Hyperventilation

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Hyperventilation or overbreathing is breathing at a higher frequency (i.e. tachypnea) and overall volume than the normal range for a healthy individual. Physiological hyperventilation or panting is a normal metabolic response to exercises that occurs when the respiratory center of the central nervous system increases both the respiratory rate and tidal volume to supply more oxygen for the body's cellular respiration and remove carbon dioxide as a metabolic waste, and it is also a mode of evaporative thermoregulation in many terrestrial animals (e.g. dogs). Pathological hyperventilation, on the other hand, is a sign of stress responses either due to an underlying respiratory illness or due to disorders in other body systems that have triggered a respiratory compensation, and is often accompanied by the symptom of shallow, uncomfortable and sometimes agonized breathing effort commonly known as "shortness of breath" and "gasping". It is treatable by raising the levels of CO2 in the blood.

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