Sarah had tried everything. She went for long runs every morning, swore by her daily meditation sessions, and practiced breathing exercises to the letter. After doing so, she felt better, but only for a little while. When the day got stressful due to work pressure, family issues, or the usual grind, her anxiety would flare back up, sometimes worse than before. Thoughts of all that could go wrong would take over, and she’d go up into her head, further into her thoughts, trying to figure out solutions to problems that hadn’t yet occurred.
The worst part? No matter how much she exercised or meditated, it didn’t seem to stop the anxious thoughts. She was frustrated and miserable… despite all her efforts, nothing seemed to work. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Many people think that exercising more, practicing relaxation techniques, or avoiding stress will solve their anxiety. And why wouldn’t they think that? All over social media, we learn how helpful these things can be for anxiety. What isn’t conveyed, however, is that while these things can be helpful, they don’t address the deeper issue: worry. Anxiety doesn’t just come from feeling uncomfortable in your body; it comes from the thoughts you have about that discomfort. If you don’t understand how worry works—or how to manage it—you’ll likely still find yourself caught in an anxious loop, no matter how much you try to outrun it.
Worry: The Real Cause of Anxiety
According to Zuly Ramirez, LCPC, Assistant Clinical Director at Life Counseling Institute in suburban Chicago, “In mental health, we sometimes overemphasize the physical components of anxiety—the tension in your body, shallow breathing, or knot in your stomach, for example. We think therefore that the only way to deal with anxiety is to run, meditate, or do breathing exercises. But we’ve shortchanged educating people that what actually drives these symptoms is your thoughts, which comes in the form of worry.”
Ramirez points out that worry can be a vicious cycle: “The more we think ‘what-if’ thoughts and imagine worst-case scenarios, the more our bodies react with physical anxiety. And that physical reaction tends to then send messages to your brain that suggest, ‘Yes, it really is time to freak out.’ It’s an endless feedback loop that can be very frustrating and even debilitating.”
The good news, says Ramirez, is that it’s not too late to learn how anxiety tricks you, and to learn how to respond differently. This is where counseling for anxiety can really help. It’s not enough to just calm your body with exercise or breathing…what you need is a strategy for managing the worry that triggers your anxiety.
Take Sarah, for example. After weeks of trying to meditate her anxiety away, she realized that she wasn’t getting anywhere. She was as anxious as ever, While running and meditating were giving her temporary relief, they weren’t helping her understand how her mind was making her anxious in the first place. She realized she needed something different.
The “What If” Trap of Anxiety
A big part of anxiety is the “what if” game. Says Ramirez, “We tend to think worrying is helpful, that we’re solving a problem, figuring things out, and can therefore prevent bad things from happening. In reality, all this worrying is just driving our anxiety up.”
Have you ever had a worrisome thought and then intense worry—also known as rumination—in response to it? Have you noticed, however, that the more you engage with those worries, the more they control you and the more your anxiety goes up? Have you ever googled a medical condition and walked away with more fear? Same thing here…the more you “Google a problem in your head” by worrying about it, the worse things get.
Changing Your Relationship with Worry and Anxiety
The key to managing anxiety isn’t getting rid of your anxious thoughts; it’s about changing your relationship with them. Worry feels like it’s helping us, but in reality, it’s just keeping us stuck in a cycle of fear. If you keep engaging with your anxious thoughts, you’re feeding them. It’s like feeding a fire—it just keeps growing. What you need is to spot worry as just worry—not a sign of danger, and definitely not something that demands your attention. Counseling for anxiety can help you do this. It shows you that worry doesn’t solve problems: It just keeps you stuck in your head, overwhelmed, and disconnected from the present moment, robbing you of enjoyment in life.
For Sarah, learning this was a turning point. In counseling for anxiety, she learned to see her anxious thoughts as just that—thoughts. She didn’t have to engage with them. In fact, the more she noticed her worry without reacting, the less power it had over her. She learned that worrying wasn’t helping her at all…it was just giving her more anxiety.
Final Thoughts
If you’re struggling with anxiety, know that you’re not alone. Feeling like your thoughts are controlling you can be overwhelming. It’s frustrating to feel like you’re doing everything right and still not find relief. But here’s the thing: while exercise and relaxation techniques are important, they won’t change the fact that your worry is running the show. To truly manage your anxiety, you need to learn to understand your worry, stop engaging with it, and shift how you relate to it. Counseling for anxiety can teach you these skills and help you find peace.
While you can’t literally run away from anxiety, you can absolutely cope with it differently and more effectively, breaking free from the cycle of worry and beginning to enjoy your life again.
