Psychotherapy for Air Hunger, Breathing Pattern Disorder, and Breathing-Related Anxiety

Alongside my broader therapy practice, I also specialize in helping people recover from Air Hunger, Breathing Pattern Disorder, breathing-related anxiety, and persistent difficulty getting a full or satisfying breath. I do this both as a therapist and as founder of the Air Hunger Help Community.

Having suffered with air hunger and severe breathing issues myself from 2000–2004, I understand both the distress and lack of resources people with these conditions encounter. One mission of mine is to raise awareness and provide solutions for people struggling with air hunger. That’s why I founded the Air Hunger Help Community, which is available for you to join at any time. There you will find the knowledge, tools, community, live weekly group coaching calls, and structured program you need to free yourself from continuous difficult breathing sensations, air hunger, chronic breathing tension, and the associated anxiety and constant monitoring of the breath that plague so many people who have been pulled into the overwhelming pattern of air hunger.

If you live in North Carolina (the state where I’m licensed to practice psychotherapy) and are seeking psychotherapy for breathing difficulties, please contact me to set up an initial appointment.

If you live outside of North Carolina but would find it helpful to have an individual, one-to-one session with me, you can still do so by following the instructions on this page for individual breathing coaching.

My journey with air hunger and breathing pattern disorder

Around the age of 19 (many years ago now!), I started having the experience of not being able to get a full breath.

Breathing began to feel like a struggle—it simply felt like I couldn’t get enough air. The experience seemed to worsen and worsen with time. 

I developed a lot of tension in my upper body. I was constantly reaching to get more air…with my upper chest, neck, shoulders, jaw…often chasing after a kind of forced yawn or effortful sigh in an attempt to take in more air. But I rarely ever felt like I could get a satisfying breath.

I tried my best to conceal my struggles, so my condition wasn’t very noticeable to people who knew me. I was still busy going about my life, but this sense of not being able to get a full breath was a constant companion—a troubling and often torturous feeling to live with, because it felt like I was always starved for air…
Continue reading on the Air Hunger Help website About page

Understanding air hunger and breathing pattern disorder

What is Air Hunger and what causes it? Air Hunger and Breathing Pattern Disorder are terms used to describe the ongoing experience of feeling that you can’t get a full breath and that you constantly have to struggle to try and take in more air, often reaching with the chest and over time building up a lot of tension in your upper body but only very rarely, if ever, being able to get a satisfying breath—other than the occasional forced breath or forced yawn, or perhaps some easier breaths that happen when you’re not thinking about it. To many people, this sense of not being able to get enough air can feel like a daily form of torture. This dysfunctional breathing pattern can either build up over time or get triggered suddenly, and once it gets established in a person’s system, it can often stubbornly remain in place until it’s intentionally addressed…
Continue reading on the Air Hunger Help website Resources page

Finding freedom from air hunger: liberating the natural breath

How can you free yourself from Air Hunger? Based on long-established bodies of work and developed by two health professionals with decades of experience working with breathing issues, our 10-week course—hosted within our larger community, with weekly live group coaching sessions and continually growing resources—leads you through the process of freeing yourself from Air Hunger and restoring your easy, healthy, natural breathing.

Here at LNB, we honor the breath as a teacher that is leading us toward more fully inhabiting our body, our nervous system, and our whole self.

We invite you to embrace the invitation of your breathing struggles and dive into the process of discovering ease, alignment, and greater connection to yourself through Liberating the Natural Breath.
Continue reading on the Air Hunger Help website Program page