If you’re broke, pretty much all of the usual external aids are out unless you already have them

Valerian nd kava have pretty potent anti anxiety effects. Pretty much the most potent ones, and the most reliable plant based stuff since even with the usual variances, you won’t have zero effect, nor too heavy.

So that kinda leaves you with non chemical options (just because they’re plant based don’t mean they ain’t drugs, ya dig).

Breathing exercises are the front line defense, even if you aren’t in practice, so you start there. Doesn’t even matter what kind, because there’s a chain of control. Control your breathing, control your heart rate and brain patterns. Control those, you control the stress chemicals being released, and that’s where the panic attack part really lives

It isn’t instant, but it works.

The problem is starting them. What I found helped a good bit when I could, was the opposite. Start out doing anything that spikes respiration and pulse. Sit ups, pushups, jumping jacks, whatever you can tolerate physically. Just crank out enough to spike your breathing and pulse a little. It serves multiple purposes, but the key to it is breaking the cycle of the attack. Usually, once you get that spike, you’ll be able to engage breath control easier than if you try starting that first.

Beyond that, you gotta find things to ground yourself in the real world instead of your head. Again the what doesn’t matter much, but I tend to find practical, hands on stuff works well enough. Like, sharpening knives grounds me (it’s my thing, what can I say). If there’s something that normally centers you and lets you kinda hit flow state, that’s the thing to try.

Shit, even something that’s mostly bad for anxiety can work if the ritual of it is calming enough. Like the process of making tea can help despite the caffeine sucking for anxiety.

None of it is easy without a breakthrough option though, and I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass and pretend otherwise. So if you do already have valerian, or an antihistamine, lead with that, but follow up with breathing exercises anyway!

You gotta use a multifaceted approach.