hold your breath

If, in the dead of night you find yourself panicking about this and that the fastest way to stop it is to hold your breath.Yep. Play that old game of seeing how long you can hold it for- a minute? Maybe more. It serves to focus your mind on breathing and it puts things in perspective. After all, the quintessential panic situation is not being able to breathe. After a few attempts at emulating a free diver start observing your breathing again as you calmly inhale and exhale and, pretty soon, drop off to sleep.