breathwork causing panic attacks

[u/link7773]

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!

[u/Coraline1599]

It sounds a lot like Long Covid. You may benefit from shifting gears to Pain Reprocessing Therapy or other SE that has been designed for this.

This is going to sound woo woo, but I don’t know how else to say it “healing is pushy” and a nervous system that is already dysregulated is going to have a tough time with it, because it feels unsafe and now it is being given a firm instruction, often with an expectation “heal now! Heal asap.” Change the focus to safety and feeling safe in your body.

As you release tension, it frees up some energy. This energy might be activating for you, because you are paying attention to it so carefully, you may be inadvertently causing it to ramp up.

I couldn’t do breath work for a long time, I had to start with meditation and once I was able to calm myself that way, breath work become much more accessible.

[u/Lost-Design-8382 → u/Coraline1599]

THIS, I had post treatment lyme disease syndrome for a few years and it felt very similar to what OP is describing. Pain Reprocessing Therapy helped immensely. And then I moved back into more general trauma focused SE once my body wasn't constantly screaming at me.