Been fighting off this anxiety attack for 15 mins

[Theloudone]

Ugh I hate the feeling of being short of breath.

[Sillysausage234]

Slow nasal breaths

[Jeff1943]

As Sillysausage says, breathe in slowly through your nose, hold it, then slowly breathe out through pursed lips. This produces natural tranquilising hormones which are helpful.

'Fighting', however is not helpful to anxiety attacks as fighting causes more tension and more fear hormone which is the last thing your oversensitive nervous system needs right now.

Instead of fighting your anxiety attacks I suggest you agree to accept them for the time being. Let them come, agree to coexist with them for the moment. They are all bark and no bite: make you feel something dreadful is about to happen but can't damage you in any way. It's all just a bad feeling.

Feel every muscle in your body relax and let the wave of anxiety wash over and past you. Don't add second fear to first fear, recovery is all about dealing with fear and mimimising it.

So accept the bad feeling, as you cannot both truly fear something and accept it, and calm will return to your troubled mind.