We take around 20,000 breaths a day without giving them a second thought. But for some people, breathing stops feeling automatic. They feel short of breath sitting still, sigh and yawn all day, or get puffed far more easily than their fitness should allow.
Often, nothing is wrong with the lungs at all. Instead, the way they’re breathing has drifted off course. Doctors call this dysfunctional breathing, or a breathing pattern disorder, and the good news is that it can usually be retrained.
What is dysfunctional breathing?
Dysfunctional breathing is a change in your normal breathing pattern that causes symptoms, with or without an underlying lung condition. There’s no single test for it, and it can sit alongside conditions such as asthma, which is one reason it’s often missed.
It’s more common than you might think. A UK study of adults in general practice found that around 8% had symptoms suggestive of it, leading the researchers to estimate it may affect up to one in ten people. It was more common in women and in people with asthma. A large Japanese community survey published in 2025 put the figure at 11%. There are no comparable figures yet for New Zealand, but a 2026 review by researchers at Auckland University of Technology describes breathing pattern disorders as common and often linked to asthma and anxiety.
The signs to look out for
- Feeling you can’t get a satisfying breath, even at rest
- Frequent sighing or yawning
- Breathing fast, shallowly or mainly into your upper chest
- Breathing through your mouth much of the time
- Feeling dizzy, lightheaded or tingly, especially in your fingers or around your mouth
- Chest tightness or a racing heart
- Feeling more breathless than your fitness or lung tests suggest you should be
Some of these happen because breathing too fast or too deeply blows off too much carbon dioxide, which can bring on dizziness and tingling.
What causes it?
Sometimes there’s no obvious trigger: a breathing habit simply takes hold. But these are the most common links.
Asthma
Asthma is the big one, and it matters here because New Zealand’s asthma rates are high by international standards. More than 615,000 New Zealanders, about one in eight, take medication for asthma. In a UK general practice study, about a third of women and a fifth of men being treated for asthma had symptoms suggesting dysfunctional breathing. In severe asthma the figure can be far higher, around 44% in a 2025 French study.
The two can be hard to tell apart. If your asthma seems poorly controlled even though you take your preventer properly, ask your GP whether your breathing pattern could be part of the problem.
After a virus, including COVID-19
Breathing pattern problems are now commonly reported in people with long COVID. One French clinic found that almost a third of long COVID patients with ongoing breathlessness had dysfunctional breathing. Many people who struggle to get their breath back after any bad chest infection may be dealing with the same thing.
Stress and anxiety
We all breathe faster when we’re stressed, and for some people that pattern sticks. Researchers at the University of Otago note that dysfunctional breathing has long been suspected to have emotional roots, though there’s still limited hard evidence on which comes first.
When your throat closes during exercise
If your throat tightens and you make a harsh, noisy sound when breathing in during hard exercise, and your asthma inhaler doesn’t help, you may have exercise-induced laryngeal obstruction (EILO). It happens when the voice box narrows when it should open. It used to be called vocal cord dysfunction, though the narrowing often happens above the vocal cords themselves.
EILO affects roughly 5–8% of teenagers, and more than 20% in some groups who exercise intensely, such as elite athletes. It’s often mistaken for asthma: in one study of athletes with EILO, 61% were taking asthma medication they didn’t need. A respiratory specialist or ENT can diagnose it, and a speech-language therapist can teach techniques to control it.
Check your breathing
Try this quick self-check while sitting or lying comfortably:
- Rest one hand on your upper chest and the other on your tummy, just below your ribs.
- Breathe normally for a minute without trying to change anything.
- Notice which hand moves more.
In relaxed breathing, most of the movement should be in your tummy and lower ribs, with your upper chest fairly quiet. If your top hand is doing most of the work, you may be a chest breather. Don’t force your tummy in and out, though: pushing hard with your stomach muscles is an unhelpful pattern too.
How to retrain your breathing
The good news is that breathing patterns can be relearned. In a UK trial, more than half of people with asthma and dysfunctional breathing symptoms reported a meaningful improvement in quality of life after just a few physiotherapy sessions.
These simple habits are a good place to start:
- Breathe through your nose. It naturally slows and warms your breath, so make it your default.
- Breathe low and slow. Let the breath move into your tummy and lower ribs rather than your upper chest.
- Lengthen the out-breath. A gentle in-breath followed by a slightly longer, relaxed out-breath helps calm a fast pattern.
- Notice the sighs. If you catch yourself sighing or yawning a lot, swallow or take a small, slow breath through your nose instead.
- Practise little and often. A few minutes several times a day helps the new pattern become automatic.
If your symptoms don’t settle, talk to your GP about seeing a physiotherapist who specialises in breathing (often called a respiratory or cardiorespiratory physio). They can assess your breathing properly and tailor a retraining programme for you. If asthma or a voice box problem is involved, treating that too will speed things up.
Be patient. Your body learned this pattern over time, and it takes regular practice, usually over weeks rather than days, to replace it.
When to see a doctor
Don’t diagnose yourself. Breathlessness can be a sign of heart or lung conditions that need treatment, so see your GP first. Dysfunctional breathing should only be diagnosed once other causes have been ruled out or properly treated.
Call 111 straight away if you have severe or sudden breathlessness, chest pain, blue or grey lips, or can’t speak in full sentences.
Where to get help
- Healthline: call 0800 611 116 for free health advice from nurses and paramedics, 24 hours a day.
- Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ: information and support for asthma and other breathing conditions at asthmafoundation.org.nz.
