The Anxiety Cycle - What Maintains the Fear

This video will explore: how the anxiety cycle is self-perpetuating - anxious thoughts, physical sensations, and behaviors all influence each other, creating a loop that maintains anxiety over time.

Hypervigilance fuels the cycle - people with anxiety often become hyperaware of potential threats in their environment, then turn inward to assess whether they can cope, which increases anxiety when they doubt their ability to handle the situation.
Avoidance and safety behaviors maintain anxiety - when people try to reduce anxiety by avoiding situations or using safety behaviors (rituals), they prevent their body from learning to tolerate and habituate to the anxiety naturally.
Avoidance creates fear generalization - avoiding one feared situation (like someone afraid of dogs not going to the park) can lead to developing new fears in related situations (like becoming anxious about planes because dogs are allowed on flights).
Confronting anxiety allows natural reduction - when people face their anxiety directly without safety behaviors or avoidance, the distress will eventually decrease on its own through habituation.
The brain's reward system drives safety behaviors - when triggered, the brain releases small amounts of dopamine that create cravings for safety behaviors because they provide temporary relief and feel good.
Understanding brain cravings helps recovery - recognizing that your body naturally wants to maintain fear and will push you toward safety behaviors requires mental fortitude to resist these urges and work toward habituation.
Urges persist even after progress - like someone in long-term recovery from alcoholism who still feels urges when passing a liquor store, the desire to perform safety behaviors may continue even as anxiety decreases over time.
Awareness empowers change - understanding that your body is pushing you away from your goal of habituation can help you better resist these biological urges during ritual reduction work.