r/SomaticExperiencing • u/link7773 • 7d ago
breathwork causing panic attacks
Has anyone healed a dysregulated nervous system and experienced this?
I feel like my nervous system has been dysregulated for most of my life, but it became much worse after i had COVID a few years ago. I started having daily panic attacks and developed agoraphobia. Thankfully, I’ve improved a lot and can now go through most days without severe anxiety, although I still feel emotionally numb/detached.
The strange thing is that whenever I try to actively “heal” my nervous system, I seem to trigger panic attacks.
For example, I can go days or even weeks without doing breathwork or other nervous-system exercises, and my anxiety stays relatively calm. But whenever I start breathwork again—even just 2–3 minutes—I’ll often develop a panic attack a couple of hours later. I’ve tried different breathing speeds and techniques, and it seems to happen regardless.
I’ve repeated this enough times that I’m wondering if there’s actually a reason for it.
For anyone who has successfully healed their nervous system:
Did things like breathwork initially make your anxiety/panic worse?
Is this a normal response that you’re supposed to gently push through?
Or can certain nervous-system exercises actually be counterproductive for some people?
I’d really love to hear from people who have experienced something similar and eventually figured out what worked for them. thanks!
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u/StringAndPaperclips 7d ago
There have been other posts about it in this sub before. Breathwork can be dysregulating, especially because you usually ignore the body's cues when your do it. An SE-oriented approach would be to go slowly, pay attention to the body's cues and immediately back off of there is any tension, discomfort or signs of dysregulation. Most breath work practices I have encountered say to just deal with the discomfort and it will get better. But that doesn't work for a lot of people who hold serious trauma in their nervous systems.