The Cycle of Anxiety

Welcome to the anxiety trap that doesn’t let go. Here’s how it works.

Step 1:  Anxiety

The anxiety-inducing situation leads to worry, fear, the feeling of being overwhelmed, and it can be difficult to stop thinking about the anxiety inducing thoughts on your own.

Step 2: Avoidance

The uncomfortable symptoms are controlled by avoiding the anxiety-inducing situation.

• Examples include procrastination with electronics (video games, social media, scrolling), skipping school, stress eating, substance abuse, etc.

Step 3: Short-Term Relief from Anxiety

The avoidance gives an immediate sense of relief, and your symptoms of anxiety lessen, but the catch is that the relief is temporary.

Step 4: Long-Term Anxiety Growth

• Since nothing has been done to help get rid of the anxiety-inducing situation the long-term anxiety gets worse! The avoidance teaches the brain to reach for the short-term relief instead of dealing with the long-term anxiety. The next time you feel anxious the brain is more likely to reach for the avoidance behavior.

• Repeat from Step 1.

  Disclaimer: Anxiety is complex, and a 5-minute read article is not going to do as much as someone who can discuss the specifics of your issues 1 on 1 with you. I suggest seeing a therapist, especially if you feel like step 4 is inevitable and cannot be changed.

How do we break the cycle?

Reach Optimal stress

• If feeling overwhelmed with stress and anxiety paralyzes you from doing any productive action, and too little stress and anxiety makes it so that we don’t even perceive the situation as a problem, then optimal stress is the sweet spot in between these two ends of the spectrum that provides the ideal environment for change and action.

• Optimal stress is when you don’t feel overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, but feel enough stress for focused work.

  
  

Strategies to reduce anxiety and stress levels and achieve optimal stress

Prepare yourself through practice

• If you are worried about a public speaking event, job interviews, or a school exam, then practice your speech in front of family or friends, create and memorize answers to common job interview questions, or study for the exam until you feel prepared.
  

Make the task easier by breaking it into smaller steps

• Reading 10 chapters from a textbook becomes less intimidating if you take it one paragraph at a time.

Half the battle is often starting on the stressful task

• Showing up and starting can start the momentum for you to make tremendous progress! (or not, that happens too, but that’s okay).

  
  

Any progress is good progress

• You might feel like you didn’t make a dent in what you need to have done, so why even bother trying? That’s a good point! Is all this effort even worth it? Do you want to take on this burden? Aiming to become 1% better every day still amounts to something substantial, given enough time.

  
  

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly

• For example, if social anxiety and putting yourself out there is a challenge, let’s try and practice self-compassion. Not everyone starts good at something, socializing is a practiced skill after all. The reward of social connections, reduction of social anxiety, and an aid to loneliness is worth the effort (that’s up to you).

  
  

Romanticize the process

• This is your life we’re talking about! How much has procrastination and anxiety robbed you of the life you wanted to live? How much has anxiety made you “settle” for less? Are you okay with that? Punch anxiety in the face! Kick procrastination in the shins!