Addressing Anxiety and the Negative Feedback Loop

Do you often feel anxious or have times of panic? Does your anxiety overwhelm you or interfere with your work, friends, or family? If so, you’re far from alone. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), approximately 19 million adults in the United States experience ongoing anxiety. It cuts across all ages, ethnicities, education levels, and socioeconomic levels. Most of us feel it at some point. Anxiety comes in many flavors; it may erupt only in social situations, manifest as an obsession or compulsion, as a specific phobia, or it may be generalized.

Below are signs of two types of anxiety:

  1. Generalized anxiety symptoms: irritability/restlessness/worrying, muscle tension/fatigue, problems concentrating, sleep difficulties.
  2. Panic symptoms: racing heart/trembling, fear of losing control or dying, shortness of breath/chest pains, chills/hot flushes (not due to peri- or menopausal phase), dizziness/light-headedness/nausea, numbness/tingling/sweating.

It’s common to feel embarrassed about your anxiety, to feel alone, and to keep it a secret. It’s scary to think of asking for help. You may have been feeling anxious for long enough that it’s hard to remember a time when you didn’t live with it. Your anxiety may feel like an unpleasant but “normal” part of you. You do not have to live with this ongoing pain: You’ll be reassured to know anxiety can be effectively treated.

Find a Therapist for Anxiety

Anxiety is caused by three overlapping events: a trigger or environmental cue (public speaking or party), mental reactivity (a negative thought/self-talk), and physical reactivity (breathing rapidly, clenching fists, etc.). These form a negative feedback loop, where one begets the other. In order to cope with their anxiety, most people avoid the trigger. Though avoidance helps in the immediate moment, it makes anxiety worse in the long term. Why? Two reasons: 1) It reinforces your belief that you’re helpless to deal with it, and 2) you don’t get positive experiences as basis for further success. Below are some basic strategies to help reverse the direction of the feedback loop, turning the dial from negative to positive:

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