Every technique here, and how well it's actually evidenced.
We are not doctors, psychologists or counsellors. Nothing here is invented by us. Every technique on this site is an established one, drawn from published clinical guidance, and this page shows you exactly where each came from so you can check it yourself.
We have also been honest below about which techniques have strong trial evidence and which rest more on clinical practice than on large studies. Both are used by professionals; they are not the same thing, and you deserve to know which is which.
"A panic attack is not dangerous and cannot harm you. It peaks in about ten minutes."
Standard clinical guidance. NHS Inform states panic attacks "don't cause any physical harm"; the American Heart Association and Cleveland Clinic both confirm a panic attack cannot become a heart attack. Peak intensity at around 10 minutes, with most attacks lasting 5–20 minutes, is the widely used clinical description.
NHS Inform ·
Cleveland Clinic ·
American Heart Association
Important. That reassurance is about panic attacks. It is not a way of telling chest pain apart from a heart attack, and this site cannot do that. If you have crushing chest pain, pain spreading to your arm or jaw, or you are at all unsure — treat it as a medical emergency and call for help. Being wrong in that direction is much safer.
Slow breathing with an out-breath longer than the in-breath. Long-established for panic and anxiety, and it directly counters the over-breathing that produces the dizziness and tingling.
Suitable for: everyone. This is the default here for that reason.
Equal counts in, hold, out, hold. It is a real technique with good evidence, and it used to be offered here alongside paced breathing.
We took it out for the same reason we keep the rest of this site short: a second option is a decision, and asking someone mid-panic to choose between two breathing patterns is the opposite of helping. The four-second holds also suit some people badly — if you already feel short of air, being told to stop breathing can add to the fear.
Paced breathing works at least as well for panic and asks nothing of you. If box breathing is what you know and it helps, please keep using it — you do not need this website to do it.
Foothills CBT ·
LifeStance Health
4-7-8 is a real and useful technique, but its evidence base is around sleep and general relaxation, not acute panic. We could find no evidence supporting it during an attack.
A seven-second breath hold is difficult when someone already feels short of air — and being unable to manage it can add to the fear. We removed it from this site deliberately.
Cleveland Clinic on 4-7-8
Naming things you can see, touch, hear, smell and taste. Very widely used by therapists, and grounding as a broader family of techniques has shown reductions in anxiety and dissociation.
Being straight with you: there is no large meta-analysis of 5-4-3-2-1 specifically. A 2025 trial of the same protocol (the "Five Senses Technique") in nursing students with test anxiety found significant reductions. It is safe, it is standard practice, and its trial evidence is thinner than that for breathing.
Five Senses Technique trial (2025) ·
European Society of Medicine
From the TIPP skill in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. Cool water on the face triggers a reflex that slows the heart rate, which is why it acts so quickly.
That same reflex is why it carries real cautions. Clinical guidance advises avoiding it, or checking with a doctor first, if you have a cardiac arrhythmia, heart disease or a pacemaker, uncontrolled high blood pressure, a seizure disorder, or an eating disorder, or if you take medication affecting heart rate such as beta-blockers.
This warning is shown before the exercise begins. We also use gentle splashing rather than ice-water immersion, which is the stronger and riskier form.
DBT Self Help — TIPP ·
TIPP skill, evidence and cautions
Gentle movement helps use up the adrenaline that anxiety has released. In DBT this is the "intense exercise" part of TIPP; we have deliberately made ours slow and small — standing up and taking a few steps — because vigorous exercise is not realistic or advisable for someone mid-panic.
Suitable for: most people. Stop if you feel faint.
Tensing and releasing muscle groups in turn. Developed by Dr Edmund Jacobson and published in Progressive Relaxation (1938). The full guided session on the "Let's work on it" page follows the sequence taught by Dr Simmi Waraich (hands, arms, shoulders, neck, face, back, chest, stomach, hips, thighs, feet, toes); a short version is in immediate help.
Caution: tense firmly but never into pain, and skip any muscle group that is injured or sore.
JPMR clinical manual
What we actually give you here is a stopwatch and some music — nothing more. There is no voice, no instruction, and no fixed length. You sit however you already sit, for as long as you want, and the time is counted. We have deliberately not tried to teach anyone how to meditate.
The evidence below is for mindfulness meditation programmes, which is what most people are practising when they sit. A 2014 meta-analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine found moderate-quality evidence that such programmes improve anxiety. A 2023 randomised trial in JAMA Psychiatry found an eight-week MBSR course was non-inferior to escitalopram for adults with anxiety disorders — a genuinely strong result.
Being straight with you about two things. First, that evidence is for programmes run over weeks, with practice most days, and taught properly. A timer on a website is not that. It is here to help you keep a practice going, not to be one.
Second, meditation is not neutral for everybody. A 2020 systematic review found roughly 8% of people report unwanted effects such as increased anxiety, and this is more likely for people living with trauma, dissociation or psychosis. That caution is written into the exercise itself.
About the music. Two recordings play during meditation — one in Raga Bhairavi, one on sitar — both used with the permission of the people who made them. Neither is ours, and we make no claim to either. You can turn it off, and if it fails to load the site falls back to a santoor phrase it generates itself, so there is never simply nothing. We make no claim that any particular sound or frequency heals, tunes or regulates anything. Those claims are common online and are not supported by evidence. It is background sound, nothing more.
Goyal et al., JAMA Intern Med (2014) ·
Hoge et al., JAMA Psychiatry (2023) ·
Farias et al., adverse effects review (2020)
Short, accurate statements to read or say. This is coping-statement work from cognitive behavioural therapy. Every phrase we use is factually true — "it always passes", "it cannot hurt me" — rather than forced positivity, which does not work and which people do not believe.
Suitable for: everyone.
Five of the six sounds — warm tones, rain, waves, river and birdsong — are generated by this website as you listen, so no two sittings are identical. The campfire is a recording we made ourselves, because a fire is mostly tiny crackles and those do not survive being rebuilt live in a browser. These are self-soothing and expressive activities. Music for relaxation and expressive writing both have research behind them; sipping water is simply practical care.
Being straight with you: these are gentle supports rather than clinically-proven panic interventions. They are here because they are harmless, they occupy the mind, and people find them comforting — not because trials show they stop panic attacks.
Scheduling small, valued activities and doing them regardless of mood. A well-established therapy with a solid evidence base.
Being straight with you: that evidence is strongest for depression. Low mood and anxiety very often occur together, and the technique is widely used across both, but it is fair to say it is better proven for mood than for anxiety alone.
Approaching feared situations slowly and repeatedly. Graded exposure is the best-evidenced component of anxiety treatment, and avoidance is the single strongest thing that keeps anxiety going.
Caution: if the fear is tied to trauma, or is severe, please do this alongside a therapist rather than alone. Exposure done too fast, or abandoned at the peak, can strengthen the fear instead of easing it. This is said on the plan page too.
Found something here that looks wrong? Please tell us. We would much rather correct it than leave it standing.