Let’s get this straight. I do NOT have shortness of breath. I can breathe, sustain life, I’m all pink, I have no complaints about that.
What I HAVE is a constant need to yawn without the capacity to yawn successfully. I don’t know what this is called. Yawnus Interruptus? It happened ten years ago right before I took that yoga class, and the class reminded me to breathe in my belly, not my lungs.
I put all my belly into my recent attempts to yawn and it is still not enough. Here’s the only way I can reliably catch a satisfying breath: I exhale everything out of my lungs, then I exhale some more, then I push down on my belly, arch my back, and then I can yawn.
I read something a few days ago about “overbreathing.” Evidently a person having a panic attack feels like she can’t catch her breath, because a little hyperventilation sets off some chain of events and the carbon dioxide / oxygen triggers go wonky, and it all goes south. In reality she can breathe just fine. The cure is to breathe normally, stop gasping for air, and eventually it all straightens out.
Of course, I believe this a real condition because it has just the right dismissive tone that you expect from science and reason. I think it’s my condition because I like the idea that what evidences itself in others as “panic” looks like “chronic yawning” when I do it. Plus, it’s supposedly triggered by holding your breath, which I did plenty of during the mammogram the day before it all started. (Mammogram is clean, btw.Go, boobz.)
Sadly, I’ve been trying to breathe normally for a week and a half and I still need to yawn. I stifle yawns every half hour, because that’s the cure for overbreathing: ignore your body and breathe like a normal person. What I wouldn’t give for a really good yawn.
Since yawning is suggestive, you just yawned while reading this. Enjoy! Pull in enough air to tip you over the edge for me, since I cannot.
7 responses to “I’ve Got the Wonky Lung”
????? I’m confused. I don’t inhale when I yawn. My yawns are just a isotonic/isometric stretching of the jaw and throat muscles that makes my ears buzz. If there’s an intake of air, it’s minor and incidental.
Am I doin’ it wrong?
I yawn normally and there is a very large intake of air with it. I cannot image a yawn without a very large intake of air with it. I doubt I would find them very satisfying.
I recently read that dogs yawn sympathetically when the see us yawn.
I have this thing where I start feeling like I can’t get a deep breath where I get that little ‘over the top’ feeling at the end of it. Then I start noticing it and low-level freaking out – maybe that’s the carbon-dioxide panic thing. My daughter says she gets the same thing. I’m trying desperately not to think about it too much now. *gasp*
I get that too, although less since I started taking meds for my heart condition.Don’t know if that is related to it.
~~Silk – you are doing it all wrong. Is “yawn” like “mango,” a word that means something else in your parts?
Zayrina – I read that momma dogs yawn to calm their children. It never calmed any dog I had.
Allison – Yeah! That’s it. Maddening. I’ve just taken three complete satisfying yawns in a row, so I think I’m cured.
Hattie – well, of course I did read it was a sign of having a tear in your aorta. I would think a wonky heart would change how oxygen and carbon are processed by your lungs. That makes sense.
Just want you to know that reading this post made me yawn uncontrollably for the rest of the evening. I finally just gave up and went to bed! LOL
Gini (Hi, Gini!) – I’m sorry. I put people to sleep here; it’s a service I provide.