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Sneaky Mistakes That Stop You From Managing Anxiety
Updated: Sep 10
There are three things I see people doing over and over again that keep their anxiety stuck. They're not obvious. Most of them feel like the sensible thing to do. That's what makes them hard to spot.
If you've been trying to get on top of your anxiety and nothing seems to shift, there's a decent chance one of these is running in the background.
Mistake 1: Treating anxiety like something to fix
This is the most common one, and the most counterintuitive.
When anxiety shows up, the instinct is to make it stop. That makes sense. It feels awful. So you start looking for the thing that's wrong with you, the reason you feel this way, and how to get rid of it. You start monitoring your anxiety levels. Checking in with yourself constantly. Rating how you feel. Trying to work out why today is worse than yesterday.
The problem is that all of this attention makes the anxiety louder. You're essentially telling your brain that anxiety is the most important thing happening, and your brain responds by producing more of it.
Anxiety is not a fault in your system. It's a response. Sometimes it's a proportionate response (you're about to do something genuinely nerve-wracking) and sometimes it's disproportionate (you're lying in bed at night and your brain has decided to run through everything that could go wrong this week). Either way, treating it as an emergency that needs solving right now tends to make it worse, not better.
In therapy, one of the first things I work on with clients is changing their relationship with anxiety. Not making it disappear. Not fighting it. Just learning to let it be there without treating it as a crisis. That shift alone can take the edge off significantly.
Mistake 2: Avoidance
Avoidance is anxiety's best friend. And it's sneaky, because in the short term it works.
You cancel the plans. You take the longer route. You don't apply for the job. You stop going to the gym. Each time, the anxiety drops. Relief. Done.
Except your brain just took notes. It registered that the situation you avoided was dangerous (why else would you have avoided it?) and filed it away. Next time that situation comes up, the anxiety will be louder, because now your brain has "evidence" that it's a real threat.
Over time, avoidance compounds. The list of things you can't do gets longer. The world gets smaller. In clinical terms, this is how generalised anxiety develops into something more restrictive. In some cases, it's how agoraphobia starts.
The uncomfortable truth is that anxiety treatment involves moving toward the things you've been avoiding, not away from them. Not recklessly. Not all at once. But gradually, with support, so your
This is where approaches like CBT and ERP are particularly useful. They give you a structured way to face avoided situations and break the cycle, rather than just white-knuckling your way through.
Mistake 3: Googling for reassurance
If you're reading this, you've probably Googled your symptoms at least once this week. Maybe more. That's not a dig. It's what almost everyone with anxiety does.
The problem isn't looking things up. The problem is what you're looking for: certainty. You want Google to tell you that you're fine, that the headache isn't serious, that the chest tightness is just stress, that what you're feeling is normal. And sometimes it does, and you feel better for twenty minutes. Then the doubt creeps back in, and you Google again.
This is reassurance-seeking. It's a compulsive behaviour, and it works the same way avoidance does. Each time you seek reassurance and feel temporary relief, you reinforce the idea that you needed the reassurance in the first place. Your brain learns: "I felt anxious, I checked, I felt better, therefore checking is necessary." The anxiety doesn't reduce. The checking just becomes part of it.
Health anxiety is the most obvious version of this, but the pattern shows up everywhere. Checking whether your partner is annoyed at you. Re-reading an email you sent to make sure it was okay. Asking friends if they think you handled something badly. All reassurance-seeking. All keeping the anxiety alive.
Breaking this pattern is hard because it means sitting with uncertainty, which is the thing anxiety hates most. But it's one of the most effective things you can do. In therapy, I help clients identify where their reassurance-seeking shows up and gradually reduce it, so their brain learns that it can tolerate not knowing.
Why these mistakes are hard to spot
All three of these feel like coping. That's the problem. Trying to fix anxiety feels productive. Avoiding things feels like self-care. Googling feels like being informed. They all look like reasonable responses from the outside.
But they share the same underlying logic: treating anxiety as a threat that needs to be eliminated right now. And that logic, however understandable, is what keeps the cycle going.
The way out isn't through fighting anxiety harder. It's through changing how you respond to it. That's what therapy is for.
What to do instead
If you've recognised yourself in any of this, here's where to start:
Notice the pattern. You don't have to change anything yet. Just start paying attention to when you avoid something, when you check for reassurance, or when you shift into fix-it mode. Awareness comes first.
Stop treating anxiety as the enemy. It's uncomfortable. It's not dangerous. The more you can let it sit there without reacting to it, the less power it has.
Get proper support. Self-help articles (including this one) can point you in the right direction. They can't do what therapy does. If your anxiety has been running the show for months or years, working with someone who specialises in it makes a real difference. Book a free consultation if you want to talk it through.
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