Anxiety is a problem that a lot of us may have experienced in our lives at one point. But annoyingly, the reason this can become a chronic issue is the fear of it happening again, or some other negative experience happening again. Thus, overcoming anticipatory anxiety can have far-reaching benefits. Hence, wanting to talk about it in today’s article.
What Is Anticipatory Anxiety
The way I describe it to my clients is that anticipatory anxiety is anxiety about becoming anxious (Mona, 2021) again after experiencing something negative or after having their first taste of anxiety. This leads to people experiencing high levels of anxiety when thinking about future situations (Anxiety UK, 2026).
This could mean, for example, developing anticipatory anxiety around future peer interactions, especially in teens (Spielberg et al., 2015), if we felt we’d embarrassed ourselves in front of others. Thus, people with social anxiety disorder can experience extreme fear responses regarding having to deal with any social situation, which generally focuses on their perceived performance (Boehme et al., 2014).
But rather than anticipatory anxiety being its own disorder, it’s generally considered to be a symptom found in other anxiety conditions (Anxiety UK, 2026), such as generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder, and specific phobias, as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD; Mona, 2021).
What’s It Like To Experience Anticipatory Anxiety
Anticipatory anxiety is that feeling where we’re “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. It is the tension or dread that builds up within us when we imagine a future situation. So if we’re unable to stop worrying about a first day at work/school or are constantly thinking about all the ways something could go wrong, then we may be experiencing anticipatory anxiety (Mona, 2021).
While non-clinical anxiety works as a form of warning system, anticipatory anxiety functions more like an oversensitive car alarm that goes off because a leaf touched the bumper. So how might this show up:
Physically
We may feel restless, experience headaches, difficulty concentrating (Fritscher, 2026), chronic gastrointestinal issues (i.e. stomach pains and diarrhoea), hyperventilation (Winston and Seif, 2022), and have trouble sleeping.
Rumination
If we find ourselves unable to stop thinking about an upcoming event or situation, no matter how big or small, where we’re just mulling it over constantly, then we’re trapped in rumination.
“What if…?”
What best incapacitates anticipatory anxiety are the “What if…?” thoughts. This is rumination at its worst. This is where we can experience an overwhelming, all-consuming fear of things going wrong or of something getting outside our control (Mona, 2021). These negative expectations correspond with high levels of worry about anticipating anxiety-inducing situations and lead to avoidant behaviours (Smith et al., 2022).
Over-preparing
Preparing and planning can be a useful coping strategy, but it can also be a safety behaviour. Although it’s impossible to plan for every possible outcome, we can feel that if we try, it’ll help manage our anxiety. However, that can end up reinforcing our anxiety when we don’t know when preparing becomes over-preparing and planning.
Cognitive biases
We’re likely to experience at least one, but likely several, cognitive biases, such as catastrophising or filtering out the positives. These shape how we see ourselves and the world around us in a negative light.
Procrastination
When met with something that causes this level of internal discomfort, procrastination is often sure to follow.
Avoidance
Anxiety is a powerful emotion that can drive avoidance (Winston and Seif, 2022). The worse the discomfort we feel, the more likely we are to avoid the situation causing our fear. No situation, no anxiety. However, this will just strengthen our anxiety. Left unchecked, we can find ourselves extremely isolated and lonely.
Anticipatory Anxiety Strategies To Manage The Dread
Breathing exercises
Sometimes we just need to take a moment, and that can be as simple as taking a couple of deep breaths. Another breathing exercise is box breathing. For this, we inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and hold for four more seconds. Repeat as needed.
Focus on “What is” vs “What if”
Instead of letting our mind be trapped in a cycle of “What ifs”, using grounding techniques can help pull our brain out of an imaginary future and back into the physical present.
The other side of the coin
When we are imagining all the “What ifs”, it’s usually filtered to focus only on the negative outcome we want to avoid. So instead, for a more objective look at what may or may not happen, make an effort to also explore the positive and neutral “What ifs”.
Worst-case
Sometimes it can be as easy as just exploring the worst-case scenario. For example, if we apply for a new job, the most common worst outcome is not getting the job. But if we don’t get the job we applied for, then we’re not the only ones. It’s very much a numbers game when it comes to finding a new job. Unless we’re really extremely lucky, we’re not going to get the first job we apply for, and that’s ok.
Exploring the worst-case option like this can remove the worry that comes with uncertainty (Huff, 2025), which the majority of us hate feeling. If we look back, we probably have a few examples of where the worst happened, but we actually coped really well.
Inclusive achievements
Focusing on our successes in relevant situations can help remind us that we’ve got through things like this before. It can often help to reflect on our achievements, but to broaden our definition of achievements to include inclusive achievements. Traditionally, most people focus on stuff like passing a test or getting a promotion as the only things worthy of the achievements list.
However, what can be an achievement can differ from day to day. Completing several goals when the procrastination was running hot can be an inclusive achievement. So can getting out of bed before 14.00 if we’ve been struggling with depression.
Silver lining
Our brains are excellent at predicting disaster but terrible at predicting our own resilience. Yet, we’ve likely been getting through these feared scenarios time and time again. Another way to tap into our past experience is to use the thought challenge, cognitive reappraisal. If we’re experiencing anticipatory anxiety, then there’s likely to have been a lot of experiences where we’ve experienced anxiety, yet we got through them, but we automatically see those situations as a write-off because we felt anxious.
However, we can experience the most crippling anxiety but still get through that situation without giving in to our avoidance. That is a positive to hold on to. Recalling these experiences can help challenge the idea that we can’t handle the thing we fear, because we have done that many times before, but didn’t credit ourselves for it.
Sleep hygiene
If our anticipatory anxiety is affecting our sleep, then several strategies can be used to help improve that. One of the best sleep hygiene tools that can work with anticipatory anxiety is journaling before bed. That allows us to offload the thoughts in our head, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. If we wake up in the night, just get the journal back out and write what’s on our mind, and then try going back to sleep again.
Worry time
Anticipatory anxiety is extremely draining, and it can last for months before an event (Anxiety UK, 2026). Thus, getting into a routine of focusing on our worries on a specific day and time can help manage our anticipatory anxiety. This will also reduce the draining effect it has on us. Pick a day and time in the week to focus on our worries, and stick to that slot as best we can.
Give ourselves 30-60 minutes (be consistent with how much time we give ourselves for this) to focus on our worries, and then use that time to journal about everything that’s running around in our head. Setting an alarm for when the time is up is important, so when that goes off, we stop. This will hopefully help move the anxiety from a constant background noise to a contained task.
Thought challenges
Our cognitive biases distort the way we think, so if we always assume the worst, see everything in black or white, or filter out the positives, then that’s the world we’re creating for ourselves. A world dominated by those negative distortions. But that isn’t reality. Our minds, our anxiety, lie to us (Mona, 2021).
We can challenge our cognitive biases, and we can put our thoughts on trial, and reflect on what the evidence is for and against things going badly. We can also try reframing these thoughts to something neutral or positive.
Action-oriented preparation
A certain level of preparation and planning is fine, but we need to distinguish between trying to satisfy our worrying mind (circular thoughts) and productive action (i.e. planning). It’s fine to check train times if we’re anxious about a journey, and maybe even save the route. But if that doesn’t stop us thinking about it, then our worrying is controlling our minds.
This is something I had to contend with due to my agoraphobia and social anxiety. Thankfully, I’ve brought mine down to a reasonable level. In fact, probably fairly laid back about this nowadays.
When our worrying mind is in the driver’s seat, this can lead to over-prepping, where we might check the train times several times an hour and research several backup options in case something might go wrong with our journey. Trying to create plans for all of these is overplanning and can reinforce our anxiety. So it can help to work out what is a reasonable amount of planning, and what is too much.
If our overplanning is already quite extreme, then taking an exposure therapy approach can be useful. To do this, we can just gradually reduce our planning down to a reasonable level.
Don’t avoid situations
Although easier said than done, the most important step is not to let our anticipatory anxiety win. This will strengthen the anxiety we’re dealing with. So even if we have to use safety behaviours, don’t let it stop us. We can always reduce our safety behaviours at a later time.
Kindness
Because we often treat ourselves more harshly than we would other people in our lives, it can be useful to treat ourselves like we would a loved one (Fritscher, 2026). Plus, it’s always a good idea to treat ourselves with kindness.
Seek support
If our anticipatory anxiety is keeping us from doing things we enjoy or is making it difficult to function day-to-day, it’s worth a chat with our GP. In the UK, there are often ways to self-refer to NHS Talking Therapies. We can check our local mental health trust and local council website to see if this is possible.
Summary
Anticipatory anxiety, although not exclusively its own form of anxiety, is an important symptom of many anxiety, phobia, and OCD disorders. It’s such a significant symptom that working on anticipatory anxiety can be an effective route for recovery from the actual disorder one has. Thus, if anticipatory anxiety is ruining our quality of life, then with the right recovery plan, we can restore it.
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References
Anxiety UK (2026, January 2). Anticipatory Anxiety. Anxiety UK. Retrieved from https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/anxiety-type/anticipatory-anxiety.
Boehme, S., Ritter, V., Tefikow, S., Stangier, U., Strauss, B., Miltner, W. H., & Straube, T. (2014). Brain activation during anticipatory anxiety in social anxiety disorder. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(9), 1413-1418. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/9/9/1413/1680860.
Fritscher, L. (2026, February 26). Coping With Anticipatory Anxiety. Verywell Mind. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/anticipatory-anxiety-2671554.
Huff, C. (2025, January 16). Understanding anticipatory anxiety during key life transitions: Psychologists help people create and reinforce healthy patterns of thinking for coping with fears involving uncertainty. American Psychological Association. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2025/06/anticipatory-anxiety.
Mona, B. (2021, August 11). What is anticipatory anxiety and how do I manage it?. Psych Central. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/anxiety/what-is-anticipatory-anxiety.
Smith, A. R., Jones, E. L., Subar, A. R., Do, Q. B., Kircanski, K., Leibenluft, E., Brotman, M. A., Pine, D. S., & Silk, J. S. (2022). The role of anxiety and gender in anticipation and avoidance of naturalistic anxiety-provoking experiences during adolescence: An ecological momentary assessment study. JCPP Advances, 2(3), e12084. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12084 and https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcv2.12084.
Spielberg, J. M., Jarcho, J. M., Dahl, R. E., Pine, D. S., Ernst, M., & Nelson, E. E. (2015). Anticipation of peer evaluation in anxious adolescents: divergence in neural activation and maturation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(8), 1084–1091. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsu165 and https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/10/8/1084/1625050.
Winston, S. & Seif, M. (2022, July 03). Anticipatory Anxiety: Bleeding Before You Are Cut. Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Retrieved from https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/anticipatory-anxiety-bleeding-you-are-cut-0.