Why Avoidance Makes Anxiety Worse and How to Break the Cycle
When you’re feeling anxious, avoiding the situation that triggered it can seem like the easiest option. Whether it’s skipping a social event, putting off a tough conversation, or procrastinating on a big task, avoidance can offer temporary relief. Over time, it often makes anxiety worse.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helps adults understand this cycle and learn how to face challenges with more confidence and clarity. If you find yourself stuck in patterns of avoidance, you’re not alone and support is available.
Understanding the Avoidance-Anxiety Cycle
Avoidance is a common coping strategy when we feel anxious. It makes sense, your brain is trying to protect you from discomfort. But here’s the problem: the more you avoid it, the more your brain believes that the situation is dangerous or unmanageable.
For example, if you feel anxious about public speaking and avoid every opportunity to do it, your anxiety stays high. You never get a chance to prove to yourself that you can handle it. Over time, your world may start to shrink, and everyday tasks can start to feel overwhelming.
This cycle can look like:
Avoiding emails or calls out of fear of judgment
Cancelling social plans because of racing thoughts
Putting off important tasks due to fear of failure
Staying in your comfort zone even when it hurts your growth
CBT helps adults break this cycle gently and effectively, one step at a time.
How CBT Helps Adults Shift from Avoidance to Action
CBT focuses on the connection between thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. It helps adults understand how avoidance is often fuelled by distorted or unhelpful thinking and offers tools to respond differently.
Here’s how CBT can help:
Identifying the Avoidance Patterns
You’ll start by noticing where avoidance is showing up in your life. These patterns are often automatic, but CBT helps bring awareness to the habits that are holding you back.
Challenging Anxious Thoughts
CBT teaches you to question the thoughts behind the avoidance. For example:
“What’s the worst that could happen and how likely is it?”
“Have I handled similar situations before?”
By exploring the evidence, you’ll begin to shift how you think and feel.
Taking Small, Safe Steps
Instead of jumping into the deep end, CBT encourages gradual exposure. With guidance, you’ll begin to face feared situations in manageable ways, building confidence and reducing anxiety over time.
Replacing Avoidance with Coping Tools
Through CBT, you’ll learn practical techniques to use when anxiety rises such as deep breathing, grounding strategies, or thought reframing, so that avoidance isn’t your only option.
A Gentle, Supportive Approach to Anxiety Therapy
Avoidance doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means your brain is trying to protect you. CBT helps you meet yourself with compassion while also building the skills you need to grow.
At Healing Voices Psychotherapy, we offer virtual CBT across Ontario for adults dealing with anxiety. Whether you’re in Barrie, Newmarket, Bradford, Collingwood, or somewhere else, our therapists can help you move from avoidance to empowered action, all from the comfort of your home.
Want to Learn More About CBT?
If anxiety and avoidance are keeping you stuck, you're not alone. Support is just a click away. Contact us today to book a free 15-minute consultation with one of our therapists today. Together, we’ll create a path that helps you feel calmer, more confident, and more in control, one step at a time.
