Wiktionary
vb. 1 To take a break, or rest while doing a strenuous activity, so that one's breathing becomes easier. 2 To take in a breath sharply and hold it, usually in reaction to a sudden shock, or surprise.
WordNet
v. take a short break from one's activities in order to relax [syn: rest, breathe, take a breather]
Usage examples of "catch one's breath".
Either way, the resistance of the water made the experience more swimlike than zero-g-like, although there was the added fun of coming across an air bubble somewhere inside the sphere and pausing there to catch one's breath before paddling around underwater again.
This made Sax very suspicious, as did the implication in Deleuze that they could influence the matter one way or the other: stomp on the ground and send the universe flying outward to dissolution and heat death, or catch one's breath, and pull it all inward to the unimaginable omega point of the eschaton: no.
War and the Admiralty's tight provisioning schedule for Hador permitted little time to catch one's breath at all.