Anxiety rises and falls

Anxiety moves like a wave. Knowing that makes it easier to stay, and staying is how fear shrinks.

When anxiety rises, it can feel as if it will keep climbing until something terrible happens. It doesn't. Anxiety moves like a wave: it builds, peaks and then falls, even if you do nothing at all. Your body can't keep up its alarm response indefinitely.

The problem is that we rarely find this out, because we usually leave, check or seek reassurance near the peak. The anxiety drops, and the escape gets the credit: "I only got through it because I left."

What happens when you stay

In the 1980s, Edna Foa and Michael Kozak described how fear changes during exposure: when people stay with a feared situation, anxiety often falls within the session and starts lower the next time.

Later research, led by Michelle Craske, refined this. The drop isn't what matters most. What changes fear is learning something new: the feared thing didn't happen, or it did and you coped, or you could feel anxious and still do what you came to do. Sometimes anxiety stays high and the practice works anyway.

So the aim isn't "wait until I calm down". It's "stay and find out".

Riding the wave

Expect it
Anxiety rising is a sign you're doing it, not that it's going wrong.
Name your prediction
Before you start, say what you fear will happen. Afterwards, check what actually did.
Stay a bit longer
If you can, stay until you've learned something, not just until you can leave.
Drop the extras
Checking, distracting or reassuring yourself during it can blunt what you learn.

Ade is practising going into a busy shop. After ten minutes the anxiety is still fairly high. What's most true?

Sources and further reading

Finish the lesson

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