Anxiety usually gets worse for one of two reasons. Either the thing it is pointing at has not been recognized yet, or your energy is going into hiding it rather than understanding it. Both keep the signal switched on. Coping skills turn the volume down, and the volume climbs back, because nothing about the source has changed.
Which is the part most people are never told: you cannot reduce anxiety that you do not understand.
Reducing anxiety is easier when it is understood.
Many people can notice the thoughts they have when they are anxious or even where they feel their anxiety in their body. However, fewer people are able to understand their anxiety. It can be so hard! To be anxious about something is to be afraid. It makes us avoid certain feelings or situations. When your knowledge of your anxiety is limited to what you need to avoid or how it is felt in your body, you are lacking the information necessary to activate change.
Anxiety is a warning light.
Imagine if every time a check engine light lit up on your dashboard you took your car to a mechanic and asked the mechanic to turn off the light without fixing the problem in the engine. You may find a shady mechanic willing to do that for you, but you would never be solving the reason for the warning light.
You may be feeling that warning light come on right now in your life. If that is you, what I want you to know is that there are multiple steps you can likely take today to begin reducing your anxiety. However, I also want you to know that your anxiety is a warning light pointing to something that is not working. To truly reduce your anxiety in a way that will help keep it at a manageable level you will need to understand it, not simply turn it off.
Why anxiety gets worse when you hide it.
It is hard to understand the things about ourselves that we are ashamed about. It is natural for people to attempt to hide or cover up their anxiety because they feel like it is bad. We hide things we feel guilty about, and we try to cover up parts of ourselves that cause us to feel shame.
Trying to hide and cover anxiety compounds the suffering it brings. People carrying high levels of manageable anxiety become exhausted from the effort of concealing the guilt and shame that accompanies their inner distress. This is often the honest answer to why anxiety is getting worse. Nothing new has happened. The hiding has simply been running for a long time, and it costs something to keep it running.
I know many therapists who keep Chinese finger traps in their offices. You slide a finger into each end, you pull, and the trap tightens. The harder you work at getting free, the more stuck you are. The way out is to stop pulling and push your fingers toward each other, which is the last thing instinct suggests.
Anxiety behaves the same way. The effort to force it away or hate it away is the pull, and it tightens the very thing you were trying to loosen. You cannot hate away anxiety.
How common is anxiety?
Part of what makes anxiety so isolating is the belief that you are the only one carrying it. You are not. The National Institute of Mental Health reports:
- 19.1% of U.S. adults had an anxiety disorder in the past year
- 23.4% of U.S. adult women had an anxiety disorder in the past year
- 14.3% of U.S. adult men had an anxiety disorder in the past year
- 31.1% of U.S. adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lifetime
Statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health. Roughly one in three people will meet criteria for an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, and many more will live with anxiety that never gets a name. If shame is telling you that your anxiety makes you unusual, the data disagrees.
Understanding gives you freedom.
There is a difference between feeling anxious and recognizing that you are feeling anxious. One requires that you reflect on your experience. When you are reflecting on the experience there is a degree of separation in the observance. This might seem inconsequential, but expanding that gap between your experience and your reflection of the feeling is often crucial to beginning to manage anxiety. My colleague Dr. Aguilera Rice writes about one version of this skill in cognitive defusion.
By reflecting on your anxiety you can make the choice to continue trying to solve the problem or give yourself permission to come back to it later. It is in this awareness that you can remain tense and overwhelmed, or you can actively soothe yourself and provide sensory input that relaxes your body.
The basic steps to manage anxiety differ for each person, but it is commonly helpful to listen to music, exercise, take a bath, go for a walk, or practice mindfulness meditation. It takes naming the feeling, recognizing that you can do something different, and then making the choice.
Remaining in the moment.
This likely feels insufferable to many with anxiety, which is why working on this often requires using two minds. This can be a close friend, a spouse, a family member, a spiritual director, or a psychotherapist. Working with another person is powerful because it helps you remain in the moment long enough to gain the understanding to generate change.
Being in the moment allows you to name the specific feeling. “I am anxious about being rejected if I ask them out.” “I am anxious about being abandoned if I let myself get close to this person.” To truly get specific in the description may be painful, scary, or frustrating. For some, it can feel meaningless or inconsequential. All of these are fine responses and worth understanding in their own right.
The reason the anxiety remains is that the related emotions have not been properly recognized, processed, or understood. A genuine understanding of emotions that have been overwhelming for you by yourself often requires being able to have another person to help you recognize and process them.
There is simply no substitute for an empathic human connection to a part of yourself that feels unworthy of love. Needing someone else doesn’t make you weak or bad. Needing someone else means you are human. We are hurt within relationships, so it makes sense that we heal and grow within relationships.
Getting Help
If you have been stuck in reducing your anxiety, consider the supportive relationships in your life that may be able to help you understand it better.
If you believe you would benefit from individual or group therapy, feel free to contact me personally about how to identify a therapist that would be a good fit for you. You can reach me at (760) 334-6262 or by email at drkessler@coastaltherapygroup.com. If working with me or someone at our practice is not a good fit for you, there are plenty of great therapists in San Diego County and throughout California, and I am glad to point you toward someone who does this work well.
You can read more about how our psychologists approach anxiety therapy, or get started here if you would like to talk with someone about what your anxiety has been pointing to.
Before you reach out
Common questions about reducing anxiety
What is the first step to reducing anxiety?
Understanding it. Most people start by trying to make the feeling stop, which is reasonable but limited. Anxiety is a signal, and signals only quiet down once the thing they are pointing at has been recognized. The first step is naming what you are actually afraid of, in specific terms, rather than treating the anxiety itself as the whole problem. Coping skills help you tolerate the feeling long enough to do that work. They are the beginning, not the destination.
Why does my anxiety come back even when I use coping skills?
Because coping skills manage the intensity of anxiety without changing what is generating it. Deep breathing, exercise, and grounding are genuinely useful, and they will keep being needed if the underlying fear has never been understood or processed. This is the check engine light problem. Turning the light off is not the same as fixing the engine. If you find yourself using the same skills over and over with no lasting change, that is usually a sign the anxiety has something to say that has not been heard yet.
Can anxiety go away completely?
Anxiety itself is not a defect to be eliminated. It is a normal human response to threat, and a life with no anxiety at all would be a life with no stakes in it. What can change is the amount, the intensity, and how much of your life it takes up. Many people move from anxiety that runs their decisions to anxiety that shows up, gets recognized, and passes. That is a realistic outcome and a meaningful one.
How do I know when anxiety is bad enough for therapy?
A useful question is not how severe the anxiety is but how much it is costing you. If it is shaping what you say yes to, keeping you from sleeping, straining your relationships, or taking real energy to hide, that is enough reason to talk with someone. You do not need a diagnosis or a crisis to justify therapy. Waiting until anxiety is unbearable usually just means working with more exhaustion later.
Does talking about anxiety make it worse?
In the short term, naming a fear out loud can feel more intense than avoiding it, and that is often the reason people avoid it. What tends to happen over time is the opposite. Anxiety that is hidden compounds, because hiding it adds shame on top of the original fear. Anxiety that is spoken to another person who responds with steadiness rather than judgment usually loses some of its grip. That is much of what therapy is for.
What kind of therapy helps with anxiety?
Cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure-based approaches have the largest research base for reducing anxiety symptoms, and they work well for many people. Psychodynamic and relational therapy, which is how we primarily work at Coastal Therapy Group, focuses on understanding what the anxiety is protecting you from and how it took shape in your relationships. Both are legitimate. In practice, the fit between you and the therapist tends to predict the outcome more than the brand of therapy does.
Where can I see a therapist for anxiety in North County San Diego?
Coastal Therapy Group has offices in Carlsbad, Encinitas, and Vista, and we see clients online throughout California. Our team is made up of doctoral-level psychologists and therapists who work relationally, which means we are interested in what your anxiety is about and not only in lowering the number on a symptom checklist. You can learn more on our anxiety therapy page or reach out for a consultation.
Thinking about starting therapy?
If this essay resonated, a conversation might help more. Reach out for a free 15-minute consultation. Our care coordinator will match you with the right therapist, with no pressure and no obligation.
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