Imagine you just had a conversation with your significant other and you find yourself riddled with anxiety, wondering if things are the same. Sure, it was a small thing, you left a cabinet door open again. But you find yourself asking, “Are you sure you aren’t mad at me?” and “Do you still love me?” Maybe you ask every person in your life what they think of your outfit, or if what you said to your boss was ok. Or maybe you like to Google your symptoms over and over, just to make sure you are actually not going to die and it is in fact just a cold.
At first glance, this may seem harmless. However, this could also show up in cycles of reassurance seeking. Everyone seeks reassurance at one point or another. When feelings of worry or anxiety arise, it makes sense that we want someone else to tell us that everything is ok. This reassurance does a great job of providing immediate relief. However, when we repeatedly rely on it to manage anxiety, it can unintentionally teach our brain that uncertainty is dangerous and that we always need reassurance to feel safe.
Reassurance seeking is repeatedly looking outside of ourselves for certainty or relief from uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, or uncertainty. Asking for this comfort and reassurance is not always a problem. There is a difference between healthy support seeking and anxiety-driven reassurance seeking. People with “sticky” or anxious minds can get stuck in a feedback loop that is almost addictive. It quickly lessens the anxiety and leads to immediate relief, but that relief does not last. The anxiety inevitably returns, and so does the reassurance seeking because your mind remembers the sliver of relief you felt after engaging with it, reinforcing the behavior. Thus, the cycle continues and the anxiety never actually goes away.
The Cycle
Even though it helps us feel better in the moment, reassurance can actually strengthen anxiety in the long run. Repeated reassurance can reinforce avoidance of uncertainty, prevent us from experiencing the natural rise and fall of anxiety, lower our distress tolerance, make us dependent on outside sources for relief, and create a cycle of unanswerable “what if” questions. It can show up in anxiety disorders and function as a compulsion in OCD.
You may find yourself asking, “Well, what am I supposed to do instead?” The goal is not to never seek reassurance. Again, we all want and need reassurance at one point or another. Instead, we need to focus on building our ability to tolerate distress, uncertainty, and anxiety without immediately needing to eliminate it. Anxiety and uncertainty are natural parts of being human that have long served as functions in our survival. By practicing some alternative behaviors rather than reassurance seeking, we can expose our bodies to the discomfort and teach them that discomfort and anxiety are not always dangerous.
Some alternative behaviors include:
- Noticing the anxiety and the urge to reassurance seek
- Delay seeking reassurance for 10-20 minutes
- Ask, “Have I already gotten the answer to this question?”
- Identify the underlying need: is it comfort, connection, information, or certainty?
- Practice uncertainty language: “Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t.” “I don't need to figure this out right now.”
- Let anxiety rise and fall without solving it
- Ask for emotional support rather than certainty: we don’t have to stop leaning on people, but we can ask them for presence rather than answers
Remember, anxiety is a normal part of life that does not need to be avoided or solved. The goal is not ot be certain that nothing bad will ever happen. We can instead build our tolerance and confidence, knowing that no matter what anxiety or discomfort comes up, we are equipped to ride it out. Therapy can help people recognize reassurance-seeking patterns and develop skills for responding to anxiety differently. If you or someone you know is interested in receiving support from any of our qualified clinicians, please visit our website, call or text us at 479-403-2915, or email [email protected] to get matched with a provider and schedule a consultation.
