The Ten Rules Of Anxiety

Anxiety can feel like an unpredictable monster, but often, it operates by a set of unspoken "rules." Understanding these patterns isn't about giving anxiety more power; it's about recognizing its playbook so you can start to change the grip.

I've been a therapist for close to a decade and love helping my clients understand and break the rules of anxiety. You can find out more about these rules by taking the free quiz i created here

1. The Comparison Contract

Anxiety loves to make us feel isolated by tricking us into believing we're the only ones struggling. It holds up a distorted mirror, showing us curated snapshots of others' successes (think social media "highlight reels") and contrasting them with our own messy, behind-the-scenes reality.

This constant comparison invariably leads to feelings of inadequacy. It’s like anxiety needs to find someone else "winning" to convince you that you're failing. This ties into Social Comparison Theory, where we naturally assess ourselves against others, but anxiety skews this by focusing only on upward comparisons (to those perceived as better off) and filtering out any evidence of our own strengths through cognitive distortions like personalization (their success is my failure) and mental filtering (only seeing the negative).

2. The Demand of Control and Certainty

This rule dictates that to feel safe, you must have absolute control over your thoughts, feelings, surroundings, and even how others perceive you. Uncertainty becomes the enemy, leading to behaviors like relentless planning, mentally rehearsing conversations, or constantly seeking reassurance.

Anxiety thrives on the illusion that if you can just manage every variable, nothing bad will happen. The truth is, seeking 100% certainty is an impossible and exhausting quest. Life is inherently uncertain, and learning to tolerate and navigate this ambiguity is key.

3. The Boomerang Effect

Ever tried to force yourself not to think about a pink elephant? What happens? You think about it more! This is the essence of the Boomerang Effect with anxiety. Actively trying to suppress, ignore, or forcefully push away anxious thoughts or feelings often makes them return with even greater intensity. It’s like trying to hold a beach ball underwater – it takes immense effort and eventually, it’ll pop back up, often with more force.

This is explained by Ironic Process Theory (the "white bear effect"). The more you try not to feel anxious, the more your mind focuses on the anxiety. This is also linked to Experiential Avoidance, the deep-seated desire to avoid or control uncomfortable internal experiences, which paradoxically perpetuates them.

4. The Doom Loop Clause

Anxiety is a master storyteller, and its favorite genre is catastrophic fiction. This law involves the mind constantly jumping to worst-case scenarios. A small worry ("What if I make a mistake on this report?") quickly escalates ("What if I get fired, can't pay my rent, and end up homeless?"). These thoughts, though often highly improbable, feel incredibly real and urgent. This is linked to catastrophizing, a cognitive distortion where you overestimate the likelihood of negative events and exaggerate their potential consequences.

5. The Law of Inadequacy

This "law" functions like a skewed internal lens, constantly projecting an image of you as fundamentally ill-equipped to handle life's hurdles. It persistently whispers that you just don't have what it takes, conveniently editing out all memories of past challenges you've successfully navigated or difficult times you've already endured. It fosters a belief that you're lacking essential inner strengths (Low Self-Efficacy), and if you've faced setbacks, it might convince you that effort is futile, leading to a sense of powerlessness (Learned Helplessness), even when opportunities for effective action are present.

6. The Constant Threat Imperative

This "imperative" wires you to perceive the world as a place teeming with hidden dangers, where your primary job is to be on high alert. Everyday situations, normal bodily twinges, or neutral social cues can be misinterpreted as urgent warning signals of impending harm (Threat Overestimation Bias). The instinctive reaction is often to escape or avoid the perceived threat. This retreat brings a wave of immediate relief, which, unfortunately, powerfully reinforces the idea that avoidance was necessary and that the situation was indeed perilous (Negative Reinforcement), making you more likely to flee next time.

7. The Small Is Safe Directive

Consider this "directive" as anxiety’s subtle strategy for convincing you that the ultimate security lies in confinement. It advocates for sticking to the familiar, the predictable, and the thoroughly vetted parts of your life, promising that a smaller, more controlled existence is a safer one. While the comfort zone offers temporary solace, continuously heeding this directive means your world gradually contracts. As you systematically avoid new experiences or challenges (Avoidance Behavior), the areas outside your ever-shrinking "safe" territory can start to seem overwhelmingly intimidating, paradoxically increasing your fear of the unknown.

8. The Worry Is The Solution Paradox

This paradoxical belief is one of anxiety’s cleverest deceptions: it sells the act of worrying as a constructive, even essential, form of problem-solving or protection. It’s as if intensively thinking about all potential negative outcomes can somehow prevent them from happening, a kind of mental ritual (reflecting positive Metacognitive Beliefs about worry). While the repetitive cycle of worry might offer a fleeting distraction or a false sense of doing something, it's often an energy-draining exercise in Cognitive Avoidance, preventing you from truly addressing the core fear or leading to effective solutions – like spinning your wheels in mud.

9. The Principle Of Priority

This "principle" operates like a faulty notification system in your brain, flagging every single anxious thought or fear-based alert as "urgent" and demanding immediate, undivided attention. It fails to distinguish between a genuine crisis requiring action and the mental equivalent of "junk mail" – fleeting worries that can be observed and let go. This constant state of high alert for any internal "ping" (Attentional Bias to Threat/Hypervigilance) means you become entangled with these thoughts, treating each one as an undeniable truth or an immediate task (Cognitive Fusion), leaving you perpetually on edge and mentally exhausted.

10. The Boomerang Effect

This "law" highlights a fundamental truth about trying to fight your own mind: the more forcefully you attempt to suppress, banish, or ignore unwanted anxious thoughts and feelings, the more stubbornly and intensely they tend to return. It’s like trying to hold a beach ball underwater – it takes immense effort and inevitably, it pops back up, often with more force (Ironic Process Theory/White Bear Effect). This struggle against your inner experience (Experiential Avoidance) is often what perpetuates the anxiety. The alternative path involves shifting from resistance to a more accepting stance, allowing thoughts and feelings to be present without an internal battle.

Recognizing these "laws" in your own experience is the first step towards challenging them. Anxiety is a cunning opponent, but its tactics are not unbeatable. By understanding its game, you can begin to write a new set of rules for yourself, ones that lead to freedom and confidence.