The Anxiety Trick: Why Avoiding Makes It Worse

Avoidance often seems like the easier option, doesn’t it? Avoiding difficult emotions, avoiding our body image, avoiding our past, avoiding fear foods, and avoiding fears in general. It definitely feels like it would be easier. But here’s the thing—it doesn’t actually work. And that’s especially true when it comes to anxiety avoidance. 

In fact, trying to avoid anxious thoughts actually makes the fears stronger. It intensifies them. It allows the fears to take control. Before we dive deeper into this, though, let’s make sure we understand what we mean when we talk about “fear.” More often than not, what we’re really talking about is anxiety. So, to tackle this, we first need to understand anxiety better.

Education about why we experience emotions and where they come from is an essential part of learning how to work through and understand them. It helps us reduce the fear of our emotions because, when we understand why they exist, we can respond with more acceptance.

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is actually an evolutionary mechanism. It’s something that has helped us survive for centuries. Imagine, for instance, that we’re in prehistoric times. People would forage for food in the forests, jungles, or whatever environment they lived in. Now, picture that they encounter a dangerous animal—something life-threatening. What happens? Instinct kicks in: they either run, fight, or freeze in order to protect themselves. That’s fear at work.

This is when anxiety steps in. After that life-threatening encounter, for example, the brain begins to associate that area of the forest with danger. Now, the people feel anxiety when they even think about going near that area again. The brain registers that space as a threat to survival, so it triggers an anxious response to keep them away. This is a natural survival instinct.

The Science Behind Anxiety

To understand this more deeply, we need to get a bit “neuroscientific.” Two major systems in our body are linked to anxiety: the limbic system and the autonomic nervous system.

The limbic system processes emotions. It is a group of brain structures. The amygdala is the alarm system within these brain structures. It’s always on the lookout for threats, scanning our environment for danger. The amygdala is responsible for detecting fear and triggering the fight-or-flight response.

Another important brain structure of the limbic system is the hypothalamus, which regulates the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS controls automatic bodily functions. Within the ANS, there are the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).   

The SNS is responsible for the “fight-or-flight” response—rapid heartbeat, dilated pupils, shallow breathing, dry mouth, and other physical reactions we associate with fear. In contrast, the PNS helps us calm down and enter a relaxed state, often called “rest and digest.” 

That was a lot of science-talk. Take a moment to take that in…

Okay, let’s continue. 

Why Anxiety Happens

Here’s the problem when it comes to fear and anxiety: Our brain doesn’t know we’re living in the year 2025. 

The brain and nervous system are designed to protect us, but they don’t always get it right. Back in prehistoric times, this protective response kept us alive, but in modern life, it can be misfired—responding to non-life-threatening situations as though they were dangerous. The brain doesn’t know the difference. It just reacts.

So, when we experience anxiety, our body reacts as though we’re in danger, even if there’s no real threat present.

The Role of Avoidance in Anxiety

So, now that we understand how anxiety works, why does anxiety avoidance make things worse? It’s actually pretty simple. Here’s an example of how it happens:

Let’s say, for example, that someone with an eating disorder fears eating pizza—a “fear food.” When they encounter the thought or sight of pizza, their amygdala goes to work. It processes this stimulus as a threat, triggering a flood of anxiety through the body. The autonomic nervous system activates, sending signals that provoke fear—elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, tension. As a result, the person might avoid pizza altogether or choose not to eat it when they’re near it. Anxiety avoidance feels easier in the moment, but it doesn’t help in the long run. 

Avoiding anxiety triggers makes anxiety worse because avoidance reinforces the idea that the feared thing is dangerous or unmanageable—even when it’s not. 

Anxiety as a Trickster

When you avoid something that makes you anxious (a social situation, a fear food, a conversation, etc.), your brain gets the message:

“Whew, that was close. Good thing we didn’t do that—it must be dangerous.”

So the next time that trigger comes up, your anxiety spikes even higher—because your brain believes it protected you from something bad. Over time, this reinforces the fear and can shrink your world.

To reduce anxiety long-term, your brain needs new evidence: proof that nothing terrible will happen if you face the trigger. That only happens through exposure—gradually facing the fear and seeing that you can handle it.

What Can We Do About It?

So what can you do instead of avoiding your anxiety? The answer is exposure therapy. 

Exposure therapy involves deliberately confronting your fears. It’s about facing what makes you anxious in a gradual and controlled way. But here’s the catch: it’s not a one-time fix. It requires repetition. Over time, you build tolerance to the fear and learn that the threat isn’t as dangerous as your brain tells you it is.

Going back to our pizza example, someone with a fear of eating pizza can’t simply avoid it forever. To overcome the anxiety, they must gradually expose themselves to it. This teaches the brain, specifically the amygdala, that the situation isn’t life-threatening. By repeatedly confronting the fear without the feared outcome occurring, the brain learns to stop seeing pizza as a danger. Eventually, the nervous system shifts from the sympathetic response (fight-or-flight) to the parasympathetic response (rest-and-digest), allowing the person to feel more calm and in control.

Gradual Exposure vs. Ripping Off the Band-Aid

Exposure therapy is often done in small, manageable steps. Depending on the severity of the anxiety (and anxiety avoidance), it might start with thinking about the feared stimulus (like pizza) or looking at pictures of it. Over time, the person may progress to being in the presence of pizza, touching it, smelling it, and, eventually, eating it. This gradual approach helps the brain learn that it’s safe, step by step.

However, sometimes gradual exposure isn’t always the best approach for everyone or every situation. For some, taking a more immediate, direct approach—like “ripping off the bandaid”—can be incredibly effective. Facing a fear or challenge head-on can help the brain realize much faster that the thing you’re avoiding isn’t as scary as you thought. 

It’s all about figuring out what works best for you and your unique process. 

The Power of Metaphor: The Croods and Moana

To better understand the concept of exposure therapy, let’s take a look at two films: The Croods and Moana. These movies offer contrasting examples of how people can face their fears—either by diving right in or gradually working through them.

In The Croods, Grug Crood, the father, is terrified of the macawnivore (the giant saber-toothed tiger with the coloring of a macaw parrot). His fear is so overwhelming that he keeps his family confined to a small, “safe” area. But when he gets stuck in a cave with the macawnivore, Chunky, he’s forced to confront his fear. 

In that moment, he has a quick “ripping the bandaid off” experience: he learns that the cat is harmless, lonely, and just needs love. From this one moment of direct exposure, Grug is able to overcome his fear and even adopt the cat as a pet. It doesn’t usually work that fast, but sometimes, facing a fear head-on can lead to an immediate breakthrough and a shift in perspective.

In Moana, Maui, the demigod, experiences gradual exposure to help him face his strongest fear of facing Te Ka, the lava monster. Initially, Maui is terrified and continues to refuse to help Moana restore the heart of Te Fiti because of his fear of Te Ka. However, through a series of smaller, manageable exposures—where he is forced to encounter similar fears in different ways—Maui begins to grow.

For instance, Maui first reluctantly helps Moana sail into the open ocean, which forces him to confront the idea of returning to the sea, something tied to his past failures and fear of Te Ka. Later, he faces the Kakamora (coconut pirates) and manages to defeat them. He continues his journey by going to Lalotai (the realm of monsters) to retrieve his hook, where he faces yet another, more terrifying creature. He escaped and got his hook back. Even though he’s scared, each exposure helped him gradually decrease his anxiety about facing Te Ka and boost his confidence in his abilities.

Finally, when he faces Te Ka for the first time, Te Ka is too strong, and Maui wants to avoid – run away and give up. However, instead of avoiding the challenge after his initial failure, he returns. When he comes back, Moana helps him realize that Te Ka isn’t as scary as he thought—Te Ka is actually just Te Fiti without her heart (because Maui stole it in the first place *eye roll emoji*). 

Exploring Therapy for Anxiety

While these movie examples are helpful for understanding exposure therapy, it’s important to remember that working through fears, particularly severe ones, is best done with the guidance of a trained professional. A therapist can help create a personalized approach to exposure therapy, ensuring it’s safe, effective, and tailored to your needs.

Look for a therapist who offers Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy and who has experience working with patients with anxiety, eating disorders and OCD. 

In Virginia, the qualified team at Coastal Collaborative Care can help you stop anxiety avoidance and face your fears with exposure therapy in Alexandria, Norfolk and Fredericksburg. We also offer virtual therapy in Virginia and many other states around the country. Explore our full service area and contact us to get started today.