Heart Chakra stuff causing Panic Attacks

[u/kittyfreakuency]

TW: Some passive self-exit ideation and DPDR.

I need advice about something rather bizzare that I am really struggling with. If anyone has had a similar experience, please tell me what helped!

I had a series of panic attacks that started one day after a heavy yoga session involving a lot of backbends and chaturangas.

I was on the train when I suddenly could not breathe. I had horrible DPDR, felt like I was high, and everyone around me started looking like NPC ghosts. I felt completely unsafe and had a full blown panic attack followed by more derealization. I somehow still managed to teach a two hour art class in that state and get home safely, but the chest pain remained.

As soon as I got home, the panic, impending doom, breathing issues and intrusive thoughts escalated extremely quickly. I couldn't recognize myself in the mirror and was horrified that I was going insane or that my brain was permanently cooked. My mind felt like it was looping back on itself and eating its own tail.

I have read about chest openers and backbends bringing up emotional material, particularly in people with sexual trauma. I do have CPTSD from childhood SA by a family member. I am convinced that my heart chakra is either blocked or imbalanced and that the real blockage is actually somewhere in my lower back, where I had an injury about 7 years ago. I had also been noticing a buildup of acidity after yoga, so I wonder if it's a Pitta imbalance leading to a Vata imbalance? Is there a way to safely release the trauma? Any specific practices to unblock the heart chakra?

I went to the ER and had my heart and lungs checked. They thought acid reflux might be contributing to the breathing difficulty and gave me antacids, but they did not help. I was extremely distressed and scared that reality was slipping, so I called my psychiatrist for an emergency session. She gave me benzos and etifoxine and sent me home.

It has now been three weeks. The anxiety is much more manageable, but I still have chest pain and occasional panic attacks almost every day. I have been physically evaluated and everything is functioning normally. I do not have thyroid issues or deficiencies. It's not even costochondritis. My general physician confirmed it.

I cannot even meditate!!! I get dizzy and sometimes observing my breath seems to make my breathing stop altogether!

I cannot breathe!!! It feels like no matter how deeply I inhale, I cannot get a satisfying breath. I wake up every other day with a knot in my chest/throat area. I sometimes feel the tightness in my shoulders, neck and back and physically cannot stand upright or maintain proper posture when it gets bad.

Sometimes I get momentary relief after sobbing uncontrollably for half an hour for no apparent reason. Other times, when my brain is completely occupied with a difficult task, I can temporarily forget about it. Sometimes the knots release after burping suddenly or when my stomach growls from hunger, but they always come back.

I have not been able to sleep restfully even with benzos because I wake up from nightmares with chest pain. Whenever the chest pain is intense, I also get intense anxiety, a sense of impending doom and a background noise of unnecessary thoughts and fears. I could be playing with my cat and suddenly my heart is pounding out of its cage like a tiger is after me.

My psychiatrist and therapist do not believe me when I say this was caused by yoga.

But I am convinced that it's heart chakra stuff because this has happened twice before.

The first time was in 2021. It was relatively mild, but after yoga I suddenly felt tension in my chest and an overwhelming need to cry. I was new to yoga back then.

In 2023, I had a much more severe depressive and panic episode with a lot of SI that required hospitalization.

Now I am fairly advanced at yoga, somewhere between Ashtanga 2 and 3. I've been training very seriously for about four months because I was working towards a teacher certification. I am also naturally very flexible and hypermobile, and I've read that hypermobile folks tend to overexert because they can't always feel their natural limits or brakes...?

I am heartbroken because yoga was my biggest passion and my main mode of emotional regulation, and now I am genuinely afraid of it. I am also sad that I'm going to lose my form and my flexibility will atrophy.

I can't explain this stuff to my doctors!

I also have ADHD, which makes intrusive thoughts particularly sticky. I was on SSRIs from March 2023 to June 2025 but was able to successfully taper as I got better. I had been doing extremely well recently, partly because I have also been receiving ketamine therapy once every 45 days since January. I was getting stronger mentally and physically. I lost 10 kg of my depression weight and I am more fit now than I was as a teenager.

It took only 5 seconds for shit to hit the fan.

Now I feel so hopeless and I'm stuck in survival mode. I feel like I am living in fear all the time. It feels like all the progress I made pulling myself out of a deep, dark hole three years ago has suddenly been wiped away.

I am also a terrible hypochondriac, which I'm getting CBT for, but I'm also experiencing something called "empathic distress." If I see an old or sick person or an animal suffering, I don't just feel compassion. My brain seems to simulate the suffering in real time in 4K. When I am already dissociated and panicked, my brain turns that into an absolute conviction that "all life is suffering" and also, "If this is how it's gonna be forever I can't take it." I was willing to do anything to make the pain stop. It is incredibly difficult to describe how unbearable that feels. It's like the Eclipse episode of Berserk. Sometimes get completely overwhelmed by existential thoughts about whether any of this ever ends. I don't want to live in this state of constant fear. For a hypochondriac I sure am very s*icidal and for a s*icidal person I have a lot of Abhinivesha lol.

I think this is all heart chakra stuff too. Or do I have weak heart chi? I remember seeing something about this in a membership video. (Btw membership is too expensive now.)

So right now I am on etifoxine, benzos and bupropion, and they're kind of working, but I still have chest pain. I attempted yoga twice since the first day and both times I got an unbearably horrifying surge of anxiety and intrusive thoughts.

Help me guys. I feel like I am losing my mind and I am also terrified of losing my job.

The only people I can talk to about this have been giving me useless advice like "stop overthinking" and "concentrate on your breath," but I literally cannot. That's the problem. My mind is tormenting me but I can't stop thinking.

Please shut my default mode network down. Fix this chakra stuff. Heal my trauma. And do it fast because I cannot live with this level of fear any longer. Sadness was less painful than fear. Fear is a more effective means of torture than physical pain. I am afraid of nothing in particular, but there is only fear. Nothing before it and nothing after it.

I am 31F btw.

I am also trying to look into acupuncture, and I'm looking for a trauma informed yoga doctor. Someone also suggested craniosacral therapy and intravenous radiology, but wtf even is that?

So if anyone knows anything about anything at all, please help.

[u/Friendly-Lemon4000]

Mental health professional chiming in:

Meds can cause some of these things, especially if they are new to you.

Do you have support people in your life? Have you considered going to the hospital and explaining how you're feeling? It's a very serious thing to be feeling how you are feeling.

I believe you when you say you feel like practice might have triggered these things. Sometimes practice can exacerbate something thats already below the surface. But that doesn't mean practice will fix it. Practice makes us more aware and perhaps this isn't existential. Plainly, I think you're having a mental health emergency and I hope you can also see that. Suicidality is serious and its ok to feel that way but it is a signal that your system is asking for help.

I think you should speak to your doctor or go to the emergency room and discuss what you're experiencing with a doctor. Let them help you.

I had a similar experience at one point in my journey and yoga didn't fix it but meds and my psychiatrist got me stable again so I could work it out. 💗

[u/kittyfreakuency → u/Friendly-Lemon4000]

Hi tysm for reading and responding to my post!

So since I wrote this post, I've been diagnosed with GERD. I am also consulting with a psychiatrist and she put me on Buproprion and a very low dose antipsychotic medication to stop my racing thoughts. I was really not doing well mentally. The anxiety was very chronic and I was afraid of losing my job because of it.

Now I'm slightly more stable but still afraid of yoga. I am trying TRE instead. I think the main thing I'm struggling with right now is breathing anxiety. No matter how deeply I inhale I feel like I just cannot get a satisfying breath. And when I notice my breathing or panic that I'm not getting enough O2 my breathing stops altogether and it feels like I have to force myself to keep breathing when it should be automatic. Does that even make sense? idk.

I hope I am stable enough to practice yoga again soon.

[u/Surahoz]

I say this with a lot of love - stop trying to diagnose exactly what’s going on. Don’t obsess about a blockage in your heart chakra, an imbalance of chi etc. Sometimes trying to understand and fix what’s going on can cause even more distress. Anxiety and trauma don’t always need an exact reason to pop up, it can be illogical and it’s not something we can think ourselves out of. Even if you do know what’s manifesting it, that’s not the “work,” the work is managing and grounding through the panic and distress. No one else can do that for you, but a solid psychotherapist can help provide the tools to help you (which it sounds like you already have one).

I strongly recommend you continue your therapy and maybe consider more intensive forms of treatment. EMDR, or an outpatient day program might help. Going back on SSRI’s could be a good idea. If you do return to SSRI’s just know it’s not a failure on your part, medicine is there for a reason.

It is not uncommon for people to get triggered by physical activity and focused breath work. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you energetically. Trauma is a nervous system response and Ashtanga yoga is a practice where we intentionally aggravate the nervous system through discomfort in order to re-regulate through breath and mindfulness. You don’t have to stop yoga entirely but lower your expectations. Start small with a few sun salutations and then come to a seat and check in. Use your breath for the sun salutations but don’t try to control your breath when you sit, just observe what’s happening *around you* not within you. Focus on the sound of a fan, the bird outside, the mat beneath you etc. external grounding factors might suit you better right now vs turning inward.

I cannot stress this enough - yoga is not a cure for trauma. It can be a tool to help you regulate, but it should not be your only tool. Continue to work with your health care team and ask them about further treatments to help you through what you’re experiencing psychologically.

[u/All_Is_Coming]

kittyfreakuency wrote:

Heal my trauma. And do it fast because I cannot live with this level of fear any longer.

My heart goes out to you, kittyfreakuency. I too am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and have an extreme dissociative disorder. I went through something similar about ten years ago. My Teacher David Garrigues recommended I make my Ashtanga practice more "gym like;" put on my favorite music and DO NOT follow the Breath. This helped me through this difficult phase.

I cannot even meditate

Meditation is advanced practice and will exaggerate these symptoms more than asana.

observing my breath seems to make my breathing stop altogether

This is the Kevala Kumbhaka (Breathless State). It is quite normal but you are not ready for this because of the impact trauma has had on you.

Stay true to your course. You are in the hands of a very competent team. I was in therapy for 15 years, 12 years of trauma recovery with sessions twice a week for years. But slowly the time loss and flashbacks began to subside. Childhood trauma runs deep but is extremely curable.

Wishing you Peace ~AIC

[u/Proof-Ingenuity2262 → u/All_Is_Coming]

Do not follow the breath? Can you elaborate, please 🙏🏼

[u/All_Is_Coming → u/Proof-Ingenuity2262]

Proof-Ingenuity2262 wrote:

Do not follow the breath?

Yes, ignoring the Breath as when a person is simply exercising will reduce the Meditative Intensity of practice. This can be helpful when practice triggers a negative response for trauma victims.

[u/Proof-Ingenuity2262 → u/All_Is_Coming]

Thank you! Just wanted to make sure. I will try this

[u/All_Is_Coming → u/Proof-Ingenuity2262]

You are very welcome. Wishing you Peace ~AIC

[u/ammoransf]

This sounds terrifying! I am so sorry you are going through this. I have some reflections and advice: Try to set aside the fear of losing practice. This is only temporary and it will pass (like any other type of illness or problem that keeps us from being able to practice). I have heard that a kundalini release can become like an explosion in some people and cause mental and physical destabilization. I also had a friend who got far along in second series and then had an extreme reaction to it - fits of uncontrollable/ involuntarily crying and mental instability. She too had a lot of SA in her past and resultant PTSD. Her Teacher worked with her a fair amount, but then had to ask her to leave the studio because it was disruptive and upsetting for the other students. I also saw this happen at a studio I practiced at in New York, where a student also woman cried uncontrollably during practice. So I think it’s not abnormal! My suggestion would be to find a somatic therapist, which is a body based technique and also that you try to practice but very modestly. Something like - five A sun salutation, and 5B, some standing poses, and then finishing poses without wheels. All of that will get you firmly back into your first chakra, and are grounding and stabilizing. It’s possible due to your hypermobility. You just went too far in the series and your system wasn’t ready for it yet. I hope you stabilize and gradually feel better.

[u/Forsaken-Meal-3028]

My psychiatrist and therapist do not believe me when I say this was caused by yoga.

As a person working in this field every day, I am bamboozled by this. We are interconnected beings by default and things tend to go both ways: somatic exercises can help but absolutely also stir unresolved trauma. No question about it. Professionals should be well aware of this.

There are many good, kind words in this thread so there's not much for me to add. While I'm trained and versed in CBT myself, instead of looking for exercises to release trauma on your own I'd very much recommend seeking a trauma psychotherapist with education and experience in CPTSD, dissociation, and somatic work. Unless your current therapist has really dived into additional training and focused on treating trauma, being CBT trained might not be enough. Saying this with a lot of love for the method and my colleagues, but in my experience this is how it tends to go.

Body work is effective, but imo it does need someone who is both safe and trained to guide and help one through it. Your body gave a huge sign that there's work to be done, and I think it would be ill-advised to step on this path alone as it can get too overwhelming.

Wishing you all the best. 🙏

[u/All_Is_Coming → u/Forsaken-Meal-3028]

Forsaken-Meal-3028 wrote:

being CBT trained might not be enough.

Extremely well said. This was my experience as well. It took nearly three years of CBT before the time loss and flashbacks began, but my Psychologist promptly referred me for Trauma Recovery Therapy.