4 Common Things That Actually Make Anxiety Worse
To better understand anxiety, there are three basic parts you might find helpful: worried thoughts, the feelings and sensations we experience in our body, and how we behave. If we focus on supporting each of these things, over time we can learn to have a better handle on problematic anxiety.
You might not know, but these 4 things (most of which humans naturally do, and we often think they make sense!) can increase anxiety over time:
- Avoiding the thing that is worrying us
- Staying still instead of moving our body
- Treating our thoughts as facts
- Trying to stop or push away the anxious thoughts
Avoiding the thing that is worrying us
When you know that something makes you anxious, purposefully avoiding it actually strengthens that anxiety. Avoiding something only reinforces any negative beliefs we have about that thing.
Staying still instead of moving our body
When our internal danger alarm is activated, a whole bunch of quick changes occur inside the body. Your breathing changes, your heart beats faster, your tummy might get butterflies. There is a reason why all of these things happen – you’re not crazy and you’re not broken, it’s a very normal response to threat:
- Racing heart: your heart beats faster to pump more blood to your muscles so that you can fight or run fast.
- Nausea or butterflies: blood isn’t needed in your tummy to digest food, it’s needed more in other parts of your body to fight or run. Bloody gets diverted away from the tummy, resulting in butterflies.
- Shaky muscles/arms/legs: your muscles tense up in order to get your ready to fight or run.
- And many more…
When we have all of this extra energy in our body, staying still can often be unhelpful. There is nowhere for that extra energy to go! You need to release some of that extra energy by moving your body around.
Treating our thoughts as facts
Quite simply, just because we think something doesn’t mean that it is true. When we are grappling with a difficult thought (especially anxious thoughts) we tend to treat them as true, real or fact. Often, this isn’t the case. Taking the time to notice an unhelpful patterns in our thinking, or doing a little fact checking beneath our sticky thoughts can help us managing anxiety.
Psychologists often call the unhelpful patterns of thinking “thinking traps.” It’s okay to fall into these. Psychologists spend a lot of time supporting people in understanding and identifying when/how these patterns show up, and how to re-wire them.
Trying to stop or push away the anxious thoughts
Did you know that if you’re trying to suppress a thought, you generally have the thought more often? The more we try to push away our anxious thoughts, the stickier they tend to become.
If I told you NOT to think about a pink elephant on a tight rope… What comes into your brain?
No really, stop thinking about it.
Don’t do it!
It’s still there, isn’t it?
That is because supressing or avoiding thoughts isn’t actually helpful. Instead, we benefit more from trying strategies to help us accept the icky thoughts.
For more information, or to book an appointment, please phone (07) 4972 6929 or email admin@cqpsychservices.com.au.
How to Access a Psychologist at CQ Psych Services:
- Contact us directly by calling 07 4972 6929 or email admin@cqpsychservices.com.au
- Ask your GP or health professional to refer you to our clinic.
- Come in and see our friendly staff at Shop 1 & 2, 13 Tank Street, Gladstone QLD 4680.
- Visit our website and complete a ‘Request an Appointment’ form and one of our friendly staff will reply to your enquiry. Website: https://cqpsychservices.com.au/
Author: Kelsie Realf
Psychologist
