Breathing is essential to life and occurs naturally with very little or no thought. There are many reasons why our breathing can lose its natural rhythm (see diagram). These triggers cause a disturbance to our breathing which could lead us to experience unpleasant symptoms including breathlessness which may be out of proportion to whatever you are doing.

Having a breathing pattern disorder means we could be using the wrong muscles to breathe, using the upper chest rather than the bottom of the chest and mouth breathing rather than nose. Breathing could be fast or the breaths too large or irregular.

Upper chest breathing is a normal reaction to stressful stimuli or activity etc, once this has passed your breathing should return to normal. If there is are prolonged or repeated triggers this continual pattern then becomes your new normal and your breathing does not return to how it should be.