Are you deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty?
Anxiety sufferers often have a hard time tolerating uncertainty, which can lead to catastrophic thoughts and unhelpful behaviors. One of those behaviors is excessive reassurance seeking.
Reassurance seeking often involves asking for validation, comfort, or information to reduce anxiety. For those who struggle with anxiety, it is often done compulsively or repeatedly.
Examples of Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors
Reassurance-seeking behaviors can take many forms. Here are some examples:
- A man with panic attacks who worries about cardiac problems repeatedly looks at his heart rate on a watch to ensure that it is not too high.
- A person with heal…
Are you deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty?
Anxiety sufferers often have a hard time tolerating uncertainty, which can lead to catastrophic thoughts and unhelpful behaviors. One of those behaviors is excessive reassurance seeking.
Reassurance seeking often involves asking for validation, comfort, or information to reduce anxiety. For those who struggle with anxiety, it is often done compulsively or repeatedly.
Examples of Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors
Reassurance-seeking behaviors can take many forms. Here are some examples:
- A man with panic attacks who worries about cardiac problems repeatedly looks at his heart rate on a watch to ensure that it is not too high.
- A person with health anxiety consults the internet or artificial intelligence (AI) every time they have a distressing or unusual body symptom.
- A 20-something woman texts or calls her mother whenever she gets anxious about anything, because her mother is so good at talking her down.
- A new mother finds that she can’t sleep very much because she is constantly watching the baby monitor, terrified of SIDS.
- A highly anxious man checks his bank balances every day because he is so worried about losing all his money (even though he is quite well off financially).
- A socially anxious college student finds that she tries to interpret how others feel about her by scrutinizing other people’s behaviors during conversations.
- An adolescent boy who is terrified of someone breaking into the house checks the door locks multiple times each night and makes his parents do the same.
The Problem of Reassurance Seeking
Reassurance seeking can often be extremely effective in the moment. Consider what happens: Something causes you to feel anxious, your anxiety spikes, you engage in a reassurance-seeking behavior, and your anxiety immediately gets better.
Sounds great, right? Well, it’s actually not.
When you constantly get reassurance for your anxiety, you don’t learn how to tolerate your anxiety and its related uncertainty, which is key to anxiety recovery.
Also, you can become very dependent on reassurance-seeking behaviors. When I tell my clients who are trapped in the anxiety-reassurance cycle that it’s almost like an addiction, they often wholeheartedly agree.
Think of someone in your life who does not struggle with anxiety. They probably get anxious sometimes, but it is not a significant problem for them. Does that person engage in any of these excessive reassurance-seeking behaviors? Probably not.
If you want to become a less anxious person, you need to start acting like someone who isn’t anxious, especially when it comes to reassurance seeking.
Steps to Reduce Excessive Reassurance Seeking
Step 1: Assess reassurance-seeking behaviors. Spend a few days to a week assessing your reassurance-seeking behaviors. Make a running list and add to it whenever you notice something you are doing to reduce your anxiety through reassurance. Notice if there are themes or patterns.
Step 2: Choose one or two types of reassurance behaviors to target. If you have many different types of reassurance-seeking behaviors, you might want to start with something easier to target. When you master those behaviors, choose another one and so on.
Step 3: Make a realistic plan. If you spend an hour a day searching for health symptoms online, it might not be a realistic goal to quit cold turkey (though if you can, go for it!).
You might want to practice delaying urges. For example, you can set a goal: *I will delay urges to check, starting with a 2-minute delay. *Once you master that, you can build up the delay.
Also, consider making reassurance seeking more difficult for you. For example, if you tend to monitor your heart rate or other physiology with a watch, ring, or other wearable device, consider taking it off. If you are constantly using the ChatGPT app on your phone, either delete it or put it in a folder to make it harder to access.
Step 4: Consider involving your loved one if they are involved in your reassurance efforts. You can give them this post I wrote previously on how to help a loved one break the reassurance cycle. You never know, by reducing reassurance seeking, you might improve your relationship with that other person, as they could be irritated by your behaviors.
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Step 5: Give yourself lots of positive reinforcement. Make sure you acknowledge your achievements when you delay or stop reassurance seeking.
On the other hand, if you instead succumb to it, don’t beat yourself up. Figure out what went wrong and commit to doing better next time.
Consider When You Need More Help
For many, reassurance seeking might be tied to an anxiety disorder that is too difficult to combat by oneself. Consider finding a therapist who specializes in anxiety and who can help guide you so that you can be successful.
References
Cougle, J. R., Fitch, K. E., Fincham, F. D., Riccardi, C. J., Keough, M. E., & Timpano, K. R. (2012). Excessive reassurance seeking and anxiety pathology: tests of incremental associations and directionality. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26(1), 117–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2011.10.001
Rector, N. A., Kamkar, K., Cassin, S. E., Ayearst, L. E., & Laposa, J. M. (2011). Assessing excessive reassurance seeking in the anxiety disorders. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 25(7), 911–917. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2011.05.003