Verified by 
Key points
- Many people are anxious simply about the feeling of anxiety itself.
- Stop trying to find ways to get rid of the anxiety and, instead, act in spite of it.
- Live as if you've already beaten anxiety, even when it's there.
Many people struggling with anxiety become anxious simply about the feeling of anxiety itself. If you have this form of anxiety, you probably worry a lot about why the anxiety is there, whether it will ever go away, and what you should be doing about it.
People with this type of anxiety tend to be hypervigilant to the feeling of anxiety. They are often trying to measure and analyze their feelings for clues as to what brings it on and what calms it down. Most of all, they want to know how to get rid of it. So they tend to do a lot of searching online for strategies to use against anxiety.
The problem is that you are trying very hard to control something that you do not have direct control over. Anxiety doesn't work that way.
The most important concept to know about anxiety is that short-term avoidance of anxiety increases anxiety in the long term.
Anything you do to try to decrease anxiety right now guarantees you more anxiety later. What you resist persists, and that is the root of this problem. It's not that you are missing the right strategy to decrease anxiety, it's that the very act of striving for anxiety reduction is the problem.
The best thing to do for anxiety is actually to do less, not more, because what you resist persists.
Anxiety stops being a problem when you stop treating it like a problem.
So, what I suggest is this: for two weeks, try acting as if you've already got anxiety beat. There is nothing to worry about and nothing to figure out about it. You get to move on with your life and do whatever it is you would do if the anxiety were all gone.
If you already had the anxiety beat, would you be online researching articles about anxiety? Would you be reading books about anxiety? Would you be listening to podcasts or watching videos about anxiety? No. So excise all of that activity from your life. If there were a magic bullet that fixes anxiety, you'd have found it by now, anyway.
If you already had anxiety beat, would you be spending time analyzing what to do about anxiety? Would you do relaxation exercises? Would you avoid activities you want to be doing because you are anxious? No. So stop doing all those things. Do nothing at all about anxiety. Let it exist. Even let yourself have a panic attack, and still just keep on living as if you've already won the battle, so there is nothing left to fight.
When you try this and your brain says, "Are you crazy?!", you just ignore it and move right on with your day.
The funny paradox about this approach is that when people really commit to it, this is how the experience of anxiety actually starts to soften. When you cling to the goal of anxiety reduction, relief is impossible. When you let go of the goal of reducing anxiety, that is how relief becomes possible.
So, if you struggle with the problem of worrying about how anxious you are, consider that you are doing too much about anxiety. Do less, not more...in fact, do nothing about it at all.
Surely, what you are doing right now is not working, so trying something different is at least worth a shot.
