I've heard exercise helps for that, but maybe only for people that are overweight? I'm not sure.
I haven't done much exercise since a long time, but my weight is fine. So not sure if it would help
Yeah, obstructive apnea is by far the most common and is also commonly due to weight. But central apnea is neurological. Your brain just isn't sending a signal to your body to breathe. The autonomic nervous system can be altered with anxiety or emotional trauma. Which seems like this might fall under. But no clear way to fix it as far as I'm aware, only treat it like in this case. You might find that some time with the bipap or CPAP devices will correct it for a bit, maybe even in daily life, but it will likely reoccur over time.
Can you just test a device like that from another person, or do they have to be calibrated (or maybe it's unhygienic?), cause I know a person who has one
You can use other people's machines if you need. The hoses and masks are consumables but they machine is static. Though, it wouldn't do you any good without the sleep study. You would need to know the pressure needed, the mask suited for you and most importantly, if you've got central apnea at all. You probably don't want to go through all of that if you don't need it.
The only way I've found works for me is if I build in a habitual association with the task I'm doing. So like I know I tend to hold my breath when cleaning the bathroom and it makes me feel light headed, so then now I tell myself every time I wipe a surface, I take a breath. If it's admin it would be some task related trigger to breathe etc
I notice it when talking to somebody (or typing words). I tend to hold my breath while doing so.
I have the opposite problem. I feel like I'm not breathing enough, and sometimes get into a hyperventilation loop and pass out. I do 4x4 breathing manually if I feel any breathing weirdness at all. 4 second in, hold 4, out 4, hold 4, repeat. I know it's not the technically optimal technique or anything but it's the one I remember in a pinch because you just have to remember my favourite number
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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