Breathing
Hyperventilation -or over-breathing- is a breathing pattern often associated with acute anxiety and panic attack symptoms. Breathing up into the chest instead of the abdomen is a common experience when people are hyperventilating.
Learn to breathe into the belly. Use a paper bag to breathe in and out of when experiencing acute anxiety or panic attacks. This helps restore carbon dioxide levels to normal. To help maintain normal carbon dioxide levels learn to hold the breath out for as long as up to 30 seconds while maintaining a shallow breathing pattern for a few minutes afterwards.
Over a period of time learning to slow down and extend the breathing pattern will have a quietening effect on the nervous system helping to over-ride the body's alarm mechanism -the fight-flight response. A helpful breathing count is to inhale for a count of 4 then hold for 2 and breathe out for 6. Basically - 4-2-6.