Signs and causes of anginophobia or fear of suffocation

Breathing is a natural and so familiar process that usually a person does not pay attention to it. People begin to consciously control their inhalations and exhalations only when discomfort appears in the organs of the respiratory system.

A painful desire to continuously control the breathing process and a constant fear of unexpectedly suffocating is a sign of a psychological disorder such as anginophobia.

The main cause of the disorder is strong negative emotions experienced in a situation where a person felt a serious lack of air.

The awareness that there is a risk of experiencing an attack of suffocation also negatively affects the psyche of emotional people.

Health status and anginophobia

Anginophobia is closely associated with the following health disorders:

• diseases of the cardiovascular system,
• respiratory diseases,
• inflammatory processes in the larynx.

For example, an attack of angina or a heart attack is a condition that seriously threatens a person’s life. One of the main symptoms of an exacerbation of the disease is a feeling of difficulty breathing. Once having experienced an unpleasant and dangerous state, a person is subconsciously afraid of another crisis .

Phobic fear and constant emotional stress can further weaken an unhealthy cardiovascular system. This is facilitated by excess adrenaline in the blood.

An attack of suffocation is the most well-known symptom of bronchial asthma. Asthma attacks are sudden and severe. In a person suffering from this disease, any slight change in the breathing rhythm can cause panic.

Severe forms of tonsillitis are accompanied by severe sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, inflammation of the tonsils and a feeling of a lump in the throat. These factors create a feeling of tightness in the throat. Abscesses caused by sore throat can cause suffocation. A disease suffered in childhood can greatly traumatize a person’s psyche.

The main causes of phobias

Experts identify the following causes of inexplicable fear: biological, genetic, psychological, social.

Biological and hereditary factors

The lack of a certain acid in the body (gamma-aminobutyric acid), which has a sedative effect, leads to an increase in fear and anxiety, which in turn contributes to the risk of phobias. The reasons for the decrease in the amount of this acid may be brain injuries, long-term use of medications and psychotropic drugs, stress and depression.

In addition, the cause of phobias may be a genetic factor. If one of the parents suffers from a phobic disorder, then the risk of developing a phobia in the child is very high. However, it is difficult to say what exactly influenced this, a hereditary predisposition or certain behavior of a relative.

Social reasons

Most often, the occurrence of phobias is facilitated by the influence of external factors, especially various shocking events that occurred in childhood. It is the psychological traumas of childhood: insect or animal bites, loss of loved ones or prolonged separation, negative experiences of swimming or enclosed spaces, and the like that usually grow into unpredictable fears.

Psychological factors

Some phobic disorders and panic attacks have no connection with any traumas or events; in this case, the causes are often hidden in the subconscious. Incorrect explanation of any words or actions, an incorrect view of current and future events, infringement of characteristic features and other psychological problems can also affect the occurrence of phobias.

Certain fears appeared in the process of evolution, for example, the fear of open space has its roots in the distant past, when in an unprotected place there was a danger of attack by wild animals.

Social reasons

The emergence of social phobias can be facilitated by overly strict upbringing or criticism of parents, inadequate assessment by adults of the events occurring with the child, and unsuccessful experiences of communicating with peers or the opposite sex.

Thus, traumatic situations, affecting a fragile psyche or hereditary predisposition, as well as social and financial status, contribute to the emergence and development of various phobias.

Other factors influencing the development of fear

1. Professional activity that involves a long stay in an environment with insufficient oxygen for a person. Divers, speleologists, miners, etc. may be afraid of suffocation.
2. Bad habits. Ethyl alcohol, which is toxic to the human body, has a negative effect on the circulatory system, so alcohol can provoke shortness of breath and attacks of suffocation. In case of substance abuse, to achieve maximum effect, it is practiced to put a plastic bag over the head. Smoking seriously harms the entire respiratory system of the body.
3. Tendency to forms of abnormal sexual activity, namely the use of various suffocating means and techniques.
4. Feature films that realistically depict strangulation or suffocation.
5. Frequent information in the media about severe environmental pollution.

Why is there a problem?

The phobia in question can occur in any person with increased sensitivity to psychological influences. The reasons are purely individual. In some people they can cause such deviations, while in others they pass completely without a trace.

The following circumstances are identified under which fear of suffocation may be provoked:

1. Specifics of the profession. At risk are occupations such as miners, divers, speleologists - when people spend a long time in extreme conditions, and the specifics of the work are sometimes associated with a lack of oxygen. A constant lack of oxygen leads to a subconscious fear of suffocation even under normal conditions.
2. Dangerous habits. Anginophobia is quite often recorded in alcoholics, which is associated with the peculiar effect of ethanol on the central nervous system. The most susceptible to this anomaly are substance abusers, especially those who use polymer bags to enhance the effect.
3. Extreme entertainment. Some “originals” use short-term strangulation instead of drugs, and sometimes to enhance sexual pleasure. Frequent use of such dubious technologies can lead to certain mental disorders.
4. Information background. Recently, in the media, on television, and in films, scenes with elements of “horror” films involving strangulation have become a common occurrence. In addition, a lot of information is provided on diseases of the respiratory system, poor ecology, etc. People with sensitive psyches perceive such information too keenly, and their nervous system is in constant overstrain.
5. Painful condition. Some diseases create periodic disturbances in the breathing rhythm (for example, cardiac problems). Although such health problems cannot stop breathing completely, sufferers may experience a fear of suffocation.

6. Previous experience. If a person has previously found himself in difficult situations associated with a lack of air, then such experience can contribute to the emergence of a chronic fear of suffocation, even in situations that are not capable of causing it. The beginnings of a phobia can begin in childhood, when acute attacks of sore throat or laryngitis lead to serious breathing problems.

Manifestation of anginophobia

Anginophobia can manifest itself in different ways. In some cases, a person suffers from frequent obsessive thoughts and attacks of irrational terror that arise for no apparent reason.

Some people develop strong fear under certain circumstances. Fear of sudden cessation of breathing with a completely healthy respiratory system is another form of manifestation of anginophobia.

A person is especially anxious at night, because during sleep he is unable to control inhalation and exhalation.

Physiological symptoms:

• increased sweating,
• heart rhythm disturbance,
• dizziness,
• nausea,
• weakness in the body,
• stool disorder,
• frequent urge to urinate.

External signs of an attack of anginophobia:

• hand trembling,
• trembling lips and chin,
• paleness or redness of the face,
• change in timbre or loss of voice,
• enlarged pupils and restless gaze,
• weakness in the limbs,
• change in facial expressions.

The essence of the problem

Anyone knows that breathing is a vital process. As long as a person breathes, he lives. Without oxygen supply, the nutrition of all internal organs stops and they stop functioning. That is why a person consciously or subconsciously tries to evaluate this process by listening to his own breathing.

Difficulty breathing can be caused by completely objective reasons:

• a real lack of oxygen in rarefied, gassed or polluted air, as well as under water;
• long stay in a confined space;
• physical blocking of the respiratory tract (this phenomenon can be caused by respiratory diseases or foreign bodies entering the respiratory tract).

Many people know how to regulate the process by holding their breath for quite a long time. However, the respiratory center works in automatic mode, so complete cessation of breathing cannot occur simply at the request of a person. For such a pathology, corresponding exogenous or endogenous causes must appear.

Fear of death is a natural human phobia. If there are serious illnesses or extreme external conditions, then such feelings are completely justified. However, often obsessive thoughts have no real basis, but are caused by an abnormal reaction of a neurogenic nature.

Fear of suffocation is a fairly common phobia. The thought “I’m afraid of stopping breathing” becomes obsessive, and the person subconsciously reacts inadequately to the slightest changes in the rhythm of the respiratory system. He becomes especially scared at night and in confined spaces. Naturally, such nervous disorders cannot pass without a trace and over time lead to serious nervous disorders. Among experts, the fear of suffocation is called anginaphobia, combining concepts such as mental deviation (phobia) and respiratory tract disease (angina, which really makes breathing difficult).

Thus, anginophobia is an inadequate reaction of the nervous system when there are no disturbances in the respiratory system and the risk of stopping it. In this case, the person cannot actually suffocate, but there is a possibility of functional impairment in the form of panic disorder. Naturally, this condition should be clearly separated from real danger in the presence of respiratory pathologies (for example, asthma) or extreme external conditions.

Prevention and treatment

1. A person suffering from anginaphobia should avoid unventilated, stuffy rooms. You need to spend as much time as possible in nature. A walk in the fresh air will allow you to breathe deeply and will have a beneficial effect on both your physical health and your emotional state.
2. It is worth giving up all bad habits and hobbies that are harmful to your health. This will have a positive effect on the entire body.
3. When working in extreme conditions, it is important to follow safety regulations. Confidence that the risk is minimized will help reduce the level of emotional stress.
4. If you have cardiovascular or respiratory diseases, a person should study possible options for the development of the disease. It is important to know how to act in emergency situations.
5. Detailed information about the structure of the respiratory system will help you understand that breathing is a process that does not require conscious control. It is impossible to suffocate without objective reasons .

When treating a disorder, the psychotherapist’s work is aimed at:

• find out the true cause of fear,
• teach the patient to cope with phobic attacks and quickly recover from them,
• reduce the frequency and severity of attacks,
• improve the general emotional state of the patient.

Why is there a fear of suffocation?

Psychotherapists agree that the beginnings of all adult phobias begin in early childhood.
It is in that period when the child’s brain is still forming - when all the acquired knowledge and events are firmly sealed into the brain structures, like the missing pieces of a puzzle. It becomes almost impossible to make out this picture in the future. Even if the specialist manages to knock out the dangerous parts, in their place there will be a black void for which the patient is not ready. Therefore, working with phobias is always very long and complex. And the fear of suffocation, which seems funny, absurd and infantile to “ordinary” people, is in fact a serious psychological illness. A VSD specialist can muffle it with sedative drops, but only for a while. As soon as the right hour strikes, the phobia will rise in all its glory and sparkle with its colors.

Possible reasons why there is a fear of suffocation during VSD:

• Hypoxia during intrauterine formation. The pregnant woman may have been a smoker or suffered from serious illnesses, as a result of which the fetus did not receive the required amount of oxygen, which was deposited in the subconscious.
• Reaction to the first panic attack. As a rule, no one explains to VSD students in advance what a panic attack is and what symptoms it is accompanied by. Therefore, when a person finds himself helpless in the clutches of an adrenaline surge, he will forever remember how his heart was pounding, how his respiratory organs were compressed, and how much he was short of air. After this, the patient begins to wait for the next attack, and if he was most afraid of the feeling of suffocation, then it will certainly appear again. This is how a vicious circle is formed and the fear of suffocation appears.
• Focus on the respiratory system. VSDers of the information age are unlikely to be able to resist the multitude of medical sites where they can get any information they need. This is how, out of nowhere, cardiophobia or a sudden fear of suffocation appears. Hypochondriacs often provoke certain symptoms in themselves, but they strenuously prove to doctors that they are really sick and need urgent treatment, including hospitalization.

Fear and feeling of lack of air

Anginophobia is a disorder in which a person himself creates the object of his concern with negative emotions. During an attack of fear, the heartbeat increases, the speed of blood flow increases , which needs more oxygen. In this case, a person experiences a feeling of lack of air, which causes a new wave of experiences.

Often the feeling of lack of oxygen provokes an attack of fear, since the person does not know the true cause of difficulty breathing. If you can understand why it became difficult to breathe and eliminate the problem, then the level of anxiety will partially decrease.

What can cause the feeling of difficulty breathing?

1. Any physical activity that increases your heart rate. Shortness of breath is a natural reaction of the body to additional physiological stress.
2. Uncomfortable clothing that pinches and constricts various parts of the body.
3. Body position.
4. Pollution, smoke in the room or environment, thin air.
5. Weather conditions: high humidity, dryness, changes in atmospheric pressure, etc.
6. Any emotion that increases the beating of the heart.
7. Prolonged stay in a confined space.

Principles of treatment

If a mental disorder acquires signs of illness, then it is necessary to contact a psychotherapist for professional treatment. Doctor's tasks:

• identifying and eliminating the causes of phobia;
• decrease in the intensity of the reaction of the nervous system and the entire body as a whole;
• reducing the frequency of attacks of anginophobia;
• acceleration of recovery after recovery from a panic state.

In general, the psychotherapy technique is based on a two-way process. First, the doctor must establish close contact with the patient to obtain from him complete information about the state of fear. Secondly, it is necessary to convey the necessary information to the patient’s consciousness. The psychotherapist must convince the patient that his fear is unfounded, and also help him control his emotions even under extreme conditions.

To achieve this goal, various methods of influence are used. At the initial stage of treatment, professional assistance can be provided in the following ways:

• individual conversation with explanation of various specific situations;
• issuing recommendations on the behavior of a sick person during an exacerbation;
• conducting trainings simulating various situations.

Effective treatment of anginophobia, as a rule, is provided by a complex method, i.e. by combining psychological sessions with drug therapy.

Medicines are prescribed taking into account the severity of the disease, the intensity of its manifestations and the characteristics of the body. The following groups of funds are distinguished:

1. Tricyclic antidepressants. They help normalize the functioning of the entire nervous system and its central apparatus.
2. Benzodiazepine drugs. These medications are relatively mild tranquilizers and are designed to reduce the intensity of the attack.
3. Beta blockers. Such drugs are prescribed in the presence of cardiac problems that can cause fear of suffocation.
4. Psycholeptics. These medications relieve anxiety.

When using such therapy, it must be taken into account that all drugs are considered potent drugs. They can cause an addictive effect. The use of neurological medications is permissible only as prescribed by a doctor.