Anxiety is a very normal but very unwanted feeling. Most of us would choose not to experience that if we could
In some ways, it’s like a smoke alarm, said Natasha Reynolds, a psychotherapist at Bloom Psychology & Wellness in Toronto. This smoke detector alerts you to real danger and lets you get out of the house safely, but it also alerts you to things that aren’t actually dangerous, like how a smoke alarm can set off a piece of burnt toast.
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Similarly, “that threat-detecting part of our brain … might fire at what it perceives as a threat, but it’s not really dangerous to us,” Reynolds said.
When the smoke alarm goes off frequently for things that aren’t dangerous, it can be a sign to seek support and develop tools to navigate this stress response, Reynolds said. Additionally, habitual thoughts, behaviors, and actions cause your anxiety smoke alarm to go off more often than it should. Here they are:
Black and white thinking
“A common pattern of useless thinking can be called black-and-white thinking, or also known as all-or-nothing thinking,” Reynolds said.
This type could mean looking at situations as good or bad and not considering gray areas, Reynolds explained.
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“So for example … if I made an error in an email, that must mean I’m incompetent and the other person thinks that,” she said. In reality, it doesn’t mean you’re incompetent; a mistake means you’re human, and the person on the receiving end thinks so too (ie if even notices the mistake).
These thoughts can get you down and even make future communications really stressful, causing anxiety to set in every time you have to email this person, or even causing you to stop emailing.
Avoidance
Speaking of stopping something altogether, therapists say this is another habit that can have a negative effect on you.
“I think the No. 1 behavior that makes anxiety worse is avoidance,” said Jennifer Anders, a psychologist in Colorado who runs the Instagram account The.Anxiety.Doc. “This is actually counterintuitive to what most people think. Anxiety gets worse when you avoid the situation, or place, or people that trigger your anxiety.”
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Think about it: If you avoid looking at a credit card balance because of the anxiety it gives you, by the time you look at that balance, you’ll be full of anxiety—and that’s after weeks and weeks of stress hanging over you.
“Avoidance feeds this cycle of anxiety and kind of reinforces that bodily response and exacerbates the anxiety over time,” Anders said.
Justine Grosso, a psychologist in North Carolina who also shares mental health information on her Instagram account, said that instead of avoiding a situation, you should approach it gradually.
With social anxiety, for example, Grosso said that instead of going to a big party, schedule a one-on-one coffee date with a new friend or go to the party for 10 minutes and leave.
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“We want to approach things and be willing to tolerate a little discomfort in the service of our values. I mean, if we value friendship … it will be meaningful for us to approach these social interactions instead of avoiding them,” Grosso explained.
“It’s important after we do something that causes anxiety that we take time and tell our brain, ‘Hey, we survived, we did this hard thing and we survived,'” Grosso added.
How you talk to yourself matters – therapists say negative self-talk can make you feel unnecessarily anxious. Mascot via Getty Images
Looking for reassurance
Constantly asking other people for feedback on a situation or even Googling health symptoms also contributes to your anxiety, Anders said. These types of behaviors are known as reassurance seeking.
“In the short term, self-reassurance mitigates the anxious feedback loop in your mind, but in the long term, it actually creates this other negative feedback loop that requires reassurance just to feel good,” Anders said.
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In other words, insurance is a quick fix, but it won’t do your anxiety any favors in the long run.
“I always encourage people to refrain from doing that as much as possible,” Anders said, because it significantly increases long-term anxiety for many people.
Catastrophic
Worried that your anxiety will make you pass out and you won’t get help from those around you? Or have you ever sent in your rent check late and assumed that meant you’d be evicted immediately?
This is known as catastrophizing, which means thinking about the worst-case scenario and believing that that scenario is most likely to happen, according to Reynolds. As you might expect, catastrophizing contributes to anxiety.
“According to cognitive-behavioral therapy, they talk about anxiety as a result of overestimating the situation and then underestimating our ability to deal with that situation,” Reynolds said.
It can be helpful to challenge these worst-case scenario ideas by saying, “What if everything works?” Reynolds said. “Because anxiety isn’t about thinking about the best-case scenario.”
Additionally, it can be helpful to think about actionable ways to deal with a bad situation. “If the worst case were to happen, what are your strengths in dealing with it, which we might underestimate at that point as well?” Reynolds said.
In other words, if you passed out, would no one help you? Could you talk to your loved ones about this possibility so that they are prepared to intervene? Or if you sent your rent check late, could you pay a late fee to your landlord?
The worst-case scenario usually doesn’t happen, but a catastrophizing thought pattern can convince you that it will.
Negative self-talk
It turns out that telling yourself you’re not good enough or that something won’t work out is more than mean; it also adds to your anxiety, according to Anders.
“That’s a huge one that, again, a lot of people are not aware of how they talk to themselves and the words they use to describe themselves as they go about their daily lives and their daily activities,” Anders said.
These words are often really harsh – much harsher than how we would speak to friends or family.
“I really encourage people to pay attention to the words they use with themselves, and the first step is to not change it. The first step is just to be aware of it,” Anders said.
People-Pleasants
According to Anders, people-pleasing can also fuel your anxiety. Think about it: when you constantly put the needs and opinions of others above your own, you create some uncomfortable feelings, including anxiety. What’s more, she added, it makes you feel like you’re neglecting yourself, which can cause anxiety.
Anders said many people, especially women, are conditioned to put the needs of others before their own, which makes this habit hard to break.
“This really creates a dynamic of self-neglect, prioritizing everyone else’s wants and needs above your own, [and] weak limits are something else this leads to,” Anders said.
“And really just developing self-worth, which is dependent on other people and what you do for other people, is a huge, huge contributor to anxiety,” she noted.
If these behaviors affect your anxiety on a regular basis, it’s time to see a therapist. Fiordaliso via Getty Images
Ways to tackle these anxiety-inducing habits
To combat these behaviors, “grounding skills can be really helpful,” Grosso said. Grounding skills can lower your heart rate and bring a sense of ease that just isn’t there during an anxiety tailpin.
Grounding activities include a walk and/or a workout, Grosso said. In addition, Grosso said mindfulness skills can help, too. “Just like becoming aware of your five senses — taste, touch, sight, smell, sound — and the reason that connecting to our five senses is related is because it literally takes us into the present moment,” Grosso said.
In addition, Reynolds said she likes to encourage people to belly breathe, “which is to breathe deeply and intentionally, and as you inhale, you draw your belly forward, and as you exhale, you bring your belly in.” This sends more oxygen to the brain and helps bring a sense of calm, Reynolds said.
It’s also helpful to name anxiety-inducing behavior when it happens. “The way to be aware of our thought patterns is essentially to label them when they happen. ‘Oh, look, it’s catastrophizing, let me notice that,'” Grosso said.
Or, take a few moments to name the negative self-talk or reassurance-seeking that happens as well. “And then focus on the present moment,” Grosso said.
Over time, you can learn to distance yourself from these thoughts and become aware of them when they happen, so that you can remind yourself that they are not helpful and, in fact, not even reality.
Beyond home tools for coping with anxiety, it can also be helpful to seek professional help; anxiety can be more complicated than it lets on.
“Another interesting take on anxiety is that anxiety could actually be a secondary emotion and kind of a cover for another emotion that you’re feeling that you find unacceptable,” Grosso said.
You may have been raised to believe that being angry is not acceptable, or you may be harboring pain that presents itself as anxiety. In other words, there could be bigger issues at play, which is where a therapist’s advice can help.
“I think psychotherapy is a really powerful experience for understanding ourselves better, understanding our emotions and why we do the things we do,” Grosso said.
You can use databases like Psychology Today and Inclusive Therapists to find therapists near you.
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