My son has to blink consciously as he feels it is not automatic. Kindly help.

Hello doctor,

This is regarding my 16-year-old son. He is currently in class 10 and giving his board exams. He is academically oriented, has been always good in his studies, and wants to maintain his good image in front of his peers and teachers. For the last two months, he is having a few problems as follows:

1. He is having problems with his eyes and feels that his attention is drawn to his blinking and he has to blink consciously as he feels his automatic blinking does not happen. If he does not consciously blink his eyes start watering and irritating. He feels this is affecting his concentration in his studies. I had shown him to an eye doctor a month back and he said it could be due to dry eyes and prescribed teardrops which he is using regularly since then, but there has been no improvement. Moreover, my son feels it is a problem with his mind and he is not able to get his attention off the blinking of his eyes.
2. Not sure if there is a connection, but around two months back he was reading the chapter on involuntary and voluntary actions of the human body in his biology book and that some actions are both voluntary and involuntary. He says his problem started around the same time. He also says that he feels suffocated and often needs to breathe voluntarily. He read about it in the same chapter.
3. He also says that he has to swallow his saliva consciously or voluntarily, something he read about too in the same chapter. Overall he complains more about his eye problem and a little less about the above two problems.
4. He is an only child. He does not open up easily but once he does he talks a lot. At home with us and with his few friends at school, he talks a lot. He loves to follow sports. He is not very active but has a normal height (5 feet 8 inches) and weight (65 Kg approximately) for his age. He is myopic since the age of 9 and has the following approximate power: Left eye: -5.5 spherical and -0.5 cylindrical, right eye: -6 spherical and -0.75 cylindrical.
5. We give him nutritious food at home and he is not fussy about food. He has a regular sleep schedule of around 7.5 hours at night. He is worried before going to sleep that he will not be able to sleep due to a conscious breathing problem but he does fall asleep and sleeps well after that. Also, he is afraid of lizards and feels that he suffers from a phobia of lizards. He does get scared of insects very easily. Please advise.