Areas › Worry and anxiety › Breaking the worry loop
Before you go towards the thing you are afraid of, it helps to have two things to hand: a way to settle your body, and a fairer account of what is likely to happen.
Neither of them is meant to take the fear away. They are there so you can stay in the situation long enough for it to teach you something, and that staying is the part that shifts what you expect. If you catch yourself using the slow breathing to get out of the moment rather than to remain in it, that is worth noticing early.
Qur’an and Sunnah
seek help through steadfastness and prayer, for God is with the steadfast (Quran 2:153). Two supports are named side by side, one about holding on and one about turning to God, and neither is offered as a way round the hard thing itself.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱسۡتَعِينُواْ بِٱلصَّبۡرِ وَٱلصَّلَوٰةِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَ ٱلصَّٰبِرِينَ
You who believe, seek help through steadfastness and prayer, for God is with the steadfast
Qur’an 2:153read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Across two treatments for generalised anxiety disorder, people who improved also became better at standing back from their own thoughts, which points to that skill being part of what helps. The calming side has a more mixed record: in a laboratory study, relaxation itself provoked anxiety in some people with generalised anxiety disorder, in keeping with worry being used to avoid the drop from calm into sudden distress. So there is something behind each of these, and neither is guaranteed to feel pleasant at first.
Sarah A. Hayes‐Skelton; Amber Calloway; Lizabeth Roemer; Susan M. Orsillo (2014). Decentering as a potential common mechanism across two therapies for generalized anxiety disorder.. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology doi
Kim H, Newman MG. (2019). The paradox of relaxation training: Relaxation induced anxiety and mediation effects of negative contrast sensitivity in generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.. Journal of affective disorders doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A calmer body and a clearer read of the situation make it possible to stay put, and staying put is what changes what you expect next time.
When not to
Deliberately facing a serious fear is best planned with someone trained in it rather than pushed through alone.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
A hammering heart during anxiety is the body doing what it does when it is braced, not a sign that it is being damaged. For a lot of people that single piece of information is the thing that finally lets the panic drop.
Whatever approach the anxious person is learning, teach it to the people they live with. A skill that only one person in the house knows gets overridden by everyone else's habits.
Three moves, in this order: notice what is happening, settle the body, then put your attention somewhere useful. Short enough to remember when you are already going.