There are breathing exercises that helped me if what I had to do didn't take very long -- they're based on the same teachings that brought us meditation and are based on abdominal breathing. Meditation can take some time to have an effect, and it certainly made life better for me until I stopped being able to achieve the alpha state due to other things that happened with medication. Certain forms of meditation have been studied more -- TM, Mindfulness, and something called the Meditation on Compassion and Lovingkindness have shown the most benefit, but we do have to consider that the studies looked at monks and long-term meditators in many of the studies. My own experience is that learning meditation from a psychologist or New Age type doesn't have the same magic as learning it from a practitioner of the religion it came from -- in the three cases above, the first is a Hindu form and the latter two are Buddhist forms. Learning them in ritual ceremonies from Buddhist and Hindu gurus did more for me than learning meditations in short-hand from psychologists. But that's me. As for what you're doing, not avoiding, that's the ticket -- those of us who fell into avoiding fell into chronic anxiety that lives with us. Are you in therapy for this with a psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety? I think CBT would work well for you.