1. Introduction to breathlessness

Lots of people experience breathlessness while living with Long COVID. The video on this page will give you an introduction to how breathlessness might make you feel.

Breathlessness support: introduction

Hello, my name's Nikki. I'm a respiratory physiotherapist.

I also experienced COVID and Long COVID last year.

We are going to go through some breathing exercises that will help you with your breathlessness.

Breathlessness might make you feel hot, panicky or overwhelmed.

Your chest might feel so tight it feels like you can’t breathe in properly.

You might feel the urge to take lots of short, shallow breaths instead of deeper normal breaths.

You might feel that breathing is very hard work and exhausting.

The effects of COVID and Long COVID can cause anxiety and loss of muscle strength that causes deconditioning.

If you are feeling this way, you are not alone.

In the next video, I will help you learn about breathing control which will help you to relieve the cycle of breathlessness and help you recover if you get short of breath.

Read a transcript of this video in:

Next: Breathing Control →

We’ve developed this information with funding from Garfield Weston Foundation. The Foundation had no influence on the information, which was developed in line with our usual Asthma + Lung UK information production process.

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We’ve developed this information with funding from Garfield Weston Foundation. The Foundation had no influence on the information, which was developed in line with our usual Asthma + Lung UK information production process.