Difference Between Stuffing Anxiety & Regulating it

Anxiety is an emotion that demands action. It tries to get your attention to make you address a problem. Regulating anxiety involves three steps: listen, assess, act. This is the opposite of stuffing, which means to suppress or deny.

Stuffing Anxiety

• If you are anxious about something, you might ignore it, suppress it or push away the thoughts that are causing it. This is stuffing.

Regulating Anxiety

• In contrast, regulating anxiety involves fully acknowledging what you are anxious about, and deciding what kind of action you need to take.

Taking Action

• If the anxiety is a warning about an unsafe situation, pay attention and take heed. But if it is based on exaggerated worry thoughts, regulating the anxiety involves fully understanding and challenging these limiting, negative thoughts.

Example of Exaggerated Worry

• "If I talk in front of the class I will get tongue-tied, everyone will laugh at me and think I'm a jerk and I'll never be able to get over it."

Regulating vs. Stuffing

• In this case regulating anxiety means dealing with the fear of being ostracized by trying to see things more realistically. Replacing the exaggerated worry thoughts with practical thoughts like--you might not get tongue tied, people may be very sympathetic, and even if they laugh you will get over it.