You can eliminate anxiety on your own by doing three simple activities.

Key Points

• Anxiety is a growing disorder, affecting over 40 million adults in the U.S.
• It has an evolutionary basis—but its modern expression can be overwhelming.
• Three behavioral strategies can help reduce or even eliminate anxiety.
• These strategies focus on changing how your brain processes negative thoughts.

Three Behavioral Strategies to Control Anxiety

You can eliminate anxiety on your own by doing three simple activities.

Updated October 16, 2024 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

Anxiety is coming out of the closet, openly discussed by celebrities and everyday people alike. Despite increased awareness, anxiety continues to rise. Recent statistics from the National Institute of Health show that nearly 20% of adults suffer from anxiety—translating to over 40 million individuals in the United States alone. These big numbers remind us that even though we may talk about anxiety, its effects are often minimized.

What is Anxiety?

The American Psychological Association defines anxiety as “an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes such as increased blood pressure.” Although anxiety has long served an evolutionary purpose by helping our ancestors avoid danger, in today’s world its persistence can be debilitating.

How the Brain Creates Anxiety

Our brains are wired to store emotionally significant events as memories. When a negative event occurs, your brain links it with similar past experiences. Even if those memories aren’t perfectly accurate, they can trigger a cascade of negative thoughts—fueling anxiety. Although anxiety once had survival value (think of early humans evading predators), today the same mechanisms can lead to chronic anxiety or even depression.

Three Behavioral Strategies

1. Prioritizing

Drawing inspiration from Steven Levine’s A Year to Live, try limiting your decision-making timeframe. By focusing on what truly matters for a short period (or even just 24 hours), you may discover that many of your worries are less important than you once thought. This exercise forces your brain to categorize and prioritize, reducing the power of unnecessary negative thoughts.

2. Do Three Positive Things Every Day

When your brain engages in a negative thought, it quickly forms connections with other negative memories. To break this chain, engage in at least three positive activities each day—whether that’s playing music, writing, cooking, or any activity that brings you joy. Over time, these positive experiences can help rewire your brain to favor optimism over anxiety.

3. Simulations

Simulations involve deliberately creating a situation that mimics your greatest fears. For example, if you worry about losing your sight, try wearing a blindfold at home for a set period. Such controlled experiences help your brain adapt to the idea of change so that, should the worst occur, the emotional impact is less severe. Many clients have found that repeated simulations lessen the shock of an anticipated loss.

The Takeaway

While you can’t control every aspect of life, you can change how your brain responds to negative events. Anxiety may be rooted in our hardwired responses to past memories, but by using behavioral strategies—such as prioritizing, engaging in positive activities, and controlled simulations—you can lessen its hold on you. Over time, these strategies help your brain form new, healthier connections, making anxiety easier to manage or even eliminating it altogether.

References

1. Stan Goldberg, Preventing Senior Moments: How to Stay Alert into Your 90s and Beyond (Lantham, MA: Roman & Littlefield, 2023)

This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.