Stress and asthma

Stress is how your body reacts to feeling threatened or under pressure. Whether it’s your work, health or relationships, there’s lots of reasons you might feel stressed.

Stress can sometimes be useful. When you’re stressed, your body produces hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. A small amount can help you focus on things you need to do, or help you feel excited and energised.

But sometimes you can have too much stress and it stops feeling helpful. You might feel like something is putting more pressure on you than you can cope with. This happens when your body produces more stress hormones than you can use up.

The length of time you feel stressed can vary:

• acute stress happens for a short period of time and is usually caused by a specific event, like taking an exam.
• chronic stress lasts for a longer period of time because of difficulties in life that keep going on, like a difficult work situation.

How is stress different to anxiety?

Stress happens when your body reacts to something happening around you. It usually goes away after the stressful situation has passed.

Anxiety is a long-term feeling that you can experience even after something worrying or stressful has gone away.

Sometimes feeling stressed for a long time, or chronic stress, can lead to anxiety.

We have more information about anxiety and your lung condition.

Find out more about stress from the charity Mind.

Stress cannot usually trigger asthma on its own, but it can mean that you’re more at risk of experiencing asthma symptoms. This is because stress can make it more likely that you'll react to your usual triggers.

People with asthma who are dealing with ongoing or severe stress are more at risk of asthma attacks or going to hospital because of their asthma. This is sometimes known as stress-induced asthma.

You might also feel stressed after having an asthma attack. Find out more about what to do after you have an asthma attack.

Stress can mean:

• you’re more likely to react to your usual asthma triggers including colds and chest infections, have worse symptoms, or feel like your asthma is harder to manage
• you feel angry more easily, which can be an asthma trigger
• you may drink or smoke more, which can put you at more risk of asthma symptoms
• you find it harder to stick to your medicine routine or follow your asthma action plan

Stress and panic attacks

Having too much stress can sometimes lead to panic attacks. In a panic attack, your body can react with physical symptoms, such as a faster heart rate and breathing that is shallow and fast. This is called hyperventilating.

This change to your breathing pattern can put you at a higher risk of having asthma symptoms, like a tight chest and coughing.

If you’re feeling breathless because of stress, you could try relaxing breathing exercises to help you calm down.

We also have more information on how you can manage your breathlessness, including tips on recovering from feeling breathless.

We have more information about panic attacks, including how to tell the difference between a panic attack and an asthma attack.

The first step is knowing that you’re under stress 

Stress can have emotional signs and symptoms. For example, it can make you feel more annoyed, tired and worried than usual. You might also find it hard to make decisions. 

Stress can also cause physical symptoms for some people, including headaches or feeling dizzy.

It can be hard to recognise the signs of stress so you could try talking to close friends or family. They might notice that you’re stressed before you do.

Mind have more information about the signs and symptoms of stress to look out for, including emotional and physical signs.

The second step is understanding that stress can make your asthma worse

It can be difficult to make the connection between stressful events and your asthma symptoms. To see if stress might be triggering your asthma symptoms, try keeping a diary.

You could include information like:

• when and why you feel stressed
• if you have any asthma symptoms when you’re stressed, and what they are
• if you have any emotional or physical symptoms of stress
• what helped you manage your stress.

You might start noticing patterns. For example, you may have had more asthma symptoms when you were moving to a new house or your asthma seemed worse during exam season. Some people also find that their asthma symptoms get worse when they relax after a stressful situation.

However stress affects your asthma, keeping a diary can be useful because understanding what causes your stress can help you to manage it.

It’s not always possible to remove everything that makes you stressed from your life. But you can lower the risk of stress making your asthma worse by learning how to manage it better.

Here are four ways to help your asthma when stress is a trigger:

1. Stick to your asthma routine. 
   Stress is more likely to trigger asthma symptoms if your asthma is not well managed. Make sure you’re taking your asthma medicines as prescribed, taking your inhaler correctly, going for regular asthma reviews, and using an asthma action plan. 
    
2. Talk to your healthcare professional. 
   They can support you to look after your asthma well, even when you’re feeling stressed. They can also signpost you to counselling and wellbeing services.
    
3. Look after yourself. 
   Research shows that doing things to look after yourself like sleeping well, eating well and doing exercise can help lower stress levels. You could also try to practice mindfulness, which means being present in the moment.
   
   Everyone is different and it’s important to find things that work for you. Find out more about how to manage your stress from Mind.
    
4. Join one of our support groups.  
   Connecting with other people can be a great way to reduce stress. We have plenty of support groups for people with lung conditions that can help you to manage your stress. Some of them focus on breathing exercises and some are safe places where you can talk about anything.

Read more about looking after your mental health and wellbeing when you have a lung condition.