Counselling & Psychotherapy in Crouch End

Unfortunately, that struggle often makes anxiety worse rather than better.

Imagine you're worried about an upcoming presentation at work and a thought pops into your mind: "What if I make a fool of myself?"

Most people would rather not have that thought. It's natural to start analysing it, looking for evidence against it, reassuring yourself, or trying to replace it with something more positive.

Sometimes that can be helpful. Some cognitive approaches encourage us to examine our thoughts and question whether they're accurate or helpful.

The difficulty is that, for some people, the process never ends. You answer one worry, only for another to appear. You deal with that one, and then another follows. Before long, you're spending far more time caught up in your thoughts than you would have if you'd simply noticed them and carried on with your day. This is a common pattern in conditions such as Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

The same thing can happen with intrusive thoughts, excessive worry, and harsh self-criticism. The more attention we give them, the more important they begin to seem.

Many people respond to emotions in much the same way. When anxiety appears, they tell themselves they shouldn't feel anxious and try hard to calm themselves down. When the feeling doesn't disappear, they often become frustrated or discouraged, wondering why they can't simply make it go away.

Unfortunately, emotions don't respond very well to demands. The harder we try to force them to change, the more attention we end up giving them.

Many people then find themselves constantly checking how anxious they feel. They monitor every physical sensation, examine every worrying thought, notice every urge to escape, and wonder what it all means. Ironically, all of that attention keeps their mind focused on the very anxiety they're trying so hard to escape.

The anxiety itself may be unpleasant, but the struggle with the anxiety often becomes even more exhausting. Instead of reducing the feeling, it can end up amplifying both the anxiety and the thoughts that go with it.

It's a bit like trying to fall asleep. The more effort many people put into forcing sleep to happen, the more awake they become.

One of the most important things to understand about the mind is that attention matters.

Whenever we repeatedly analyse, monitor, challenge, suppress, or argue with our thoughts and feelings, we keep bringing our attention back to them.

This doesn't mean we deliberately choose anxiety. It simply means our minds naturally pay more attention to whatever we repeatedly treat as important.

Many anxiety disorders involve exactly this pattern. People become increasingly focused on thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, or worries that they desperately want to get rid of.

Ironically, the struggle to eliminate the problem can sometimes become one of the things that keeps it going.

If trying to control thoughts and feelings isn't always the answer, what might help instead?

One possibility is to stop asking: "How do I get rid of this feeling?"

and start asking a different question: "What would I be doing right now if I wasn't spending so much time struggling with this thought or feeling?"

For many people, that question opens up a completely different way of responding.

Instead of waiting to feel better before getting on with life, they can begin focusing on the things that matter to them, even while difficult thoughts and feelings are still present.

In my next article, I'll explore why behavioural approaches often focus on what we do rather than how we feel, and why changing our behaviour can sometimes be one of the most effective ways of creating lasting psychological change.