I found out I had a problem with this in a parking garage. Someone backed into my fender, nobody was hurt, and I sat there for ten minutes with my hands shaking and could not think clearly enough to exchange insurance.

My sister, who teaches yoga, gave me one exercise. It is not complicated and it works in about a minute, which is exactly the amount of time you have when you actually need it.

The long exhale

Breathe in through your nose for a count of four. Breathe out through your mouth, slowly, for a count of eight. That is one round. Do four rounds.

That is the whole thing. The magic is not in the inhale. It is in the exhale being twice as long.

Why the long exhale works

Your heart rate speeds up slightly when you breathe in and slows when you breathe out. Stretch the exhale and you spend more of each cycle in the slowing phase. At the same time, a long steady exhale is what moves carbon dioxide out, and carbon dioxide buildup is what creates that tight, panicky feeling in your chest.

So you are not tricking yourself. You are changing your heart rate on purpose, using the only part of your nervous system you can control directly.

Making it work when you actually need it

• Count out loud in your head. Silently counting is easy to lose when you are upset, and losing count restarts the panic.
• Put a hand on your stomach. The hand moving out on the inhale is feedback that tells your body this is working.
• Do not force the exhale. Slow and smooth beats hard and fast. If you feel lightheaded, you are pushing too much air out.
• Practice when you are calm. The exercise is much easier to reach for if you have done it twenty times on a normal Tuesday.

Four rounds is enough. I tried doing this for ten minutes at first and it made me dizzy and I stopped bothering. Sixty seconds is a realistic ask and it still shifts things.

It is not a cure for anything and it does not replace talking to a doctor if anxiety is running your life. What it does is buy you one clear minute, which is often exactly the difference between handling something and making it worse. I used it in a dentist’s waiting room last month and I did not leave.