Your partner does not answer the phone, and within minutes you are imagining an accident. Your boss asks for a quick chat, and you are already rehearsing how to tell your family you lost your job. A small pain in your chest becomes, in your mind, a heart attack. Anxiety lives in the body, and it also lives in the way we think.
This article looks at the thinking side of anxiety: why the mind jumps to the worst case, which patterns tend to keep anxiety going, and what can help you step back from them. If you would like to read about the bodily side, Anxiety: what it is for and Fear of fear may be useful too.
Why the mind looks for danger
Anxiety is part of a threat-detection system. Its job is to notice what could go wrong and prepare you for it. To do that quickly, the anxious mind takes shortcuts. It assumes the worst first, because missing a real danger used to be more costly than worrying about a false one. Most of the time this system protects us. When it is set too sensitively, it starts to see threats everywhere, and thoughts become one of the main ways it keeps sounding the alarm.
Thinking patterns that feed anxiety
Psychologists call certain recurring patterns of thinking cognitive distortions: habitual ways of interpreting events that are exaggerated, one-sided or not fully supported by the facts. They are part of many models of anxiety and depression and are a central focus of cognitive behavioural therapy (Rnic et al., 2016). Everyone thinks like this sometimes. They become a problem when they are frequent, automatic and strongly believed.
Some patterns that are common in anxiety:
- Catastrophising: jumping to the worst possible outcome and treating it as likely. “If I make a mistake in the meeting, I will lose my job.”
- Overestimating probability: feeling that something bad is much more likely than it is. “The plane will crash.”
- Underestimating your coping: believing that if the bad thing happened, you could not handle it at all.
- Mind reading: assuming you know what others think, usually something negative. “They think I am boring.”
- Fortune telling: predicting the future as if it were certain. “This will go badly.”
- All-or-nothing thinking: seeing things in extremes. “If it is not perfect, it is a failure.”
- Emotional reasoning: taking a feeling as proof. “I feel scared, so something must be wrong.”
Often several patterns appear together. A catastrophic thought (“this is serious”), combined with underestimating your coping (“I won’t manage”), can make an ordinary situation feel unbearable.
Uncertainty and the urge to be sure
Many anxious thoughts are attempts to deal with uncertainty. Not knowing whether the test result will be fine, whether your partner is upset, or whether you locked the door can feel almost physically uncomfortable. Researchers describe intolerance of uncertainty as a tendency to find uncertain situations threatening and hard to bear. In a study with students, uncertainty fed anxiety mainly through this intolerance: people who found uncertainty hard to bear became more anxious when things were unclear (Gu et al., 2020).
The mind then tries to create certainty by thinking. It goes through every scenario, looks for reassurance, checks again. For a moment this can bring relief, but it teaches the brain that uncertainty is dangerous and must be solved, so the next uncertain situation feels even harder.
Worry as a way of avoiding feelings
Worry can feel productive, as if it prepares you for the worst. One influential model suggests that people who worry a lot may be using worry to avoid a sudden emotional drop. By staying in a state of constant mild tension, they avoid the shock of a negative surprise. The cost is that they rarely feel safe or relaxed (Newman & Llera, 2011). Seen this way, worry is less about solving problems and more about trying to control how you feel.
Ways to step back from catastrophic thoughts
Notice the pattern
The first step is simply noticing. “There it is again, the worst-case movie.” Giving the pattern a name creates a little distance. You do not have to argue with the thought yet. You just notice that your mind is doing what anxious minds do.
Ask questions instead of accepting the first answer
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) works a lot with gentle questions: What evidence is there for this thought, and against it? What would I tell a friend who thought this? What is the most likely outcome, and what is the worst outcome I could actually cope with? In research on CBT, the more therapists used this kind of open, curious questioning, the more clients’ symptoms improved from one session to the next (Braun et al., 2015). The goal is a more balanced and realistic view. Forcing yourself to think positively rarely helps.
Get some distance from your thoughts
Another approach, used in acceptance and commitment therapy, is called cognitive defusion: learning to see thoughts as thoughts, rather than as facts or orders. You might say “I am having the thought that something terrible will happen” instead of “Something terrible will happen”. In a study during the COVID-19 pandemic, people with more cognitive defusion and psychological flexibility reported fewer negative emotions (Fang et al., 2022).
Test your predictions
Anxious thoughts often make predictions: “If I go to the party, I will embarrass myself.” One of the most effective ways to weaken them is to test them gently in real life and see what actually happens. Each time a prediction does not come true, or turns out to be manageable, the brain learns something new.
Make room for uncertainty
Instead of trying to remove all doubt, you can practise living with a little of it. That might mean sending an email without rereading it five times, or waiting before checking again. It feels uncomfortable at first. Over time, many people notice that the discomfort passes on its own.
A small exercise
Next time a catastrophic thought shows up, write it down. Next to it, write three possible outcomes: the worst, the best and the most likely. Then ask yourself: if the worst happened, what would I do, and who could help me? Often the thought becomes less powerful once it is on paper.
When to look for support
If anxious thoughts take up a lot of your day, keep you from doing things that matter to you, or come with panic attacks, poor sleep or low mood, it can help to talk to a professional. CBT is one of the best-studied treatments for anxiety, and you can read more about it in Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
If you are in crisis or having thoughts of ending your life, please call your local emergency number (for example 112 in Europe or 911 in North America and Mexico), or find a free, confidential helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.
More about therapy with me.
References
- Braun, J. D., Strunk, D. R., Sasso, K. E., & Cooper, A. A. (2015). Therapist use of Socratic questioning predicts session-to-session symptom change in cognitive therapy for depression. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 70, 32–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2015.05.004
- Fang, S., Ding, D., Ji, P., Huang, M., & Hu, K. (2022). Cognitive defusion and psychological flexibility predict negative body image in the Chinese college students: Evidence from acceptance and commitment therapy. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(24), 16519. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192416519
- Gu, Y., Gu, S., Lei, Y., & Li, H. (2020). From uncertainty to anxiety: How uncertainty fuels anxiety in a process mediated by intolerance of uncertainty. Neural Plasticity, 2020, 8866386. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8866386
- Newman, M. G., & Llera, S. J. (2011). A novel theory of experiential avoidance in generalized anxiety disorder: a review and synthesis of research supporting a contrast avoidance model of worry. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(3), 371–382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2011.01.008
- Rnic, K., Dozois, D. J., & Martin, R. A. (2016). Cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118
This article is exploratory and meant for information and reflection. It cannot capture the full complexity of any individual situation, and your own experience may be different. It does not replace a diagnosis or treatment.
