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That’s great news about the O2 levels at night! I tracked mine also but only for a few weeks until like you I never saw any important dips. It’s an amazing technology to have on the wrist.

I do my CO2 tables about 4 nights a week. I like to do it right before bed, laying down, because it is already a sort of sleep inducing activity. By the fifth or sixth round (I typically do 8) I’m almost carried off by dreams and have to remember it’s not time yet hehe. It is funny that just laying there would not bring on the dreams so quickly, but my CO2 tables never fail to.

There’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve found using the SpO2 meter with these CO2 tables. If you measure SpO2 right after completing the CO2 tables, what do you find? My O2 is almost always above 98%, often 100%. I believe James Nestor mentioned this phenomenon in his book when they were purposefully not breathing enough while running. I find it pretty fascinating. Counterintuitive but fascinating.

No I did not have a sleep study performed. I did buy a watch with sleep tracking metrics however. It can track heart rate, movement levels, respiration rate, HRV, and of course sleep cycles. This was instrumental in my discovering that alcohol, for example, was of no help to my sleep, and the metrics were why I quit. The savings from that alone paid for the watch several times, not to mention feeling better.

One of my replies seems to be missing, probably because it was in the thread of a deleted comment. In that post I believe I mentioned Steve Peters’ book “The Chimp Paradox”. Learning how the mind works was invaluable for me to get through a tough time. For one, it is important to know that our amygdalas are just doing their job to keep us afraid, because fear kept us alive in ages past surrounded by innumerable dangers. For another, there are backup systems in the brain that keep the body running even without our having to try. One of those systems forces the muscles that move the lungs to do their job even when we’re asleep or unconscious. One of the reasons we experience great anxiety is thinking we are in control, that we must control everything — perhaps even our breathing, at all times. The reality is that we can control it (breathing exercises) or let go completely (sleep, or perhaps riding a bike or watching a show), and both are ok. One experiment I tried which led me to positive results was actually just trying to stop breathing, “go with the fear”. The funny thing is that it actually led me to sleep when sleep was hard to come by. I believe this had something to do with the breath holds increasing CO2 in my bloodstream which led to very tranquil feelings. The lungs always started moving again. I still practice a version of this in the middle of the night if ever I can’t sleep. CO2 is tranquilizing. So we slow the breath. It both relaxes and induces sleep. Adding some gentle stretching or yoga poses, as well as some relaxing meditation music or some incense? It did not hurt in my case. If anxiety is part of the cause of TSA, and I am not a doctor so cannot say, then to some extent reducing anxiety may reduce the problem. These were my experiences. I do not fear the TSA anymore because I do not believe it can hurt me. Has this relaxed attitude caused the TSA to go away? I cannot say.

Hi Joseph,

Things have been going well here. I’m sorry to hear you are having a recurrence. Are you saying the Ambien helped, but now you are off it and things are worse?

I’m coming up on a solid 12 month anniversary of no alcohol (or anything really). I have occasional episodes of waking with a light gasp but they are extremely rare now. The most common I get is a minor occurence if I nap in front of the tv during the day. I think more and more that low melatonin (it is supposed to be low in the day) may be the cause of these. Perhaps on the very rare occasion at night (I can maybe remember 2 or 3 in a year now) it is a melatonin issue? I don’t know.

I still run and cycle a lot (total activity around 6 hours average per week), and about 6 months ago I took up swimming which I was truly terrible at at first (my trainer said it should be easy to make it 25 meters without breathing, and I could barely accomplish this with breaths. Now I can, so I see this as great progress). I think this may have added a new level to the breathing comfort I am now experiencing. Something I learned from James Nestor’s “Breath” book, was that our body panics when certain neuroreceptors sense high CO2 concentrations in the blood, but also that that level is trainable. In other words, when swimming we can’t breathe when we want to, we are forced to train for breath holds. These breath holds train those neuroreceptors not to panic, through brute force of repetition. Swimming (assuming you dip your face each stroke) desensitizes, therefore, those CO2 neuroreceptors and adds a new level of calm. Through all of this training, I actually find myself breathing smaller breaths more slowly, more calmly throughout the day. What I understand about this is that it is all a function of increased red blood cell count, increased VO2 max from cardio training, and a desensitization of those neuroreceptors. I believe that the panic I felt before on waking short of breath, may have been a function of overly sensitive CO2 receptors in my brain. And I believe they have been fairly well trained now to tolerate longer breath holds during the day, and that this carries over into the night. In short, I do believe swimming may be able to help others do this same thing.

There is another way one can train this, on dry land. They are called “CO2 tables”. They are common practice for free divers who have to be able to train those neuroreceptors for a very high blood CO2 concentration. Basically CO2 tables are practiced breath holds. I have been doing them now also about 6 months, and can now hold for 1m45s 8 times in a row with a brief rest to catch the breath between. You can find talk about this on Youtube. I do these more often than Wim Hof breathing exercises these days. Wim Hof is good, but does not train CO2 tolerance quite as well as CO2 tables, I believe (the purpose of the two are not the same). This is simply because the heavy breathing with Wim Hof first empties your blood of CO2, which then cannot cause as much stress to the CO2 neuroreceptors, therefore, as the CO2 tables do. (Breathing for CO2 tables is not supposed to be heavy or rapid like Wim Hof, it should be full but slow and calm. This leaves CO2 in the bloodstream for the breath hold, which trains and desensitizes the neuroreceptors)

I hope that is not too much information. That’s what I’ve been up to lately though and the results have been positive for me. Hope it is of use to others.

Hi KK, I've been lax about the Wim Hof and honestly my sleep hygiene has gone down lately, but for the most part I do not have these events any longer at night -- they are very rare. When they do happen, I know how to deal with it, which for me is to shrug, let it go, and I usually fall right back asleep. Once per month maybe these days, which I consider manageable and not worth big interventions. That being said, Wim Hof is easy to do and this thread is a reminder that I've been failing to do it (we get comfortable, don't we).

I've had a greater reoccurrence, however, napping during the day. First, about my lifestyle -- I am a heavy exerciser. I run 25km per week and cycle daily, sometimes near threshold. And I do a lot of yoga, several times per day. So I am often bordering on light exhaustion, what with also running a small business and managing two kids and a house as well. I think underlying stress plays a role in all of this. I don't drink alcohol any longer, nor do I smoke anything. I have, however, developed a bad habit of napping during the day to cycling races. It's relaxing for me to watch, and I slowly drift off, then wham, I often wake up gasping. More often in the last couple months than prior to that. This does not happen at night, I believe because there is relatively little noise, and my body is also prepared for sleep with natural melatonin production at night. I strongly believe now that there are two things going on during the day.. 1) melatonin is low, because your body is not prepared for deep sleep. 2) my bad habit of having the tv on when I drift off means there are constant cues to waking, which I react to, and which seems to trigger the event. A few days ago I decided to try napping at noonish in my room with the shades pulled and it was nice and dark and quiet. No event! I napped like a baby for nearly 45 minutes. A few years ago, much of these breathing events started when I would fall asleep at night to music. This never happened when I was younger, but it seems to now. We become more sensitive to poor sleep hygiene as we age, most likely.

Note that light plays an important role in our sleep cycle, and blue light in particular. Have a look at articles about sleep hygiene on Healthline and such, and change your lightbulbs to warm white (2700K) if you can -- avoid daylight/cool white (4100K) spectrums in your home if possible. It's an easy change to make.

Anyway, I think it has something to do, in my case, with time of day combined with lots of wakeful events, like tv chatter, light, poor conditions for sleep..

It's a minor work in progress. I had a very long stretch before and after starting this thread where I had zero events, even napping during the day. Which leads me to believe stress plays a large role. I am a pure type A personality -- go, go go! Get things done. Lists. Order. For a while I was in bliss as I had beaten this thing completely, and totally let go of other stress, like in my business. I just stopped caring for a while. Then we get comfortable, and slowly I've reverted to my type A tendencies. It has shown, and I am aware of it which is a good start.

Regarding tinnitus and Wim Hof. I also get this but only during the breathing exercises. It can get quite strong for about 10 seconds -- a big long heavy ring -- then it completely melts away and I can hear more acutely for a few minutes, I believe, than when I started. It really is a fascinating experience, and I have gone for a record of 3 minutes holding my breath. You see many colours, flashing lights, a lot of things that can stress out the beginner. When you finally breathe in again after the long hold at bottom, it truly feels like you are on the verge of oxygenlessness, and it has an element of fear that accompanies it. Which is why it is good to start slow, and become acquainted with the experience. You may become very frightened. But this is precisely what is needed to be faced -- that feeling and that fear together, and "surviving" it (you will). This is the basis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy -- facing your fears and noting what happens vs what you are afraid will happen. It's always less that we imagine. That's stress, that's the "chimp" brain.

It may seem counterintuitive to do this just prior to sleeping at night, but I have had positive results. I wear a Garmin watch with heart rate monitor 24/7, and it always registers a much lower heart rate for near on an hour after Wim Hof breathing. The stress meter on the watch also bottoms out to near zero. Pay for his course if you can. Cold showers have a similar effect to the breathing exercises. Done just before bed, a cold shower preps your body for very deep sleep. Cold showers also reduce heart rate all on their own, which tells your body it is time to relax. It all can be made to work together.

I don't think I mentioned the book "Chimp Paradox" by Steve Peters, but I'm also throwing this in with my recommendations. The reality is, while I've had some relapse lately, part of why I am lax about fixing it is I have kind of stopped caring a bit. Which might sound bad, and maybe it is on some level (I would like to fix the problem), but it is also because worrying about it too much is what was actually keeping me awake before. If stress were at the base of it, then stressing over it itself will make it worse. Which it did several years ago in my case (I was literally afraid to go to bed at night for fear of dying... I didn't). Stress reduces natural melatonin production. Try and "let it all go" if you can, while also implementing meaningful changes to your daily routine where possible.

I hope this helps. You can do it.

Hi everyone,

When I was suffering from this several times over the last two years it was scary as hell. And that's why I just wanted to chime in to share my experience getting over it, which happily I was able to do.

The worst thing you can read is that maybe you have "central sleep apnea" and that your brain is somehow broken and not sending the appropriate breathing signals to your lungs. Happily, I found this was not at all the case and that this possibility is indeed an unlikely scenario.

Like a lot of people here, I would be drifting off to sleep and then suddenly jerk awake feeling that I wasn't breathing. First things first, I have had several experiences in my childhood where I was either actually near drowning or choking on something, so breathing has always been on some subconscious level for me associated with a bit of fear. It came to a head when other lifestyle factors compounded my overall anxiety in my adult life (I am now 42) and this sleep onset apnea began occurring. I can't say for certain it was the driver, but this transitional apnea only ever occurred after having experimented with cannabis (for anxiety). I had never smoked, and I think on some level the awareness that had grown of my lungs (because smoke irritates them -- I had never smoked before) was contributing to my breathing anxiety, which I believe spilled over into more generalized anxiety, which again compounded the breathing anxiety. It wasn't pretty.

Let me just say that for the most part I have gotten over both my anxiety and my transitional apnea, and I don't think that's a coincidence, nor impossible to do despite how you may be feeling right now. But I take no medication anymore for anything, no pharmaceuticals, no cannabis, and I drink much less overall and especially before bed. This is significant because I believe the onset apnea is highly linked to the fear of it happening again. Instead of brushing it off I began thinking something was wrong with me. I then began fearing dying in my sleep, "and what about my family", and the rollercoaster began.

One of the things about anxiety is that it's both exasperating because we wrongly believe it is meaningful and indicative of real problems in our lives, but it is also treatable through rational exercise within the mind. The first step I believe is to make changes in your life to reduce anxiety. Maybe slow down the work schedule, tie up some loose ends, put an end to fixable issues that are bothering you (and learn to A.C.T. your way out of the ones you can’t fix), do relaxing things like yoga and stretching, and make it an important focus to learn to breathe properly. There is an amazing book that I chuckle about now because I actually returned the audiobook edition once before finally finishing it a month later. I read about nose breathing and its importance, then went on a ride on my indoor bike trainer, breathing entirely through the nose, and it set off a panic attack that I was suffocating. It was at that point I realized how attached my anxiety had become to my breathing. Several days later I redownloaded the "Breath" book (by James Nestor), and, with several grains of salt, finished it.

After two months of breathing exercises, yoga, stretching, physical exercise (always breathing through the nose), and subsiding almost all possible drugs, I have had only one recurrence of the “jumping up unable to breathe” nighttime scenario, and this occurrence was wholly attributable to a dream I had woken up from where “something was in my throat”. Old fears can die hard, but we don’t have to attribute meaning to them more than they deserve. Using A.C.T, which I have become accustomed to and practice daily, I told myself “I am having a dream that I could not breathe”, then fell back asleep promptly. This is highly different from the thought “I am gasping, what is wrong with me?”. Therein lies the beauty of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. You learn to live with things and shrug them off, mentally downgrading the importance of things that are bothersome or frightening, never running away from them which legitimizes and "upgrades" them. I highly recommend “The Happiness Trap” by Russ Harris. Practice this daily and you will very likely see gradual improvement.

Breathing exercises were even more important however, I believe. Please read “Breath” by James Nestor and practice the exercises in the book. What I found was that I had a very low tolerance for CO2 in my bloodstream. This is one of the only other factors in the human mind outside of the amygdala response that can cause true panic. And I believe it is highly linked to why we can wake up gasping, as well as being on edge the entirety of the day feeling like the world is ending – your brain erroneously can believe you are “out of air” when you are most definitely not. Breathing harder and faster throughout the day makes it worse, not better, expelling too much CO2 and altering for the worse your blood chemistry and CO2 tolerance. You must slow your breathing, especially your exhalation.

In short, the brain stem receptors that tell your lungs to work are guided by CO2 concentrations in the blood, not O2 which they are completely blind to. The good news is that it is highly unlikely you are actually short of air, but your mind may believe you are. This is trainable, and I have been doing it successfully. Using the Wim Hof method I, daily, at least twice a day, breathe in and exhale 10 large, full, fairly fast breaths, entirely through the nose to inhale, out of the mouth to exhale, then I exhale one more time and hold my breath for as long as I can. Two months ago I could only do this for 30 seconds before the lungs said “Breathe!!!” then forced me to do so. Two months later I have gradually worked up to 2 full minutes, holding my breath on empty lungs. It has been a game changer. Slowly training breathing through my nose on the exercise bike at higher and higher levels has taught me that it is a snap to do it all day. When I first began, it literally caused a panic attack. Then I could only do it to about 120 heart rate before I felt suffocated. Then I learned to breathe slowly but fully through the nose, not quickly and shallowly as we tend to do through the mouth. I get big, full respirations through the nose now, and I can do this up to near maximum heart rate of about 165bpm (max is around 178bpm for me, and I hope to train up to this point as well, taking my time). My sinuses are almost always clear now, my lungs stronger (breathing fully through the nose tones the diaphragm, which brings breathing confidence which is the opposite of breathing anxiety), and anxiety has almost completely disappeared – something I have battled much of my adult life.

I don't know what else I can add. It was scary as hell, living through the experience, which was on and off over some two years. I just want people to know what it was for me, and what it might be for them. Doctors don't seem to be more than pill pushers these days, and I don't blame them -- who actually follows lifestyle change advice? Well, I set out to beat this problem and I feel like a new person and I hope you can too. I wish you all well on your journey to feeling better.