5 Things to ask yourself when you have anxiety | Ep. 470

In this episode, I share five simple, science-based questions you can ask in moments of anxiety to help you respond skillfully—without feeding rumination, avoidance, or fear.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• How to tell the difference between a real danger and an anxious thought so you stop reacting to false alarms
• The three most common ways people respond to anxiety—and which one actually helps long-term
• A powerful question that pulls you out of overthinking and back into your life
• Why willingness (not calming down) is the key to changing your relationship with anxiety
• A surprising “make it worse” experiment that can build confidence and expand your tolerance for discomfort

Five Questions to Ask Yourself When You’re Anxious (That Won’t Make It Worse)

When anxiety shows up, it often demands all of your attention.

Your mind races.
Your body tightens.
And suddenly, your entire day becomes about trying to feel better, calmer, safer—right now.

In this article, I want to share five specific questions I regularly teach my clients and students—questions designed to help you respond to anxiety without feeding it, without spiraling into rumination, and without putting your life on pause.

These questions won’t make anxiety disappear.
And honestly, that’s the point.

They’re meant to help you stop reinforcing anxiety and start getting back to the life you want to live.

 

First, Let’s Get Clear on What We’re Not Doing

Before we dive in, I want to be very clear about what these questions are not meant to do.

We are not trying to:

• Eliminate anxiety
• Remove uncertainty
• Think our way out of discomfort
• Calm the nervous system at all costs

Any approach that says, “Let’s make sure you never feel anxious again” usually ends up making anxiety stronger, not weaker.

Avoidance, reassurance-seeking, overanalyzing, and escape behaviors all send the same message to your brain:

“Anxiety is dangerous. You can’t handle this.”

And that’s exactly how anxiety keeps growing.

Instead, these questions help you build effective responses—responses that don’t make anxiety worse today or tomorrow.

 

Question 1: Is This a Thought or Feeling — or a Real Danger?

This is always the first place to start.

Ask yourself:
“Is this an actual, immediate danger — or is this a thought, feeling, sensation, image, or urge?”

If there is a real threat—
A car is coming toward you.
A fire alarm is going off.
Someone is in physical danger.

➡️ Take action. Protect yourself.

But if the anxiety is saying:

• “What if something bad happens?”
• “What if I lose control?”
• “What if this means something terrible about me?”

That’s a thought, not a threat.

Thoughts are not facts.
Thoughts do not require immediate action.
Thoughts do not need to be solved.

When you stop treating every anxious thought like an emergency, you create choice.

 

Question 2: What Are My Options Right Now?

Once you recognize this is anxiety (not danger), you usually arrive at a crossroads.

In most situations, I see three common options.

Option 1: Escape or Neutralize

You might:

• Leave the situation
• Seek reassurance
• Avoid, distract, numb, or suppress

This is human. We’ve all done it.

But when anxiety “works” this way, your brain learns:

“Avoidance keeps me safe.”

Which means anxiety comes back louder next time.

 

Option 2: Ruminate and Catastrophize

This is the mental version of escape.

You replay.
You analyze.
You ask “what if” over and over.
You try to figure it out.

Rumination feels productive—but it keeps anxiety alive by giving it constant attention.

 

Option 3: Respond Skillfully (Without Feeding Anxiety)

This is the option we’re practicing.

A response that:

• Aligns with your values
• Allows anxiety to be present
• Does not reinforce fear long-term

This choice often doesn’t give instant relief—but it builds freedom over time.

And the work you do today helps the future version of you respond differently.

 

Question 3: What Would the Non-Anxious Me Do Right Now?

This is one of the most powerful questions I know.

Ask yourself:
“If anxiety weren’t in charge, what would I be doing right now?”

Often the answer is simple:

• Playing with your kids
• Writing the email
• Doing the dishes
• Going on the walk
• Getting on the plane
• Staying in the conversation

This question gently pulls you back into your life, instead of letting anxiety decide your next move.

You don’t have to feel calm to act.
You don’t have to feel certain to move forward.

You just need direction.

 

Question 4: How Willing Am I to Feel Anxious Right Now?

This is a big one.

Not:

• “How anxious am I?”
  But:
• “How willing am I to feel this anxiety?”

Anxiety is physical.
It shows up as:

• Tight chest
• Racing heart
• Tingling skin
• Knots in the stomach

The question becomes:
How do I relate to these sensations?

Do I tighten against them?
Judge them?
Fight them?

Or can I gently say:

“It’s okay that you’re here.”

Willingness doesn’t mean liking anxiety.
It means allowing it to rise and fall without punishing yourself for having it.

This is where self-compassion becomes a skill—not a slogan.

 

Question 5: (Bonus) How Could I Make This Worse — On Purpose?

This question surprises people.

But it’s incredibly powerful.

When anxiety says:

“This is unbearable.”

We gently test that belief.

Sometimes with humor.
Sometimes with curiosity.
Sometimes with boldness.

“What if I did make a fool of myself?”
“What if this is the worst panic I’ve ever had?”
“What if I walk toward the discomfort instead of away from it?”

This isn’t about suffering.
It’s about discovering something important:

👉 Your capacity for discomfort is much larger than anxiety wants you to believe.

And every time you lean in instead of shrinking back, confidence grows.

Putting It All Together

Anxiety doesn’t loosen its grip when we fight harder.

It loosens when we:

• Stop treating thoughts like threats
• Choose values over fear
• Practice willingness instead of control
• Respond skillfully instead of reactively

These five questions won’t eliminate anxiety—but they will help you stop living at its mercy.

And that’s where real change begins.

 

A Gentle Reminder Before You Go

If anxiety has made you feel stuck, overwhelmed, or discouraged—please hear this:

Nothing is wrong with you.
Your nervous system is doing its best.
And with the right skills, things can change.

Be gentle with yourself this week.
You deserve that care.

I’m so glad you’re here.

Transcription:  5 Things to ask yourself when you have anxiety

In this episode, I am going to give you five specific questions that you can ask yourself when you’re anxious, that will not feed. It will not cause you to ruminate more because who has time for that and so that you can get back to your life where anxiety isn’t taking up all of your attention. Hello, my name is Kimberly Quinlan.

 

If we haven’t met already, I’m an anxiety and OCD specialist. I have a podcast called Your Anxiety Toolkit, and my goal is to help you suffer less with anxiety, to get back to the life you wanna live and be joyful, because I know that anxiety can take away that from you. I’ve been through it myself. I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of clients.

 

I’ve had thousands of students and tons of listeners, all who have found these simple science-based strategies to help them Now. Let’s get clear about what you will not be focusing on in this episode. Number one, we are not here to eliminate anxiety. These questions are not gonna make your anxiety disappear.

 

In fact, anyone who tells you that they have a skill that will make your anxiety disappear. Run. They’re also not gonna remove uncertainty, and they are not gonna lead you down a spiral where you have to think your way out of it. We are going directly for skills that are effective and will help you navigate it so you can make really effective decisions and have effective responses so you don’t reinforce it Now.

 

Most other therapists are going to ask questions like, how can we make your anxiety go away? Or, what underlying trauma might have caused this, or might have been the the predictor of this. Now, what I wanna caution you with is these types of questions are going to keep you stuck. They’re gonna keep you stuck in the weeds of trying to solve and trying to.

 

Figure it all out and come up with an elaborate plan and thinking that just insight in and of itself is going to help you with your anxiety. That is not what we’re here to do. They might also ask you questions on like, how can we calm you down? Who can you call to calm down again? These types of questions are going to keep.

 

You stuck? Not always. There will be times when there is a time and a place for that. So I’m not here to dog on any therapist, but I wanna really help you to understand these are not the questions we’re gonna be asking today. Another question I really don’t like is, do you need to leave and find a way to calm down so that we can relax your nervous system?

 

Like. Those words do not jive well with me because they’re number one feeding this idea that you can’t handle anxiety. They’re also feeding this idea that the only goal is to make your anxiety go away and go down, and it’s telling you to leave or avoid. And if there is one mistake. People make when it comes to anxiety, and that is avoiding the things that make them anxious.

 

Okay? These all make anxiety worse. Let’s get into it. Okay. Question number one. Is this a thought or feeling or is it a real danger that requires attention? This will help you to determine the difference between what is a thought and what is real now. If you’re in the situation and you ask this question, you’re like, no, a truck is actually coming for me.

 

Absolutely run. Absolutely do whatever you have to do to keep yourself safe. However, if it is a thought about whether or not a truck may or may not hit you, that is a completely different situation and we deal with that a lot differently Now, if it is, what if I harm my loved one? That is a lot different to I am in a situation where my heart love one is about to be heart.

 

A thought about something is not a fact. It is not a threat. We don’t need to treat thoughts like they’re important or that they need a response. They don’t mean anything about you. And our job is to get really good at not treating every single thought like it’s an imminent threat that needs solving right away.

 

When you get good at this, then you start to have choices on how to respond. Now, number two is what are my options right now? In this moment, if you’ve determined that this is a thought or a feeling, or a sensation or an urge or an image that’s created that whoosh of anxiety, then you can say, okay, what are my options?

 

Right? I’m gonna give you three choices that I see in almost every situation, not everyone. So just stay with me and hopefully this applies Number one. Option number one is to run away. You confided. You could ask for reassurance. You could throw a table, right? These are all things you could physically do to make this discomfort go away.

 

Right now, we’ve all engaged in these. Nobody is at fault for this. It’s a natural response for the human species. However, this physical response. Does tend to reinforce that thought or feeling again, if you treat a thought and a feeling like it’s true and dangerous, you’re actually training your brain for tomorrow to treat thoughts as if they’re dangerous and any imminent threat.

 

So I always te tell clients the work you do today is really helping out. The tomorrow you or the two week next version of you, the work you do today, how you respond to anxiety. Today, you mightn’t get an immediate payoff, but in two weeks you will have started to train your brain to have a different response.

 

Okay? So if you are looking for effective OCD or BFRB treatment, that’s covered by insurance. I’m thrilled to announce to you this week’s sponsor no cd. No CD provides live face-to-face video sessions with licensed therapists who specialize in OCD and related conditions. Through exposure and response prevention therapy, a highly effective treatment designed specifically for OCD, their therapist can tailor a plan just for you.

 

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If you think you might have OCD or a struggling to manage symptoms, there is hope. Book a free call@nocd.com. You don’t have to struggle alone. Big hugs. And now let’s get back to the show. Now, choice number two is to ruminate and catastrophize about the worst case scenario. This is a more of a mental response.

 

We call this rumination. It’s to resolve it. Try to figure it out. What does it mean? Why did I have that thought? Could it happen? What would it mean about me? If it did happen, how would I cope? This is just rumination, and remember, if we go back to the last slide is you have to identify that if it’s a thought or feeling.

 

I strongly encourage you not to spend your valuable time. Trying to solve things that have not happened yet, or that happened yesterday or a month ago now, the third choice is to choose a skillful and effective response that does not make the anxiety worse for the short term or the long term. And what I mean by that, let me stop that again.

 

Actually. Now, choice number three is the one I actually prefer you to make, but we are all doing the best we can, and that is to choose a skillful and effective response that does not make your anxiety worse in the long term. Now, this is easier said than done, but it is absolutely doable and what we’re here to do in your anxiety toolkit is to practice and master that skill.

 

We’re here to choose effective skills that line up with your values, not line up with whatever anxiety is telling you to do. Now we teach this in overcoming anxiety and panic toolkit. We do a much deeper dive in identifying specific behaviors that are helpful for you and identifying these specific behaviors that have been getting you into trouble.

 

If you’re interested in that, if you’re interested in that, head over to cbt school.com. You can learn all about our courses there. This is a course that’s gonna go a deep dive into this specific area, if this is an area that you need more support in. Now, question number three is what would the non-anxious me do right now at the end of the day?

 

That’s what the question that’s gonna help you move forward the fastest. We don’t wanna sit there and spin, we wanna move back into your life. So in that moment, what would the non-anxious me deal? And if they inquired, often clients and students of mine will say, I would. Laugh with my kids. I would write the report, I would do the dishes, I would make my bed.

 

I would take a walk. I would read the book. I would get on the train. I would get on the plane, right? And so then we now know a master plan. I actually had a client recently who came in and was like, I have literally spent the last week trying to figure out what to do. I can’t make decisions. I’m stuck. And I said, okay, tell me what the non-anxious you would do.

 

And I just jotted it down. And I said, here’s your homework. Go and full facilitate that as best as you can using the skills that we’ve discussed. And it was like, oh, it’s right there on the paper. Like it’s literally right there and, and seems so silly and so easy, but it’s a. It’s such an important question to ask ourselves because again, if we don’t stop and slow down to ask ourselves, what’s going to happen is anxiety is going to hijack you and have you moving in the direction of how can we just prevent bad things from happening?

 

Or how can we just get stuck here in this rumination cycle? Now question four is really important, and I talk about it a lot here on your anxiety toolkit, which is how willing am I to feel anxious? And if you are here watching on YouTube, you will hear me say, really, really how willing are you really, we’re not saying like, how much anxiety do you have or how much anxiety do you have?

 

And what would you like to have with saying actually. How willing are you to actually feel the sensations of anxiety, the heart rate increase, the tick, twin, tingling of the skin, the tight throat, the tight tummy. When you have that, what is your relationship with that? That’s probably what I should have put as number four and number five and number six.

 

But for the sake of keeping this not too long, it’s really important we ask ourselves like, really genuinely, how willing are you to create a space in your body? Where you can actually allow these physical sensations to rise and fall, and how safe are you to contain those feelings when you have them? Do you tighten up around them or do you relax around them?

 

Do you squint and be like, oh, I hate this, and judge it? Or do you just say it’s okay that you’re here. It’s not dangerous. It’s okay that I’m feeling this feeling. I don’t need to change anything. Are you saying you idiot? What’s wrong with you? Or are you saying, I love you? I’m so sorry that your heart is tight and your chest is tight, and your tummy is tight.

 

How can I take care of you in a lovely, warm way while making space for this feeling? Okay. Now let’s move on to question number five, which is, this is sort of like a bonus question and you don’t have to go here all the way. This is again, an option, but I would love to challenge you for homework to trial this, which is, how can I make this worse?

 

People get so alarmed when I ask this question, Kimberly, what do you mean make it worse? I’m already so uncomfortable, and yes, I’m not here to punish you or to make you suffer. I am here to challenge you to see whether you have a bigger window of tolerance for discomfort than you think. Often when I have say this to clients, they might like sit back and look really alarmed and be like, Kimberly, you’re nuts.

 

And I’ll say, well, just stay with me for the sake of this experiment. You’re having all these thoughts that you hate. You’re having all these thoughts that you think are really terrible and you’re beating yourself up for having them, and you’re trying not to have them, and that’s ruling your life. Let’s just for an experiment, for just a couple minutes, practice having those thoughts and let’s just see, let’s put our little humor hats on and let’s see if we can make it worse.

 

Oh, you’re afraid you’re gonna make a fool of yourself. Well, let’s pretend that, let’s say, well, maybe I will. Make a full of myself and I’ll probably pee my pants too. Like again, then you can start to be like, oh, okay. Or, okay, yeah, maybe I do have a panic attack. Maybe I’ll have the biggest panic attack of my life and my head implodes, right?

 

I’m, I’m making with humor. I’m making it a little worse. Now, in some cases it might be. You’re really anxious about going in situ social situations. I’ve had a few clients do this beautifully. That social interaction is really hard for them, and they’ve said, Kimberly, I remembered you saying, how can I make it worse?

 

And in that moment, again, I had a choice. It was like that crossroads where I would either go stand in the corner and get my phone out, or I’m gonna walk straight up to that person and I’m gonna say, hi, my name is. Daryl, or my name is Denise, how are you? It’s lovely to meet you. And they leaned into, I’m gonna make it worse now.

 

Once they did that, they didn’t spend the whole night doing that. They paced themselves. But this helped them to realize they have a much wider capacity for discomfort than they ever experienced. And that my friends, is how confidence is born. That is how self-esteem is born. When we push ourselves, we practice widening our window of tolerance, and we look back and we go, wow.

 

Dang, that was pretty impressive. It didn’t go perfectly, but I’m actually way more capable than I thought. Now, let’s put it all together. If you want to take the next step, and I’m guessing that you’ve probably already decided that this is gonna be hard, and in the past when you’ve tried some of these things, you’ve white knuckled it the entire way.

 

What I’m going to encourage you to do is head on over to a recent episode we did called How to Stop White Knuckling Your Anxiety, and what you’re gonna learn there is how to actually practice being more willing. Head on over there and check it out. I’m sure the note that. We will be sure to leave links in the show notes or in the description below.

 

I am so grateful to have you here. Thank you for spending your valuable time with me, and I hope you be super gentle with yourself this week because you deserve it. All right, friends, I’ll see you next week. Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbt school.com should not replace professional mental health care.

 

If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting cbtschool.com.