When Seeley Lutz, a 26-year-old from Alexandria, Virginia, feels overwhelmed — either in a social situation or by all she has to get done — she said she feels like her body starts to shut down.

“I often feel like there’s something heavy sitting atop my chest or blocking my airways, leaving me unable to breathe,” Lutz said. “It truly feels like you’re suffocating even when there’s plenty of oxygen available.”

What she’s experiencing — and what many people experience — is called “air hunger.” John Scott Haldane and James Lorrain Smith coined the term in a 1892 paper. And it’s a common symptom of anxiety, although people rarely talk about how it feels ― or even know that it has a name.

Simply put, air hunger is the feeling that you can’t get enough air. From a medical standpoint, it’s referred to as dyspnea. When anxiety causes it, it’s tied to the “fight or flight” response.

“When we perceive a threat, whether real or imagined, the brain signals the body to enter fight-or-flight mode,” explained Gayle Watts, a clinical psychologist with Turning Tides Psychology. “This activates the sympathetic nervous system, which increases heart rate, tenses muscles and alters breathing patterns.”

To the body, a threat isn’t always as primal or life-threatening as being chased by a bear. It can also be giving a presentation, experiencing a trauma trigger or anything in between.

When your sympathetic nervous system is activated, you may hyperventilate or breathe too quickly or shallowly. That’s where the feeling like you can’t get enough air comes in.

And unfortunately, what may feel instinctual can make matters worse. “Paradoxically, the more we focus on our breathing and try to ‘fix’ it, the more we reinforce the cycle of anxiety and air hunger,” Watts added.

Anxiety and air hunger can become cyclical: You feel anxious, so you experience air hunger, and then struggling to breathe triggers more anxiety. You may then become anxious about, well, feeling anxious, rather than the original threat.

Kyle Elliott, a tech career coach who has anxiety disorders and lives in Santa Barbara,........

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