How you are Making your Anxiety Worse
Anxiety Disorders is one of the most common mental health disorders in children and adults. In fact, about 31% of people will meet criteria for an anxiety disorder in their lives! (National Institute of Mental Health). There is so much written about treatment for anxiety and strategies for managing anxious emotions and thoughts, but did you know there are several things that you may be doing that could be making your anxiety worse?
1. Avoidance
Anxiety gives us important information about our environment. If our anxiety levels are increased in any given situation, we will have the natural urge to avoid it, which is sometimes helpful. However, people with anxiety disorders tend to get anxious in situations that are not actually dangerous or harmful (think of this as a ‘false alarm’). Your interpretation of the situations tells you something is wrong à you feel uncomfortable anxiety à you avoid the situation to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling. Ultimately, you end up avoiding a harmless situation. Think about something that you tend to avoid out of anxiety or fear, or perhaps the thought “this is bad”. Now consider that each time you avoid that thing, you are building up ‘evidence’ in your mind, that yes, that thing is bad. Once the evidence builds up, you may then start to label that thing as ‘very bad’. For prolonged avoidance, that thing now gets interpreted as ‘very very bad’, making your anxiety about it much worse than it was originally.
2. Ruminating on Catastrophic Scenarios
Catastrophizing, also known as ‘thinking the worst’, is a common pastime in those with anxiety. Some people spend so much time thinking about the worst possible outcome and very little time thinking about all the other possible, less disastrous outcomes of a situation. Although thoughts about the worst case scenario may indeed pop up from time to time, does it really help to continue playing that scenario over and over in our heads? Doing so leads to increased anxiety and a very unbalanced perspective on what’s happening around us. If you tend to ruminate on catastrophic thoughts, try asking yourself, even if this worst case scenario were to happen, how would I cope with it? It is also helpful to brainstorm other possible outcomes to balance the thought.
3. Using ‘Safety Behaviours’
Safety behaviours, sometimes referred to as ‘sneaky avoidance’ are behaviours that subtly allow you to disengage while doing something that you are anxious about. For example, wearing a hoodie or sunglasses while out in public, or checking your phone frequently while at a party, or always having someone with you when you leave the house. These behaviours serve the purpose of lowering your anxiety in the short term, but may also be contributing to its growth because you teach yourself that you can’t be calm without these things. Remember, avoidance can catch you in a strong cycle of increasing anxiety, and even these sneaky behaviours can contribute to you feeling more anxious.
4. Not tolerating the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety
Anxiety creates a set of uncomfortable physical symptoms that can be downright awful: stomach upset, increased heart rate, dizziness, tight chest, urgent need to use the washroom. Although these physical sensations are unpleasant, they are not bad or dangerous. Many people with anxiety disorders tend to misinterpret these symptoms to be a sign of impending doom. In other words, they believe these symptoms are ‘facts’ that support that the situation they are in is bad or dangerous. They often believe that if they remain in that situation, the physical sensations may worsen, such as fainting or having a heart attack. By slowing increasing your tolerance of these negative physical sensations, you’ll notice that they tend to go away all on their own even when you stay in the feared situation, usually around 20 minutes!
Therapists have noticed a sharp increase in anxiety related symptoms since the pandemic. Although anxiety itself is natural, normal and necessary for survival, it can take a damaging toll on our ability to participate fully in life. If you, or someone you know is struggling with anxiety, therapists at Brookhaven can help you reduce symptoms, typically through a course of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Contact us for more information.
