Why Avoiding What Makes You Anxious Increases Your Anxiety
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It is no secret that public speaking is one of the most feared activities in the world.
In fact, according to some surveys, public speaking—the simple act of standing up in front of a group of people and talking—is feared more than death.
Let’s assume you’re someone who’s afraid of presenting or public speaking, and that you’ve been invited to deliver a talk at a conference about your line of work.
You’re most probably going to feel anxious about it.
Your heart will race, your palms will sweat, and you will exhibit zero confidence.
This fear and anxiety will push you to avoid the experience altogether. You’ll decide to decline the offer and you’ll instantly feel relieved. The next time you are asked to present, you’ll do the same, you’ll decline, and the cycle continues.
While this avoidance behavior does make you feel better at a given moment, it is destructive in the long-term because when you avoid what you fear for the short-term, your fear does decrease, but over the long-run, this avoidance allows your anxiety to flourish.
In Rewire Your Brain, author and neuropsychologist John Arden writes:
“Avoidance is a short-term reinforcer. It is therefore difficult to resist. Once you begin avoiding, it’s difficult to stop. It becomes a habit.”
So by avoiding what makes you anxious, it makes it impossible for you to learn how to manage and overcome that anxiety.
What happens next?
You let anxiety conquer you and take complete control over your life.
You stress, you worry, you crumble.
Increase Your Exposure to Reduce Your Anxiety
Whenever you’re avoiding a situation to avoid feeling anxious, that is defined as avoidance behaviour. And as mentioned above, avoidance behaviour doesn’t help in your long-term self-development.
Let’s say you feel anxious about attending events and going to social gatherings that involve meeting new people and talking to strangers.
Your friend invites you to her social dinner party and you decide to decline her invitations in order to avoid the anxiety and discomfort. The next time she invites you, you also decline. And the next one. And the next.
While you’ve avoided your anxiety for the short-term, over time, you’ve reduced your tolerance to it, which means it’s now harder for you to challenge it. Because of your avoidance of her social gatherings, you’re now much more anxious than before about sparking conversations with new people.
The same can be said about your anxiety about starting your own business or launching a creative project. The more you avoid it, the less tolerance you have for it, the harder it becomes to pursue it.
And the exact same scenario applies to the anxiety of external judgement.
Your anxiety increases over time because your tolerance to it decreases.
How do you end this cycle?
You expose yourself to what you fear.
You lean into that anxiety.
You avoid avoidance.
You stop escaping situations that’ll help you avoid facing your anxiety.
You replace avoidance with exposure.
“Exposure means facing what makes you feel anxious. By exposing yourself to anxiety-provoking situations, you become habituated to them, and your anxiety will eventually diminish.”—John Arden, Rewire Your Brain
How to Stop Avoidance Behaviour
I recently published an article about how I learned to become fearless in life.
It answers the question of “how do you become fearless?”
This is how:
You lean into your biggest fear and take action towards it—you make fear your friend, not your enemy.
You stop overthinking. You take an act of courage in the direction of your fear. Then you take another. And another. In due time, all other fears dwindle into an abyss of insignificance. You conquer your biggest fear once, you end up learning how to conquer all your fears forever.
Likewise, if you learn to conquer your anxiety once, you end up learning how to conquer it forever.
The more you lean into it and expose yourself to it, the more you learn how to manage it, the less control it has over you.
And the reason is simple:
By continuously exposing yourself to what once made you anxious, you are reconditioning yourself to become immune to it.
Facing your anxiety and taking action is the answer.
Once you do so, and however difficult the situation will be, you'll realize that it wasn’t as bad as you had made it seem. In fact, you’ll feel so proud of having overcome what was holding you back.
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”—Seneca
Once you overcome the anxiety of launching your first business or creative project, even if it fails, you’ll be more confident to launch a second.
Once you overcome the fear of public speaking, even if you deliver a mediocre talk, you’ll be more confident to deliver a second.
Three Mental Shifts to Make it Easy
With that said, the key to learning how to avoid “avoidance behaviour” begins by first understanding how the brain responds to activities or events that make us anxious.
The amygdala is the part of the brain that regulates our fight-or-flight response. Neuropsychologist John Arden explains that: “it’s triggered by intense emotional states like fear, and it assigns emotional intensity to the incoming information. It often serves as a sort of panic button.”
According to studies, “the amygdala experiences increased activity when faced with threats.”
So when we are faced with a situation that scares us (ex: public speaking, socializing in gatherings, or launching a creative project), the amygdala senses danger and triggers a sudden and intense unconscious emotional response: anxiety.
And that’s why we feel anxious.
Once you become aware of the fact that your rising anxiety is simply a phycological emotional response triggered by your brain, you can accept that you can in fact rewire and recondition yourself to react differently.
Is it easy?
No.
Is it possible?
Yes, and it gets easier with practice.
And here are three mental shifts that’ll make it easier for you:
Shift your attention. The saying “energy flows where attention goes” is very true. Looking back at the public speaking example, if you shift your attention away from the act of speaking to the subject matter (the content of your talk), your energy will change. The rationale is simple: no one will ask you to deliver a talk on a subject you’re not an expert on. When you shift your attention and focus on what you’re good at (your content), your confidence grows. With time, the more you expose yourself to delivering talks, the easier it becomes to manage your anxiety.
Change the narrative. Catch yourself in the moment. Instead of thinking “OMG! I suck at presenting, it’s going to be terrible”, catch yourself in the moment and change your narrative: “I know my content well, I’m excited to share it on stage. Now’s a good opportunity to invest in my speaking skills.” See the difference in attitude? Which one will make you feel less anxious?
Start very small. Big audacious changes set off the brain’s amygdala alarms. Fear and anxiety will paralyze you because when your brain encounters scary it goes into “freeze” mode. The only way to beat this is to start very small. Take small actions. Start by practicing delivering a talk to three people. Then five. Then ten. Then twenty, and so on. That’s how you gradually chip away at your anxiety.
Why it Matters to You
In short, avoidance behaviour increases your anxiety.
And your anxiety has the power to control you and stunt your personal growth.
So be aware and conscious of this.
Catch yourself in the moment, and rather than shy away from your anxiety, choose to confront it, manage it, conquer it, and make it useful.