8 Ways to Break the Anxiety Cycle and Worry Less
Key takeaways:
An anxiety cycle is a pattern of avoiding something that makes you anxious, which brings temporary relief but, in the long run, causes more anxiety.
Understanding your own anxiety cycle is an important first step to overcoming it.
To break out of an anxiety cycle, you will want to change your thinking and face your fears head-on while using coping skills.
Table of contents
An anxiety cycle is a pattern where you experience anxiety about something and then avoid it. This results in short-term relief but actually creates more anxiety in the long run. Over time, this can lead to a vicious cycle.
For example, a person who is afraid of flying may never get on an airplane. When a situation arises where they have no choice but to fly, they experience significant anxiety.
The problem with avoidance is that you never get the opportunity to learn that you can cope with the thing that makes you feel anxious. It reinforces the belief that “flying is dangerous” because you don’t have an opportunity to challenge it.
If you’re stuck in an ongoing anxiety cycle, there are things you can do to break free.
How do you break out of an anxiety cycle?
When you’re caught in an anxiety-and-avoidance cycle, it can feel like you will never get out. But with consistent effort, you can break free. You will need to understand your own cycle, change your thoughts, and face your fears directly. Read on for eight ways to start breaking free from your anxiety today.
1. Understand your anxiety cycle
Each person’s anxiety cycle looks different, but the general pattern is the same. An anxiety cycle includes the following parts:
Anxiety symptoms: When you think about or are faced with something that causes you anxiety, you may experience symptoms such as worry, fear, tension, heart palpitations, and difficulty breathing.
Avoidance: Because of this anxiety, you avoid the person, place, or thing that scares or worries you.
Short-term relief: Because you avoided it, you feel better for a little while.
Further anxiety: After the short-term relief wears off, you feel even more anxious. Because you did not face the feared situation, you still tell yourself that it is dangerous. You haven’t given yourself the opportunity to challenge your beliefs and prove that you can cope with the feared situation.
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To break out of an anxiety loop, you need to first understand what your cycle looks like. Fill in the list above with your own experiences. You can even draw a circle with arrows so you can see how each part of the cycle feeds into the other parts.
2. Examine the evidence for your fears
Examining the evidence for your fears involves acting like a judge who is examining both sides of an argument. In this case, you are examining all of the possible outcomes of a feared situation.
To examine the evidence for your fears, ask yourself the following questions:
What am I most afraid of happening?
What is the worst-case scenario?
Once you have a sense of what you are most afraid of, follow up with these questions:
How likely is the feared outcome?
Are there any alternatives that are "not that bad," neutral, or even positive?
How likely are the other alternatives?
What would I do if a bad outcome did happen?
The goal of examining the evidence is to help you see that your feared outcome is not inevitable. When you’re stuck in an anxiety loop, you may think only about the worst-case scenario and ignore any other possibilities.
The other important part of this exercise is to focus on what you could do if that feared outcome did happen. If you have a plan in place, you will feel more confident in your ability to manage.
3. Reframe your thinking
Once you have looked at all of the evidence for and against your feared outcomes, you can come up with an alternative way of thinking about them.
The right reframe will depend on what you are feeling anxious about. Most reframes will focus on your personal strengths or accepting your lack of control in a situation.
For example, if you’re fearful of social situations, a good reframe may be, “I cannot guarantee that I won’t say something silly. But I can do my best to prepare conversation starters and hope that everything works out for the best.”
4. Face feared situations
To stop a vicious anxiety-avoidance cycle, you need to face the situations that you fear. This will cause you some temporary anxiety, but in the long run it may help you overcome it.
Facing your fears helps you realize that:
Your feared outcomes don’t happen or are much less likely to happen than you expected. Or, if they do happen, they are not as extreme as you originally thought.
You can cope with your fears, which helps you gain confidence in yourself.
Many people prefer to take a gradual approach to facing their fears. They may start with something that causes them a small amount of anxiety and work their way up to bigger things.
For example, if you have a fear of public speaking, you may start by giving a speech to a few family members and work your way up to a room full of strangers.
Coping skills can help you manage your anxiety while facing your fears. The following four strategies are things you can do in the moment while facing your anxiety.
5. Practice meditation
Meditation is a practice where you focus your attention on something specific while letting go of your thoughts. You can focus on your breathing, an affirmation, or sounds in your environment. Meditation can help with a range of physical and emotional symptoms, including depression and anxiety.
Meditation helps lower the body’s response to stress. This can help when you’re experiencing anxiety and may even serve as a proactive measure when you’re feeling calm.
There are many ways to practice meditation. You could try a guided meditation online or take a class. You could also simply take some time to focus on your breathing. It may also be helpful to count your breaths. If you notice other thoughts coming up, simply notice them and practice letting them pass. Return your focus to your breathing.
6. Try a grounding activity
Grounding activities bring your awareness to the present moment by focusing on your senses. You can use them when you feel your anxiety rising or when you’re in a feared situation.
Some ways to practice grounding include:
Experience how your body feels while sitting by focusing on feeling your feet on the floor and your body against a chair.
Notice different objects in your environment, noting their size, color, texture, and other features.
Listen intently to music and focus on the lyrics and sounds.
Carry a small stone or other object that symbolizes peace to you and touch it when you need to feel grounded.
7. Reflect on times when you have managed your anxiety
Has there ever been a time when you were able to break out of the anxiety loop and manage your anxiety? Taking steps to enhance your confidence to face your fears can help you break free from an anxiety loop.
People with high levels of anxiety also tend to have low levels of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a person’s confidence in their ability to reach a goal. This lack of confidence can prevent them from pushing through the anxiety and facing what scares them.
One way to enhance your confidence is to reflect on times when you have successfully faced your anxiety. The following questions can help:
When have I faced my anxiety in the past?
How did I cope?
What can I learn from these experiences?
Keep these successes in your mind when you’re facing an anxiety-provoking situation.
8. Focus on your long-term goals
When you avoid a situation that causes you anxiety, you get temporary relief. But short-term relief comes at the cost of more long-term anxiety.
When you’re trying to break out of an anxiety cycle, keep your long-term goals in mind. Maybe you want to fly on an airplane stress-free or socialize in public without worry. When you feel that urge to avoid, remember that facing these situations head-on will help you work toward your goals.
What triggers anxiety cycles?
An anxiety cycle can be triggered by many things. There are different types of anxiety, including:
Generalized anxiety: This type of anxiety involves worry about several different things, rather than something specific.
Separation anxiety: People with separation anxiety fear being apart from their loved ones. They may worry that something bad will happen to them or their loved ones when they’re away from one another.
Social anxiety: This type of anxiety involves a fear of socializing, performing in front of other people, or being judged.
Agoraphobia: People with agoraphobia are fearful of being away from home or in enclosed places. This can make going outside, being in crowds, and using public transit scary.
Phobias: This form of anxiety involves significant fear of specific objects or situations. Common phobias include a fear of flying, heights, animals, blood, and getting injections.
In sum, any object or situation that evokes fear can trigger an anxiety-avoidance cycle.
How long can an anxiety cycle last?
An anxiety cycle can last for varying lengths of time. People with anxiety disorders who are stuck in an anxiety cycle may struggle for months, years, or even decades.
However, this does not have to be the case. Taking the active steps listed above and getting treatment can help you break free of an anxiety cycle.
What should I do if my anxiety gets worse?
If your anxiety is difficult to manage, or if you notice it getting worse, treatment can help. Treatment for anxiety typically includes therapy, medication, or a combination of both.
Signs that you may benefit from treatment for your anxiety include:
A sense of worry or fear that is hard to control
Inability to remain focused
Constant tension or feeling on edge
Low energy most of the time
Irritability
Physical symptoms related to anxiety, such as stomach pains and headaches
Panic symptoms, such as shortness of breath, sweating, and rapid heart rate
Therapy is recommended for people with mild to severe anxiety. This form of treatment allows you to talk through your problems and receive supportive feedback. You also have the opportunity to learn and practice coping skills, such as mindfulness.
Therapies used to treat anxiety include:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT focuses on identifying and changing negative thoughts that contribute to anxiety.
Exposure therapy: During exposure therapy, a person is exposed to an object or situation that causes them anxiety and coached through using coping skills to manage their symptoms. The goal is to help stop the pattern of avoidance and, instead, learn how to manage the anxiety. Exposure therapy can be done in-person, through your imagination, or by using virtual reality technology.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): ACT seeks to help you accept your thoughts and feelings without judgment and guide you toward acting in ways that are in line with your values.
Depending on the type and severity of your anxiety, medications may also help manage symptoms. Medications used to treat anxiety include:
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a type of antidepressants that include escitalopram (Lexapro) and sertraline (Zoloft)
Benzodiazepines, a type of anti-anxiety medication typically used to treat panic attacks
Buspirone (Buspar), an anxiolytic medication
The bottom line
An anxiety loop is a vicious cycle that happens when you avoid something that causes you anxiety. It can provide short-term relief but is typically followed by worsening anxiety. To stop an anxiety loop, you need to first understand your personal cycle. From there, you can examine your beliefs and come up with more adaptive reframes. You may also benefit from facing your anxiety directly while relying on healthy coping skills, such as grounding techniques and meditation. Breaking out of an anxiety cycle can cause more anxiety in the short term, but in the long run it will help you overcome your fear.
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References
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Harvard University. (n.d.). Positive reframing and examining the evidence. Stress & Development Lab.
Hofmann, S. G., et al. (2018). Rethinking avoidance: Toward a balanced approach to avoidance in treating anxiety disorders. Journal of Anxiety Disorders.
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For additional resources or to connect with mental health services in your area, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357. For immediate assistance, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, or text HOME to 741-741 to reach the Crisis Text Line.
