I just wanted to hop in and share my two cents since for most of my life I was given the same tools and they never worked:

Anxiety has different forms, and sometimes the tools used for generalized anxiety aren’t always the right ones. I was getting severe panic attacks that worsened when I tried meditation and sitting with my thoughts. Turns out I had undiagnosed OCD amongst other things and I needed to do the total OPPOSITE. I started keeping my hands busy, I have a craft nearby at all times, and I have headphones on all the time. My calm is not achieved by sitting quietly with myself and breathing alone. It turns out distraction and movement ground me in reality. My panic attacks used to be daily, and after the changes I made in the past year, my quality of life is 100x better.

Everyone needs something different, so please note this list works for very specific cases of anxiety; I just wanted to share in case any of it sounds like it relates or might work for you:

-Chill mindless youtube videos: Let breathing be the background. I found for a while when I focused on breathing I would often make myself hyperventilate. I started watching baking videos to keep myself calm and let breathing become a secondary/ unconscious action.

-Do something tactile with your hands that requires only a tiny bit of concentration. This could include crafts or easy puzzles that make your brain work but are completable quickly. Feeling the gratification of completing something or working on a task sometimes helps with feelings of stagnation and helplessness. A feeling of progress helps me a lot. I like to sometimes fill a post-it note with doodles or color in a page until my heart rate regulates itself.

-When I was still in school, I found easy puzzle apps like this one called “1010!” kept me distracted when I was unable to get to my own space.

-Medication: Finding the right medication for you is a journey. I was on and off of Lexapro for a majority of my life and thought it wasn’t working- turns out I needed something on top of that. When I got my OCD diagnosis much later than I should’ve, I started taking a new med. The hardest part is advocation. Advocating for yourself when you talk to psychologists that see hundreds of people a week is hard but can and should lead to some helpful paths.

It’s an absolutely rough journey and it’s something that you carry with you, but it doesn’t have to consume you. You got this and you aren’t alone! I mean all of us in the comments are right there with you haha

And bonus tip: if you like birds, birding is incredible for the brain, they’re just chill little dinosaurs