What if breathing exercises don’t help? What if you sit down to practice, focus on your inhale and exhale, and still feel the anxiety? What if your chest is tight, your mind is racing, and the simple act of watching the breath gives you no sense of relief?
This is a great and necessary question. Because it happens.
Why Breathing Alone Sometimes Fails
The truth is, we don’t always know what’s driving our anxiety in a given moment. It could be chemistry, exhaustion, what we ate, what we didn’t eat, lack of movement, too much caffeine, a cluttered environment, financial fear, or memories we aren’t even consciously aware of.
Some people have nervous systems that have been “tuned” to anxiety for years. They wake up in the morning with adrenaline already pumping. If you’ve been anxious for a long time, one deep breath will not erase decades of conditioning.
Other times, the body simply needs something more than sitting still. You might need movement, water, sunlight, sleep, or even the smell of something you enjoy. Breathing is powerful, but it isn’t magic. It’s one part of a system of tools.
Changing the Breath
Sometimes the problem isn’t breathing itself, but the type of breath you’re doing. If slow nose breathing isn’t helping, change it: inhale through the nose, hold for three seconds, exhale slowly through the mouth for seven. Or try a brisk walking breath, inhale for four steps, exhale for four steps. The nervous system often responds the moment you adjust the rhythm.
Adding Other Anchors
When breath isn’t enough, pair it with something else:
- Chanting. Repeat words in your mind or whisper them softly. “I am safe. I am safe. I am safe.” Or use the Serenity Prayer. Or simply: “Acceptance.” The words don’t need to be ancient or mystical. The act of chanting itself is what steadies the mind.
- Water. Drink a glass slowly. Feel it going down. Hydration alone can shift the nervous system.
- Stretching. Do one light stretch and notice where your body is holding tension. Often, anxiety is nothing more than unexpressed energy waiting for release.
- Environment. Step into nature. Listen to birds. Lay on the grass. Smell a candle or Palo Santo. Sometimes your nervous system isn’t asking for breath, it’s asking for beauty.
The key isn’t the tool. It’s the willingness to do something. Willingness itself is medicine.
An Example: Fear of Flying
Take the most extreme example: you’re on an airplane and every bump sets off panic. The body tenses, the heart races, the mind spins catastrophic images of crashes and explosions.
I know this fear. My father was terrified of flying. As a child, I watched him drink himself into oblivion just to get on a plane. Later, I worked with a friend, Stephen, who carried the same fear. Months before his trips, he would grow dark and anxious, consumed with thoughts of death.
I taught him the basics of aviation, lift, drag, thrust, the odds of crashing. That helped a little. But his fear wasn’t about numbers, it was about triggers: the sudden transition of travel, the claustrophobia of the cabin, the powerlessness of giving control to someone else, the dizziness from turbulence. Nothing felt familiar or safe.
The lesson: you can’t expect to conquer the extreme without training on the small. Meditation, breathwork, chanting, even mental rehearsal prepare the nervous system. Practice with daily discomforts so you can return to calm in greater storms.
One exercise I gave him: close your eyes, hands on your lap, and breathe. Scan your body. Release the shoulders, soften the belly, stop gripping the armrests. Notice your heartbeat. Let the catastrophic images come, then anchor to a chant: I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. Say it until your nervous system hears it. Then shift to the Serenity Prayer: accept what you cannot control, breathe into what you can. Chant “Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance.” Fear doesn’t vanish, but you learn to breathe with it.
The Value of Chanting (Repeating Affirmations)
I’d been chanting for decades before I even knew to call it chanting. Not in Sanskrit or Tibetan, but in my own language. Sometimes it was prayer, dropping to my knees and begging God for help, even though I didn’t believe. It didn’t matter what words I used. The power was not in the words, it was in the act. The moment I began, my nervous system softened.
People like to dress chanting up as mystical. Maybe it is, sometimes. But for me, it’s simple. It’s just saying something, over and over, until the mind steadies.
That’s why I understand the popularity of Transcendental Meditation. In India, chanting Sanskrit was natural, it was part of the culture. When it came to the West, it was like blue jeans in Moscow or pasta in America. A perfect import. And it worked. We shouldn’t resist it. We also shouldn’t get stuck in dogma. If you like TM, use it. If you like another form, use that. Meditation is not a religion. You don’t go to hell for choosing the wrong chant.
Write It Down
One practical tip: don’t just keep your mantras in a notebook you’ll lose. Write them in big bold letters with a Sharpie. Tape them to the wall, the mirror, the bedside. When anxiety strikes, you don’t need poetry, you need something simple and visible.
Gratitude as a Mantra
No discussion of chanting is complete without gratitude. Gratitude is its own mantra. It shifts the focus from what’s wrong to what’s right. Instead of “it’s raining, how miserable,” you say: “the plants are drinking, the air is cleaning, the world is refreshed.” You don’t need to repeat the same poem forever, make them up in the moment. Gratitude is a practice of choosing perspective.
The Work of Self-Mastery
Sometimes breathing alone won’t save us. We can be too far in the hole. That’s why we need chanting, gratitude, movement, water, nature, sleep, all of it. Anxiety can be triggered by anything. But with practice, we learn to notice the patterns and meet them with tools.
This is the work of self-mastery. Not perfection. Not instant calm. Practice. Willingness. Awareness. A lifelong process of returning again and again to the present moment.