Choking anxiety: afraid to put something in your mouth

Choking can happen in many ways, and if you suffer from choking anxiety you know them all and try very hard not to find yourself in a situation that could cause you to choke. This can have far-reaching consequences. For example, you may find it scary to eat anything, brush your teeth, go to the dentist or be in tight spaces. You may not have a very generalized major choking fear, but it is limited to the fear of getting something into your airways that causes you to choke.

How do you get rid of this fear and what can you do to breathe easy in whatever situation you find yourself in? In this blog, I explore it in depth.

Choking anxiety and other fears

You may suffer from the fear of suffocation on its own, but it is often linked to other fears as well. For example, if you have a panic disorder, you may also experience severe fear of suffocation. For example, if you feel like you’re not getting enough air, this can trigger a panic attack[1].

Fear of suffocation is also a component of claustrophobia. It’s not the case that if you have a fear of suffocation, you automatically have claustrophobia as well. But if you have claustrophobia, you likely also have a fear of suffocation[2].

Of course, if you really have something in your windpipe that could really choke you, your defensive system in your brain turns on (source 1).

Sting anxiety can also be triggered by a particular context you find yourself in (source 1). For example, a small closet with claustrophobia or eating something in which you have previously choked severely. That context can cause you to avoid or not avoid certain actions.

Nitrous anxiety at the dentist

When most people think of fear of the dentist, they think of fear of pain, but at number 2 of dental fears is choking anxiety[3]. This fear can cause you to find it scary to go to the dentist or not like it at all when that mirror is in your mouth or other objects the dentist works with.

Food and choking anxiety

Children who have choked in the past and, for example, needed the Heimlich maneuver may develop post-traumatic stress as a result, causing them to refuse to eat. In addition, they may suddenly become much more clingy than they were before they nearly choked on their food.

By slowly confronting the child again with the food he almost choked on, the anxiety can be treated again[4].

Adults can also suffer from choking anxiety. A case study of a 34-year-old woman revealed that difficulty swallowing can cause that anxiety. That one suddenly found it difficult to swallow solid foods and pills after a stressful period in her education.

She felt like something was already in her throat by then. But after medical examination, it came out that there was nothing physically wrong with her.

It started when at lunch she felt like something was stuck in his throat and that feeling didn't go away after drinking some water. Then she started thinking about dying slowly and that no one would help her right away. Then she had a panic attack.

What was interesting was that her friends took her to the hospital within 5 minutes. So actually help was there right away. She was calmer by then, but the feeling that she was going to suffocate was still there. Then she had tests and they showed that nothing was physically wrong.

Only the harm was now done. She was eating only liquid food. Even the porridge had to be very thin.

She also could no longer be alone, as there would be no one to rescue her.

Because she ate so poorly, she lost 10 pounds in 2 months. That's a lot of weight for such a short period of time. All she was doing was dealing with her anxiety, which didn't help her social relationships and school either. Depressive symptoms were then added, and just to be sure, she went to the doctor one more time to check everything that could be physically checked.

When again it appeared that everything was normal she was referred for mental help[5].

It is common for the panic attack to be so severe that a hospital visit is needed to make sure all is well. The fear of food can get so bad that everything goes through a sieve first so there can't be anything in the food that you could possibly choke on[6].

This shows how this fear can also develop later in life. Unfortunately, this fear can also be misdiagnosed as an eating disorder or as malingering. In the case of malingering, a doctor believes you are making up a symptom or pretending to have a problem when, in fact, you do not.

Choking anxiety usually occurs in women, but it can also affect men. In addition, this fear can occur at any age.

Other research shows that fear of choking does not always come from having almost choked once. It can also gradually become something you become afraid of[7].

Treatment of choking anxiety

Nitrous anxiety is often treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and antidepressants (source 5). Generally, a little more than 10 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy are needed to eliminate this anxiety[8].

There are some things a therapist may ask of you during treatment, such as keeping a journal to find out what triggers the fear of choking (source 5).

In addition, you can create a top 10 foods you find scary to eat because of your choking anxiety. You can also indicate for each food how anxious it makes you (source 6).

You can then learn relaxation techniques that help you relax during moments of anxiety. During therapy, you may also be asked to eat one of those 10 foods in the presence of the therapist so that they can coach you on how to stay calm while eating.

The great thing is that you can enhance the effects of CBT with hypnosis.

EMDR Therapy

In addition, this fear is often treated with EMDR therapy . This approach is used particularly with younger people, and just 1 or 2 sessions of EMDR therapy can already eliminate the fear of choking[9]. Even if you’re an adult, EMDR therapy can quickly help eliminate this fear[10].

EMDR therapy also combines well with hypnosis techniques for effective treatment.

Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy itself can also be used to treat the fear of choking. A case study of a 13-year-old girl with a fear of choking shows that this can be effective in helping her eat normally again and that the benefits can still be felt years later[11].

Another study shows that regression can be used to identify the cause for choking anxiety if it is not immediately obvious.

Sometimes, unconscious beliefs can suddenly make it difficult for you to swallow. At the HIN, for example, we always assume that you do something because, no matter how illogical it may seem, it offers you some kind of benefit.

With regression, for example, you can then figure out what this benefit is and when you thought of it. Then, in your mind, you can do something with that moment that allows you to gain the benefit in a way other than being afraid of choking. This is a process that the hypnotherapist helps you with.

Another technique that can be used with hypnosis, for example, is visualizing the act of swallowing food and how smoothly it actually goes. This can increase your sense of control over your body and the swallowing mechanism[12], giving you the courage to simply eat whatever you enjoy.

Self-hypnosis can also be used with people who suffer from hyperventilation and are afraid of suffocating precisely because of it[13].

Would you like to learn more about hypnotherapy and how it can enhance cognitive behavioral therapy and be used in conjunction with EMDR? Then sign up for one of our training programs.

If you just want to learn how hypnosis works, you can also check out the free online masterclass on hypnosis .

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