Podcaster Discusses Anxiety Attacks and How to Deal with Them

Podcaster Rob Dial, who as a personal development coach has his show Mindset Mentor, on a recent episode discussed ways to alleviate anxiety.  He started with the comment that anxiety is a natural mechanism we have to defend ourselves against outside attacks...but in our more civilized, modern existence it can be counterproductive and even harmful.  He listed three approaches to deal with an onset of anxiety.  First...he says...breathe deeply through the nose for a few seconds, working the diaphragm to accomplish this, and then take twice as long to slowly exhale through the mouth.  Dial recommends repeating this a number of times, and claims that it has helped him.  Second, he says to challenge the anxious feeling, determining its source and replacing it with an alternate, truer reality as to what is most likely to happen instead of the fears underlying that anxiety.  And finally, Rob Dial suggests that familiarizing oneself...in a "safe" way...with the object of the anxiety can take the edge off the fear causing the trouble.  I'm good with all three suggestions, but also recognize that when the emotions take charge, it can be a while before the body responds well to methods to counteract anxiety or panic attacks.  For me, if feasible I take a brief "mindfulness" break and do a modification of Dial's breathing exercises while simply focusing my attention to the immediate physical environment in front of me and away from the anxiety-producing situation.  Seems to work...how do you deal with this sort of thing?