Hyperventilation is over-breathing, which usually means that a person is taking rapid, short breaths using mainly the lungs, rather than deep slow breaths using the diaphragm. The condition is often caused by panic attacks or anxiety disorder, but it can be caused by more severe conditions. If you ever hyperventilate for more than a couple of minutes you should seek medical attention immediately.

There are many serious medical conditions that can cause hyperventilation. In addition to panic and anxiety disorder, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), pneumonia, congestive heart failure, heart attack, and drug overdose may all result in hyperventilation. People going into diabetic comas, experiencing ketoacidosis, can hyperventilate too. Occasionally, pregnant women hyperventilate because of increasing pressure on the lungs as an unborn child grows.

Since so many conditions — some of them quite risky — can result in over-breathing, a first case of anything longer than a minute or two is always an indication that some condition needs to be diagnosed. For certain conditions like pneumonia, congestive heart failure, heart attack or ketoacidosis, serious problems may arise if the condition is ignored. For others, hyperventilation is a common occurrence. Once a person has been diagnosed with one of its main causes, panic or anxiety disorder, it isn’t necessary to go to the doctor each time.

As long as your hyperventilation is caused by anxiety disorder or panic attacks, you usually can manage bouts of it at home. The trouble is that hyperventilating can create more panic, and panic then creates more hyperventilating. It is helpful to have tools you can use, generally learned through therapy, that can allow you to relax your breathing. It can help to have someone present who can assure you that everything will be okay. But since you might hyperventilate when you are alone, you should work on developing a little mental script that you can use to reassure yourself — this is temporary and you can control it.

A common misconception about hyperventilation is that the rapid breathing it produces is the body's way to get more oxygen. In fact, the opposite is true. Hyperventilation leaves the body with too little carbon dioxide as compared to the amount of oxygen it has. While the body takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide (CO2) it needs to maintain a certain oxygen-CO2 balance in the blood. That balance is disrupted by hyperventilation.

You can halt hyperventilation by forcing yourself to take slow, deep breaths from the diaphragm, rather than continue with the short, shallow breaths from the lungs that characterize hyperventilation. By breathing slowly, you will retain more CO2 and restore the proper oxygen-CO2 ratio in the blood. It may also help to slowly breath in and out of pursed lips. This will help you retain more carbon dioxide. Breathing into a paper bag can also help, since the air you blow out into the bag is carbon dioxide, and then breathing that back in means you’re getting more CO2. However, you should use this approach cautiously, because doing it for too long could cause you to retain too much CO2, causing the opposite imbalance. Some medical professionals advise against this approach as a result.

If you experience frequent hyperventilation, you may find help in working with a mental health professional to learning breathing relaxation techniques. These techniques are also available on tape. Learning yoga breathing can also help, as does regular exercise to reduce panic. Medications to treat anxiety disorder may be of significant assistance when they are coupled with therapy designed to reduce panic.