You start shallow breathing =panic.
And you won't even be aware that all this is going on until you look at it and look at yourself and how you respond.
I had no idea that I was shallow breathing until I actually realised I was constantly taking deep breaths to compensate.
By not accomodating your anxiety, you have to distract yourself. By distracting yourself, you don't notice things like a little twinge of chest pain, and you don't obesess over things like your breathing or choking etc (all of which I've done/am doing)
I am currently at the stage where I don't have panic attacks any more. but I do have bad anxiety. I worry about my breathing, my chest pains, my headaches, my energy levels, my sleeping patterns, etc etc etc. I tend to fixate on one thing. Like recently I've had the relatively new symptom of heart palpitations.
The thing is: I KNOW it's anxiety. It's not some strange, obscure disease or illness. It's anxiety. But I allow myself to be sucked in to that idea. The idea that I have something wrong with me. And then when I accept that I'm not dying of some kind of horrible disease, and realise it is anxiety, I fear that I will always be anxious.
Where does it stop?
Probably whenever I get the guts to live again.
Accept every stupid symptom I have and just get on with it. Eventually they will all die down and I will be free from anxiety.
So I've started breathing training. Which everyone should do (not just those with anxiety)
It increases energy, lowers blood pressure, apparently relieves aches and pains.
It'll take time. I keep saying this, almost in every post, but I know it will. Everyone here must accept and resign themself to the fact that there is no wonder-pill. No miracle cure. This took time to build up. Most people here will have been anxious for the biggest part of their life.
It's going to take time to go away. Time and technique..
</rant>