How to fast raise blood pressure?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s a long story, so I just highlighted the main question, but you can read the rest if you want. :slight_smile:

2, 3 years ago I got this thing called Agoraphobia, it’s an irrational fear of public spaces, in my case that means that not all the time, but occasionally (5, 10% of time) when I’m in a public space (bus, shop, street…) I get dizzy and risk fainting if I don’t force my blood pressure up.

I actually fainted twice a few years ago (due to something else) and both times there was a bunch of people standing above me once I “woke up”, so that engraved in the back of my head and that’s how I got agoraphobia and now sometimes I get extremely uncomfortable in places with a bunch of people around and I may get a panic attack where I start thinking about how I will faint, which actually lowers my blood pressure and that makes me panic even more and then I just want to escape from that room, street or whatever.

I know that I will probably not faint, I try to convince myself, but it doesn’t help. Sometimes I get a panic attack at random moments without thinking about it, I was at a barber shop yesterday, I was thinking about something totally unrelated, everything was fine for 20 minutes and then out of a sudden I started panicking, my heart started working fast, I got lightheaded,etc.

Dealing with agoraphobia is a long process, I need to expose my self to public spaces more and so on, however, if I get the panic attack, combined with lowering of blood pressure, which I do at least every 20 days, how should I breathe to raise my blood pressure at that moment and get the most oxygen?

I don’t know how to breathe to do so, breathing quick is probably the worst thing to do, but breathing deeply also doesn’t seem to do the trick, heck, sometimes when I breathe in really deeply, I feel dizzy for a second, I don’t know why…

I am going to go on a vacation soon and I’m going to use multiple public transport vehicles, so I need to know how to deal with this.

2

I know this is GQ, but I’ll give you an IMHO answer anyway.

I had pretty much exactly the same problem about 15 years ago. I had no previous problems with social anxiety or phobias or anything like that, but one day, I just fainted on the tram as I was getting of it. Had a panic attack, apparently (though I did not know what was going on at the time.) At that instant, my brain connected fainting and public transportation/public spaces with panic attacks, so it was very difficult going out, though I forced myself to do so. I only had one or two full blown panic attacks since then, but it was a fight for a good two years before I came back to “normal.”

What you describe as your thoughts during the attack are very similar to mine. What I can tell you is that you’re not alone, and that the problem is not all that unusual. When I talked to my friends about it, I found out that a good percentage, maybe a quarter of them, have gone through something like this. Are you by any chance in your mid-to-late 20s? That seems to be a typical time for these sorts of things to show up.

For me, my breathing technique to help calm myself down was to inhale with the tip of my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth to a count of five. Hold for seven. And then exhale for seven. That really helped a lot to getting me back to normal. Also – and I suspect this is going to be very dependant on the person – but I found that sipping on cold water (like from a 1/2 liter water bottle) also distracted and calmed me down such that I could at least weather the storm.

And then, there’s also Xanax (or other drugs) if it becomes unbearable. I did Xanax for 3 weeks, but I didn’t like it, but it did work a treat at keeping the anxiety at bay.

3

Thismay be helpful.
Substitute your phobia for his.

4

@pulykamell , early 20’s, so yeah, I am also a pretty extreme introvert by nature and didn’t go out even before this started happening, so that’s probably not helping either, but…

Anyway, as you say, you breathe in with your nose for 5 seconds, keep it in for 7 and out for 7, right, so when you breath in, do you try to force in as much air as you can or are you relaxed? Also, do you use the diaphragm or just breath normally?

The thing that is bothering me is that if you breath slowly, your heart rate slows down, which is the thing that you want to avoid, hence the panic attack, so I guess that it one of those counterintuitive things.

5

Breathing like that sounds like you might be making yourself hyperventilate.

If you feel dizzy it would probably be better to just sit down. Maybe put your head down, even to knee level. Maybe look at your cell phone, it might be a distraction for yourself and make it look like you’re doing something other then putting your head between your legs.

Try a drink of water or something.
Not while your head is down though. It’s not trick to cure hiccups. :smiley:

6

When I was getting them, my heart rate would skyrocket, so I wanted to get my heart rate down. We’re talking my heart rate going from a normal resting pulse of about 70 bpm to 140 or so in a panic attack (one particularly bad one I’m sure it reached 180 bpm.) I would breathe in through nose, hold, exhale through mouth with my tongue touching the roof of my mouth (like right above my teeth ridge.) I can’t remember why my tongue was in that position, but I remember reading that somewhere, and it stuck with me, so I just kept with it. I’m not even sure that affects anything.

My goal was always to distract myself by concentrating on the breathing, and lowering my pulse to a more normal rate, and not the “fight or flight” rate of 140+ bpm.

I don’t remember making any conscious decision about where to breathe from, but I do remember in order to fill my lungs, I had to breathe from the the diaphragm, like you would when singing. Once again, I don’t know if it matters, but that’s what made sense to me for filling up my lungs fully in 5 seconds.

7

IMHO answer: ammonia poppers.. That’s what they’re for.

Wiseass answer, as I answered the question: Towards the end my wife had low blood pressure. I offered to turn on Fox News. Just the threat was enough.

8

No, deep breathing like that is pretty standard advice. Hyperventilating happens with quick, rapid, shallow breathing. Here’s a good overview of calming breathing techniques. The “counts” vary from the one I used, but it’s the same basic principles: breathe in full through nose to fill the bottom and tops of your lungs (diaphragm breathing), hold the breath, and then exhale through your mouth (in this case, it’s through pursed lips. In my case, it was through your mouth with your tongue touching the roof of it. I assume the end result is similar.)

9

Although, of course, there is apparently science that says don’t breathe deeply. For me, when I felt my pulse start to spike and the symptoms were just beginning to kick in, the calming type of slowed down breathing worked great for me and kept the anxiety from kicking into a full-fledged panic attack. Maybe if you’re already starting to hyperventilate, it’s not helpful, but it worked in the early stages for me. At any rate, I also expect results may vary by individual, so try both methods.

10

JakeRS, just curious, did you read the paper I linked to? Scientifically proven, no fuss answer to your problem. We use similar techniques called vagal maneuvers when patients develop a sinus tachycardia rhythm. Also raises your B/P momentarily.

Of the maneuvers listed in the second linked article (WebMD) I would stick to the Hold your breath and bear down one.

PS. These only seldom will fix a full blown sinus tach. We usually go to drugs and 'lectricity pretty fast.

11

Ah, yes. My doctor recommended that one (hold breath and bear down like you’re constipated), too, after I had that 180 bpm episode. I never got a chance to try it out, though, since it had never escalated quite that far since then. That was the worst episode, though. Heart beating in triplet rhythm for a couple hours. I didn’t get back to “normal” for a full 12 hours or so. I wish I had known about that technique then. Man, did that suck.

12

Medical advice is best suited to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

13

If your problem is insufficient blood pressure, then breathing won’t do squat. With perfectly optimal breathing you’ll have nicely oxygenated blood sitting somewhere down in your torso and neck and meanwhile no meaningful blood flow to the brain. So you pass out anyhow. Cf. Reflex syncope - Wikipedia. Plenty of breathing, plenty of oxygen, and too little blood pressure = unconscious.

It is trivial to boost your BP by 20-40 mmHg immediately. It’s bog standard stuff done by every aerobatic pilot every day. Sadly the only youtubes I could find were not much good. Neither is wiki. Search for “anti-G straining maneuver.”

First take a medium breath and clamp your diaphragm. Do not squeeze the chest muscles; just freeze the breathing. Then quickly and aggressively tense your lower legs isometrically. Squeeze hard. Then a moment later, while holding the first contraction, also tense the upper leg muscles and butt. Then while holding that, do the same with hands, lower arms, then upper arms in that order. A moment later, squeeze your belly and back muscles for all they’re worth. Now your whole body other than your neck is in isometric tension.

Hold that a couple seconds, then relax only the torso, quickly exhale and reinhale, lock the diaphragm, then restart the squeeze.

Just a few cycles of this will radically boost your blood pressure. To the point you might possible give yourself a stroke if your muscles are body-builder strong enough and your brain’s blood vessels are elderly-person weak enough.

The hard muscular work will mean that after just a handful of cycles = 15-20 seconds you can slowly (over 5-10 seconds) relax from core outwards towards hand and feet. You’ll find yourself naturally breathing harder & your heart will stay pumping harder from the exertion.

Crisis over.

Unless you’re in bad cardiovascular health you can safely practice doing a couple cycles any time any where. Including sitting in a chair.

Caution: If you tense in the chest first then radiate outwards from there, first the upper legs, then lower, first the upper arms then lower, you’ll probably do more harm than good. The point is to milk blood up from the extremities to the core, and then squeeze it from the core to the only place not tensed: the head. Then a quick breath & partial relaxation, and repeat.

For the start of a fainting spell you won’t need more than a cycle or two. The hard part is recognizing that you’re getting faint with enough seconds to react before you’re over the edge. You’ll probably need to react to psychological symptoms of gathering anxiety rather than waiting for cognitive symptoms of actual lightheadedness.
There are lots of variations on how this is taught to and done by pilots. I’ve given you just one. So you’ll find different vids or pages pushing different approaches or emphasizing different details. Just by trying the various maneuvers while sitting in a chair with no lightheadedness you’ll find it easy to tell which ones are boosting cranial blood pressure for you and which ones aren’t. IOW, which ones you can learn to do right and which you’re doing wrong.

14

Late addendum:

After you’ve had a chance to practice this against a real fainting spell you may find all you really need is the first bit: tense calves then tense upper legs & butt and hold it for 15 seconds. All while breathing normally.

15

I guess the question is at what point in the anxiety attack you are. You can usually tell when a panic attack is about to hit or spiral out of control (or at least I could) and breathing exercises helped immensely with staving off a full-blown attack. Once I learned it, I never had a panic attack go full bore.

16

I suffer from Vasovagal syncope, and I have learned over the years of ways to reduce or eliminate fainting. I don’t know of any way to instantly raise my blood pressure when I feel an episode coming on, but I do get a warning just prior to it happening (prodrome) and that gives me a little time to either get away from the trigger or get down on the ground which then stops me from fainting. The problem is that during the episode blood drains from your brain and pools in your legs. You need to stop that from happening to keep from fainting. It takes practice, but over the years you figure out how to avoid it. YMMV.