How to Manage Anxiety When Worry Keeps Taking Over
- Dr. Scott Eilers, PsyD, LP
- 23 hours ago
- 5 min read
When anxiety takes over, you can spend hours trying to reason with it and still find yourself trapped in the same exhausting thoughts.
I know this experience personally. I can challenge an anxious thought, gather evidence against it, and convince myself that everything will probably be okay. The relief may last five minutes. Then my mind finds another possibility I failed to consider, and the argument starts again.
Learning how to manage anxiety requires understanding what is happening beneath those thoughts. Anxiety involves the mind, but the alarm often begins much deeper in the nervous system.
Anxiety and Depression Can Begin With the Same Alarm
Anxiety and depression frequently occur together. Although they can look very different, both may develop from an internal alarm that never fully settles.
For one person, that alarm creates hypervigilance, worry, and a constant need to anticipate danger. For another, it leads to exhaustion, withdrawal, and emotional shutdown. Genetics, early experiences, trauma, and learned patterns can all influence how that alarm appears.
This helps explain why someone can understand their anxiety intellectually and still feel it physically. Your thinking mind may know that you are safe while your body continues preparing for danger.
Why Thinking Your Way Out of Anxiety Can Keep You Stuck
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be incredibly valuable. It helps people examine thoughts, recognize distortions, and develop healthier ways of responding. I use these principles myself and in my work.
However, some people have spent years challenging their thoughts and still feel stuck. They already know their patterns. They can identify every distorted belief, explain where it came from, and present a convincing argument against it. Their body still feels threatened.
Reasoning with anxiety can also become another form of rumination. You may spend hours researching a symptom, rereading a conversation, or reviewing every possible outcome. You gain a few minutes of relief, but the alarm soon returns.
When this happens, your body may need attention before your thoughts can become useful again.
Find Where Anxiety Lives in Your Body
Anxiety may show up as tightness in your chest, pressure in your throat, a clenched jaw, warmth in your face, or a hard feeling in your stomach. When you notice that alarm, pause and locate it.
Try This Simple Grounding Process
Place your hand over the area where you feel the anxiety most strongly. If you cannot identify one specific area, place it over your chest.
Relax your shoulders and jaw. Then notice:
Where the sensation begins and ends
Whether it feels hot, cold, sharp, heavy, or tight
Whether it stays still or changes as you observe it
What happens when you breathe slowly into that area
You do not have to force the sensation to leave. The first goal is to remain with yourself while it is present.
A physiological sigh may also help. Take a deep breath through your nose, add a second shorter inhale, and then exhale slowly through your mouth.
Practice “Sensation Without Explanation”
One of the most useful ideas from my conversation with Dr. Russell Kennedy was the phrase “sensation without explanation.”
Anxiety wants to explain every uncomfortable feeling. A pain in your shoulder becomes a serious illness. A delayed email becomes proof that you are about to lose your job. A change in someone’s tone becomes evidence that the relationship is ending.
Instead of following the explanation, return to the physical sensation.
Feel the tightness without researching it. Notice the pressure without building a prediction around it. Let your body experience your steady attention for thirty seconds before deciding whether any action is genuinely needed.
This practice can gradually weaken the automatic connection between physical alarm and catastrophic thinking.
Understand Why Worry Feels Difficult to Stop
Worry can create a temporary sense of certainty. Even a frightening explanation may feel more manageable than having no explanation at all.
If you have a medical test approaching, for example, you may repeatedly search for information that makes the feared outcome seem less likely. Every reassuring detail brings relief. Yet you can never reduce the risk to an absolute zero, so the search continues.
Your brain begins learning that worry produces short bursts of certainty. This is why reassurance often becomes something you need repeatedly rather than something that settles the fear.
Build Your Tolerance for Uncertainty
You can strengthen your ability to handle uncertainty through ordinary moments.
Choose between two meals without repeatedly reviewing the decision. Send a message without rereading it ten times. Buy an item without continuing to search for a better option afterward.
Use a simple statement: “This is uncertain, and I can handle it.”
For larger fears, continue beyond the initial “what if.” Identify what you could do if the feared situation occurred. Anxiety tends to end the story at the most frightening moment, even though your ability to respond would still exist.
A practical plan offers something more dependable than endless reassurance.
Separate Facts from the Story Anxiety Creates
When anxiety rises, write down what you objectively know. Then identify the assumptions your mind has added.
“The doctor requested another test” is a fact. “The doctor knows something terrible and is hiding it from me” is a story.
This distinction will not immediately remove every uncomfortable feeling. It can prevent the feeling from collecting layers of frightening interpretation.
Rebuild Trust Through Small Acts of Care
Choose one manageable action that supports you today. Clear one surface. Walk for ten minutes. Make yourself something nourishing. Return to music, painting, cycling, or another activity you once enjoyed.
Acknowledge the action without minimizing it. Fifteen minutes at the gym still counts. One cleaned corner still counts. One moment of caring for yourself still counts.
Anxiety may continue sending alarms while you practice these skills. Each time you locate the sensation, resist another unnecessary explanation, tolerate one uncertain moment, or care for yourself in a small way, you are creating a different response. Those repetitions matter. They give your mind and body a new pathway to follow.
I’ve gone deeper into these steps in the video below with Dr. Russell Kennedy. We discuss body based anxiety, worry, uncertainty, self care, and the relationship between anxiety and depression.
(If this post hit home, you’ll probably connect with my new book, The Light Between the Leaves. It’s a practical guide for the days when “try harder” stops working.
-Scott
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FAQ
Q. What is rumination?
Rumination is the repetitive cycle of dwelling on distressing thoughts, mistakes, or worries without moving toward a solution. It is common in depression and anxiety and often increases emotional distress over time.
Q. How do you stop rumination?
One effective approach is purposeful cognitive distraction. Choosing activities that are highly engaging, low stress, and moderately novel can redirect attention away from repetitive thinking and interrupt the rumination cycle.
Q. Why doesn't telling yourself to stop thinking work?
Trying to suppress thoughts often backfires because it directs even more attention toward the unwanted thought, making it feel more important and increasing the likelihood that it will return.
Q. What is limited cognitive capacity?
Limited cognitive capacity refers to the brain's inability to consciously focus on unlimited information at once. Engaging activities can occupy enough mental resources to reduce the attention available for rumination.
Q. Can rumination be a symptom of depression?
Yes. Rumination commonly occurs in depression and anxiety, where people repeatedly replay negative experiences, worries, or self-critical thoughts, making recovery more difficult if left unaddressed.
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