The anxiety equation

Perceived likelihood

People who struggle with anxiety often overestimate the likelihood that a danger will occur. As our anxiety increases, our perception of the probability of the danger occurring is also likely to increase, even if the probability has not changed in reality.

For example, imagine that I’m worried about embarrassing myself at a work event. When the event is a few days away, I see that scenario as a possibility, but I don’t feel certain it will occur. As the event draws closer, and I feel more anxious, I also begin to believe the scenario is more likely to occur, and my anxiety increases even further.

Perceived awfulness

The awfulness we attribute to a certain threat is also an important factor in determining how anxious we feel about it. Even if I think there’s only a small probability that the danger will occur, but that it will be truly awful if it does, I will probably feel very anxious.

Continuing with the example above- if I think I’ll embarrass myself at the work event, but it won’t be a big deal because everybody embarrasses themselves sometimes, I probably won’t feel too anxious. But if I think it will be utterly mortifying, and will affect my career prospects and relationships with colleagues, my anxiety will be much higher.

Ability to cope

People with anxiety often underestimate their ability to cope with a feared outcome if it does occur.

With the work event example, I might imagine saying something that sounds silly, and ‘going to pieces’,  utterly unable to cope with the embarrassment. But this would be an underestimation of my coping skills. I could probably explain my comment better after the initial mistake. I could calm myself with reassuring words or deep breaths.

When we avoid things that make us anxious, we have less opportunities to build confidence in our ability to cope. Our perception of our coping skills goes down, the threat becomes more anxiety-inducing, so we avoid it even more. It becomes a vicious cycle.

When we appraise our coping skills more accurately, we can reduce our anxiety. And when we can push ourselves to face anxiety provoking situations, we build more coping confidence, and reduce the anxiety further.

Rescue factors

The final part of the equation refers to our expectations of other people’s reaction. Our anxiety increases if we imagine people responding in a way that makes things worse. If I imagine that people will point and laugh in response to my silly comment, I will feel far more anxious. But we often underestimate how helpful others will be. In reality, people would likely not comment if I said something in error. Some people might even be supportive.

To take another example, imagine I am worried I will faint in public. If I imagine people walking past my unconscious body, or stopping to point and stare, I will feel even more anxious about fainting. But in reality, at least some people would likely stop to help. When I appraise people’s potential responses to my feared catastrophe more favourably, goes down.

So what?

All of these components of the anxiety equation are amenable to change. We can ask ourselves:

• Am I overestimating the likelihood that this danger will occur? How likely is it really?
• Am I overestimating how bad it would be? Might it not be quite as bad as I imagine?
• What could I do to cope if it did occur? Am I underestimating my ability to cope?
• Would people perhaps be more supportive than I imagine?

Changing any one of these components can reduce our anxiety. Making even small changes to each of them can have a substantial impact.

We can change these components by thinking about them carefully, but ultimately the biggest changes occur when we can take steps (even small steps) to face those fears.