You’ve tried everything. CBT, DBT, talking it over. You assessed reality, and saw that your fears are not taking place right now. Or, you don’t even know if your fears are real.

First of all, acknowledge the purpose of that anxiety. Our brains are designed to protect us, and one of the ways they do that is by scanning for threats. When we encounter a threat, our nervous system piques – and that goes for potential threats as well. In fact, sometimes potential threats can make even more noise, because the brain does not know if it is coming and feels as though it must be extra vigilant. 

So first off, thank that anxiety, and don’t try to fight it. Trying to fight feelings is like trying to put an ever growing balloon into a pressure cooker – it’ll just keep getting bigger, and explode. When something is categorized as ‘forbidden,’ it lights up the brain to a. seek it out more strongly, in curiosity and attempted avoidance; and b. associate shame with it (often triggering fight or flight. (See: The Pressure of a Forbidden Feeling). This creates a cocktail of chemicals in your body, and a loop of cortisol, suppression, and shame. So there isn’t the pressure of just anxiety, but the pressure of knowing you shouldn’t be anxious, criticizing yourself for being anxious, getting more anxiety about the fact that you are anxious…

So first: acknowledge that your body is trying to help you. Other people may be masochists, but humans generally aren’t to themselves. 

Let’s take a look at the root of anxiety, and understand why evidence gathering as a method to combat it usually fails. Often, the engine driving Generalized Anxiety Disorder is not a lack of logic, or neuroticism; it is an inability to tolerate uncertainty. (Note: Separate this from anxiety developed from abuse, where the victim does constantly have to scan and safety isn’t present.)

Those with a high intolerance for uncertainty view future events as inherently threatening, for anything can happen. (See: Nervous System Reprogramming, Internal Locus of Control section.) None of us know the future, and a brain driven by anxiety does not rely on probability, but on possibility. Even if there is a 99% chance that everything will be fine based on the past, a 1% chance can still trigger an anxiety loop. Think about it: if there were one hundred pieces of grass, and one of them were a snake, would you relax in it or would you constantly be keeping your eyes open looking for that snake? When there is a possibility of threat, and the future may contain threat – and the goal is survival – the brain will keep looking for that threat to stay prepared.

Now that we understand how and why that one percent remains an issue, we can understand how trying to collect evidence can just trigger an endless loop of “yes, but what if?” because even if that what – if is one percent possible, it takes one snake in the grass to get you onto alert mode.

Sound familiar?

So what approach can we take here?

Dr. Adrian Wells, a British clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Manchester, suggests a different way of treating anxiety: instead of grappling with the thoughts, change the relationship to thinking itself. When anxiety causes a person to analyze if a problem is real or fake, they are engaging in cognitive attentional syndrome – rumination, analysis, and scanning for issues. Ironically, treating these thoughts with all these skills keeps the threat detection system running, as the brain thinks: ‘spending this much time on a thought must mean it is a real threat!’

So while Cognitive Behavioral Therapy may emphasize evidence collecting as the gold standard, this can actually make it worse for those with anxiety. 

So what does the research suggest for our anxiety prone thoughts instead? How do we change from analyzing the thought and making the worry stronger, to shifting our relationship with the thoughts altogether?

1. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy:

Instead of decoding whether or not the thought is real or fake, ask yourself: is this thought helpful right now? View the thoughts as though they were a shape, passing in front of you, while you simply observe them through glasses. A thought is just a passing event, not an order to act or make a decision right now. 

2. Stop With the ‘Don’t Worry:’

Telling yourself or an anxious person ‘don’t worry’ does not work. We all know the joke of the depressed friend who is told “don’t be depressed!” And they respond: “why thank you; I’ll get up now, get a job, hang out with friends, and enjoy my life.” Obviously, if it worked, people would do it, and you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

It’s the same with anxiety. Telling yourself or others “don’t worry,” is just as useful as telling someone depressed, “well, just stop.”

So we have something called worry postponement. Research has shown that this intervention has been massively successful; instead of trying to stop the worry now, push it off to a specific time window later during the day. If it’s 3pm, tell yourself, ‘I will worry from 6pm – 6:15pm.” This reassures the brain that you are not ignoring the threat (remember, ignoring makes it worse), and allows it to calm down in the moment. By the time the 6pm window rolls around, the nervous system has often calmed down.

3. Explore Your Relationship to Fear of Vulnerability:

Brené Brown coined the term Foreboding Joy. It can be defined as self sabotaging a joyous moment, as we are afraid of the tragedy that might end it. This way, if I think of it first, I prepare myself for the tragedy of when it happens – and don’t let myself feel that joy fully, to protect myself from getting hurt. 

Here is how she phrased it in her book, Daring Greatly: 

“I used to think the best way to cope with the vulnerability of loving my kids so much was to dress-rehearse tragedy. I’d stand over Ellen or Charlie while they were sleeping and think, I love you so much it hurts. Then, within a split second of that beautiful, gentle wave of love, a picture of a horrific car accident or some terrible tragedy would flash through my mind.

I would shake my head to clear the image, gasp, and look at them, my heart racing. I was dress-rehearsing tragedy so I wouldn’t be blindsided by pain. I was literally using the ‘what-ifs’ to beat joy away, because joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience.”

She poignantly illustrates at the end that this does not protect us from the pain when it comes, but robs us from the ability to experience the joy in our lives while we have it. 

The pain will come anyway. So you may as well feel that joy. And don’t try to avoid joy to skip the pain of loss, because that will bring pain too. Live life, and let emotions roll as they come.

The goal is not to change what you think, but how you interact with the thoughts altogether.

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A brain reacting without an anxiety disorder is able to use probability to calm down. It can weigh the evidence, decide that there is a 99% chance they are safe, and the nervous system will relax. A brain operating with anxiety obsesses over possibility and does not calculate probability. To the clinically anxious brain, the presence of a possibility equals a threat.

For those without anxiety, they may collect evidence, come to the conclusion that there is no concern, and their nervous system will calm down. However, for those with anxiety, other possibilities may just keep coming to mind. Anxiety disorders will thrive on the one percent ‘what if,’ while those without it will be able to regulate with probability; and many people fall on the spectrum somewhere in between.

The core of the panic is often a lack of trust in oneself to be able to handle hard situations when they arrive. Self – efficacy, your belief in your capacity to execute the behavior needed to achieve your goals, is often lower in individuals with anxiety. The non – anxious person can acknowledge that the future is uncertain, but is confident in their ability to deal with what it brings (or is simply not focusing on it much at all). The anxious person may not trust in their ability to handle the possibility of what might come up: they see a disconcerting or destabilizing event may occur, and believe that they cannot handle it – and that it may destroy them. Part of non anxious living is acknowledging that we do not know the future, and that becomes okay; and with this, we open up more space for living in the present. 

Healing does not mean being confident that nothing bad will ever happen. It means bad things might happen, but I trust myself to be able to handle them.

This blog is intended to provide general information and educational content about mental health and well-being. It is not a substitute for professional therapy, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and reading this blog does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you have questions or concerns about your mental or physical health, please seek guidance from a qualified healthcare or mental health professional.