There were a couple other things that may have helped. I wrote down my main source of worry, and considered it in depth, worst case, odds, how to recover, and it became clear that it's not actually an urgent problem.

Don't know which one had the greater effect, I did both at once. But I could feel the 4*4 breathing blocking a physical anxiety response in the middle of one happening.

To me it feels the other way. I feel the breathing opens up something that allows me to release the anxiety. In the end it's probably the same just from a different viewpoint.

Basically before the anxierty happened liked this:

1. Minor negative stimulus appears. I could feel the body react.

2. When I inhaled, and not before, my neck would feel some tension. This would persist a bit.

I had ried breath holding before, but that just delayed the stress feeling. Instead, I:

1. Held breath and counted to 4 2. Exhaled sharply 3. Inhaled a bit, and counted to four 4. Repeat if necessary

Thr new elements were counting, and the exhale before inhale. Followeed byna knowledge that I had two more steps to do: inhaling and counting. Rather than merely an uncontrolledminhalation and hope of no stress.

Interestingly, I rarely need the breathing now. My bosy changed its reaction to the minor stresssors. Maybe I’m just less on edge and less reactive, and the breathing helped my body come down from that reactive state.

Not very unpleasant mind you. Same level as seeing how long you can hold your breath, except much less intense.

I think a big piece of breathwork is changing the focus of the conscious mind. When you're focused on your breathing and counting, you're not focused on whatever else is out there.

Play with it, find something that works for you.

Use a timer, don't count. Don't think about stuff while you're at it, just watch the timer and keep it smooth.

But rather it's conditioning to switch to a less anxious mode. So if you practice doing anything physical while becoming calmer then eventually you'll imprint conditioning on yourself . So that when you go through those motions, regardless of it they are a way of breathing, moving your fingers, walking, whatever, just something very specific then you'll trigger the emotional change too.

Not to say the technique doesn't work. Just that it's difficult to isolate what actually makes things work and we often jump to an unsupported conclusion.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog...

It also hits your HRV. My Garmin watch (Fenix 5X) has a deep breathing timer (relax timer). It will definitely increase my HRV when I do it (lowering the watches real time stress score, which is measuring HRV). So it is physiological and psychological.