what gives? any help would be appreciated
This is not an uncommon phenomenon. I had this about 10 years ago. Weird as hell. Basically I would have the sensation of “stopping breathing” when relaxed - particularly in bed.
At about the same time but not necessarily related to one another, I also had a phenomenon of my heart “stopping”. Again, particularly when I was relaxed, my heart would just suddenly stop from a short while, I’d then get a shot of adrenaline and it would start palpitating for a short while as if it were “catching up”, and then would settle. It used to do this quite a bit.
It’s fairly well known, and years later when I saw a cardiologist for something else I mentioned it to him and he said I was right not to worry about it.
The breathing thing is awful though, and that bothered me a lot more. But I grew out of it. My suspicion is that it has to do with an imbalance between your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. Your PNS suppresses heart rate, breathing, digestion, everything - it slows you down, and your SNS does the opposite - gets you going. I have subsequently had problems that lead to the opposite effect - an overactive SNS which causes sleep disturbances, irritable bowel, palpitations, headaches, fatigue, so it may be a weakness in that area for me.
My suggestion would be to do the opposite/the same as what I do prevent the overactive SNS state - cardio exercise late in the day. Get your heart rate up later in the day. OTH, if exercise stimulates your PNS to calm you down that might actually make it worse. You might try having some fruit or toast with honey before you go to bed as another option. If your digestive system has something to “chew on” that might stop your PNS from slowing you down too much. I think you’ll have to experiment. It was not something I ever resolved at the time, but like the heart thing I grew out of it.