Why does trying to fix anxiety often make it worse?

Most people treat anxiety like a problem that needs to be fixed and fixed as quickly as possible. This message is everywhere: from healthcare professionals and clinicians to self-help books, online lifestyle advice, and endless tips on how to calm your mind or stop worrying. It seems logical; anxiety is uncomfortable, so it should be eliminated or “fixed”. But the paradox of anxiety is that the more attempts we make to control it, the bigger and stronger it becomes.

The anxiety paradox

To better understand this paradox, it helps to first clarify what anxiety actually is. Worries about the future, family issues, relationship problems, or financial pressures are all experiences that eventually appear in our lives.

Unfortunately, living a full life does not guarantee happiness. At some point, most of us will come face-to-face with uncertainty, loss, or pain. Yet many of us spend a lot of energy chasing happiness and avoiding discomfort. When fear or pain appears, our instinct is often to push it away as quickly as possible.

Among these uncomfortable emotions, anxiety is one of the experiences that people try hardest to eliminate. But why does anxiety happen in the first place?

Anxiety as a protective mechanism

Anxiety is the natural response that occurs when the brain’s alarm system detects danger. A small structure called the amygdala constantly scans for potential threats and signals the body to prepare for action. When danger is detected, your heart rate increases, breathing becomes faster, and your body becomes more alert. This system evolved to help humans react quickly to danger and to survive. Anxiety itself is not dangerous; it exists to protect us.

What is anxiety?

To better understand this paradox, it helps to first clarify what anxiety actually is. Worries about the future, family issues, relationship problems, or financial pressures are all experiences that eventually appear in our lives.

Unfortunately, living a full life does not guarantee happiness. At some point, most of us will come face-to-face with uncertainty, loss, or pain. Yet many of us spend a lot of energy chasing happiness and avoiding discomfort. When fear or pain appears, our instinct is often to push it away as quickly as possible.

Among these uncomfortable emotions, anxiety is one of the experiences that people try hardest to eliminate. But why does anxiety happen in the first place?

Anxiety is the natural response that occurs when the brain’s alarm system detects danger. A small structure called the amygdala constantly scans for potential threats and signals the body to prepare for action. When danger is detected, your heart rate increases, breathing becomes faster, and your body becomes more alert. This system evolved to help humans react quickly to danger and to survive. Anxiety itself is not dangerous; it exists to protect us.

The paradox

Here is the challenge: the brain does not only react to physical threats. It also reacts to negative thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations, and this is where the paradox appears. When anxiety shows up, most of us try to control it. We analyze our thoughts, check how we feel, search for reassurance, or try to calm the sensations in our bodies. But the brain’s alarm system learns from attention.

The more we monitor anxiety and treat it like a problem that urgently needs solving, the more the brain interprets it as something important and dangerous. In other words, the harder we try to switch the alarm off, the more we remind the brain to keep it on; what we resist, persists.

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The common traps of trying to control anxiety

Once anxiety appears, naturally, most people try to make it disappear. Momentarily, this makes perfect sense. Anxiety is uncomfortable, so the instinct is to reduce it as quickly as possible. However, some of the most common strategies people use can unintentionally keep the brain’s alarm system active. Some of these traps include:

1. Overanalysing thoughts

Many people get stuck repeatedly analyzing their worries, trying to figure out whether their thoughts are realistic or whether something might go wrong. The mind wants certainty, but the more we analyze, the more “what if” questions appear.

2. Constantly monitoring the body

Others begin checking how they feel by paying close attention to their heart rate, monitoring their breathing, or physical sensations to see if anxiety is still present.

3. Seeking reassurance

Asking family, friends, partners, or doctors for reassurance, or searching the internet for answers, can provide temporary relief, but the uncertainty often returns within minutes.

4. Avoiding anxiety-triggering situations

Avoidance is a big one. Avoiding situations that trigger anxiety may reduce discomfort in the moment, but it also teaches the brain that those situations are genuinely dangerous. Over time, the more we avoid, the smaller our lives can become.

5. Putting life on hold

Another common trap is waiting for anxiety to disappear before moving forward. People postpone plans, avoid opportunities, or delay meaningful steps until they feel calm again. The problem is that anxiety does not disappear while we are waiting. 

Over time, these patterns can keep anxiety at the centre of our attention, strengthening the alarm system that we are trying to quiet.

A different way of responding to anxiety

If trying to control anxiety often makes it stronger, what alternative do we have? Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a modern evidence-based psychological approach, suggests that the goal is not to eliminate anxiety, but to change how we respond to it. Instead of constantly trying to push anxiety away, ACT encourages people to make space for uncomfortable thoughts and feelings and to notice them without immediately reacting to them.

This does not mean that we need to like anxiety or give up on feeling better. Rather, it means recognizing that anxious thoughts and sensations are part of the mind’s attempt to protect us. When we stop treating anxiety as an urgent problem that must be solved, the brain’s alarm system often learns that anxiety is uncomfortable, but it is not something dangerous that we need to fear.

Instead of waiting for anxiety to disappear, ACT encourages people to focus on what matters most and to continue moving toward meaningful actions, even when anxiety is present.

Moving forward with anxiety

This shift does not happen overnight. Learning to respond differently to anxiety is a skill that develops with practice, similar to building a muscle, which requires regular training. The good news is, we can start with small steps: noticing anxious thoughts without immediately analyzing them, allowing uncomfortable sensations to be present without trying to eliminate them, and gently redirecting attention toward actions and values that truly matter to us.

The aim is not to live a life free from anxiety, but to live a full life alongside it. When anxiety is no longer treated as an emergency that must be solved immediately, it often becomes less powerful, allowing more space for the things that truly matter in life.