Anxiety is one of the most common human experiences and one of the most misunderstood. Most people hope therapy will help them get rid of anxiety. But what if anxiety as a signal isn’t simply a problem to eliminate, but a meaningful message that something in your life, body, or relationships needs attention, comfort, and care?

Anxiety as a Signal
Therapy for Anxiety
Acceptance-based Skills

Want support with anxiety right now?
If anxiety is interfering with your life, you can explore the GoodTherapy directory to find a clinician who fits your needs: find a therapist near you.

In clinical practice and empirical research, anxiety is understood not just as distress but as a complex biopsychosocial response that tells a deeper story about how a person is experiencing safety, loss, connection, and threat. It reflects dynamic interactions between mind, body, and life circumstances that deserve compassionate understanding, not avoidance. For an overview of how anxiety is defined and experienced, see the American Psychological Association’s anxiety resource.

Key idea: When we treat anxiety as a signal, we shift from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What is my system trying to protect, and what does it need?”

Anxiety as a Signal: More Than a Symptom

The American Psychological Association (APA) describes anxiety as feelings of worry, tension, and physiological arousal that prepare a person for potential threat. While anxiety can become overwhelming or distressing, it is also a normal adaptive reaction in many settings, alerting us to danger, motivating preparation, and facilitating problem-solving.

 

This adaptive potential suggests a departure from viewing anxiety solely as pathology. Instead, anxiety as a signal can be understood as meaningful internal communication, signalling what has been experienced as unsafe, unresolved, uncertain, or emotionally unmet.

If anxiety is impacting your relationships…
GoodTherapy has a helpful read on how anxiety can disrupt connection, and how to respond with more clarity: anxiety and relationships.

Anxiety and Emotional Loss

Anxiety is often rooted in anticipatory fear, the nervous system’s attempt to protect against unknown or painful experiences. Research commonly conceptualizes anxiety as a future-oriented state tied to anticipation and preparation for what may happen next (see, for example, Craske et al., 2017).

 

In clinical settings, many people with anxiety also struggle with unacknowledged loss, loss of identity, relationship changes, unmet needs, changes in health, or life transitions that have not been fully felt. When these losses go unexplored, the nervous system can stay activated, producing persistent vigilance and distress.

 

Therapeutically, when we begin to hold and explore these experiences with empathy, anxiety as a signal can lose its grip as a threat alarm and become a gateway to healing.

What anxiety might be protecting

• Connection you fear losing
• A role or identity that’s shifting
• Unmet needs you learned to ignore
• Grief you haven’t had room to feel

What to try (gently)

• Name the feeling (“This is anxiety.”)
• Locate it in the body (tight chest? restless legs?)
• Ask: “What feels threatened right now?”
• Ask: “What would help me feel 5% safer?”

If loss is part of your story, you may appreciate this GoodTherapy piece on how grief can show up physically, and sometimes overlap with anxiety: the physical effects of grief.

 

The Body and the Nervous System in Anxiety

Anxiety is not “just in your head.” It is deeply embodied and reflects how your nervous system has adapted to past and present experiences. Research consistently shows that anxiety activates physiological systems, heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and vigilance, designed to protect the organism from danger (see, for example, Stein & Sareen, 2015).

 

This embodied aspect offers a powerful direction for therapy: instead of trying to control or suppress symptoms, therapeutic work often focuses on understanding and co-regulating the body’s signals. In this way, anxiety as a signal becomes a relational process between internal experience and external support.

A 60-second grounding reset (not a cure, just a reset)

1. Exhale first (a longer out-breath can soften arousal).

2. Place a hand on your chest or belly, wherever feels supportive.

3. Look around and name 5 neutral objects you can see.

4. Ask: “If anxiety as a signal had a message, what would it want me to notice?”

Anxiety in the Context of Relationships

Human beings are relational by nature. Anxiety often arises in the context of relationship experiences, attachment history, interpersonal losses, uncertainty in connection, or ongoing interpersonal stressors. One consistent finding across psychotherapy research is that the quality of the therapeutic alliance is strongly linked to outcomes (see Wampold & Imel, 2015).

 

This aligns with what many clients report: anxiety often decreases when they feel genuinely heard, reflected, and cared for, a process that cannot be reduced to “techniques” alone but requires authentic engagement.

 

If you’d like a clear definition of what we mean by “alliance,” GoodTherapy’s PsychPedia entry is a great starting point: therapeutic relationship (therapeutic alliance).

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The “Reassurance-Seeking” Cycle (when anxiety needs connection)

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1) Cue: a delayed text, a changed tone, a stressed look, or a “distance” feeling

2) Interpretation: “Something is wrong, and it might be my fault”

3) Strategy: check, explain, apologize, over-function, or read between the lines

4) Result: closeness for a moment… then more doubt and more scanning

Here’s the reframe: this cycle isn’t “neediness.” It’s often the nervous system attempting to prevent rupture. Therapy can help you build steadier self-trust and ask for connection in ways that feel clearer and kinder to you.

Prefer skills + insight?
Many people benefit from a blend of approaches. You can explore therapy types and therapist specialties using the GoodTherapy directory.

What the Evidence Says About Effective Treatment

Clinical research recognizes multiple empirically supported treatments for anxiety, including cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance-based approaches, and psychodynamic therapies.

 

While CBT remains the most widely studied and traditionally recommended psychotherapy for anxiety (see Hofmann et al., 2012), research also supports the efficacy of relational and insight-oriented therapies that attend to underlying emotional experience and meaning (see Leichsenring et al., 2017).

Two evidence-based paths (often combined)

• CBT-style approaches: Reduce avoidance and shift threat appraisal, often helpful when anxiety feels “loud” and repetitive.

• Relational/psychodynamic approaches: Explore how anxiety as a signal connects to attachment history, conflict, loss, and meaning.

GoodTherapy also has a practical overview of CBT and anxiety here: CBT (and relaxation) for anxiety. Acceptance-based models can be especially helpful when you notice that fighting anxiety intensifies it. If you want to learn more about how avoidance can keep anxiety going, see: cognitive avoidance and acceptance-based behavioral therapy.

Anxiety as a Signal: An Invitation to Connection and Self-Understanding

When clients begin therapy, many feel overwhelmed by anxiety, yet at deeper levels, this emotional energy points toward what matters most. Anxiety as a signal often marks domains of life where a person:

• Fears loss of safety or connection
• Holds unprocessed grief or unmet attachment needs
• Has learned to anticipate threat based on past experiences
• Struggles to trust themselves or others with vulnerability

 

These experiences are not pathological weaknesses; they are meaningful emotional responses to life events that deserve recognition. When you shift your orientation from fighting anxiety to listening to anxiety, healing begins.

 

Sometimes anxiety as a signal was learned early, especially when caregivers were also overwhelmed. This GoodTherapy article describes how anxiety can function like a protective “alert system” in families: whose anxiety is it, anyway?

Therapy as a Place of Comfort and Exploration

Therapy offers more than symptom reduction. It offers a space where anxiety can be understood, held, and transformed. Instead of avoiding discomfort, we gradually build the capacity to sit with it, understand its origin, and learn new ways of relating to internal experience.

Together, we can explore:

• What your anxiety may be asking you to notice
• How past experiences shape present responses
• What relational patterns may contribute to distress
• Ways to tend to loss, unmet needs, and vulnerability
• How to cultivate deeper self-compassion and resilience

Looking for treatment options?
For general clinical guidance on anxiety treatment, you can review trusted overviews from NIMH, Harvard Health, or Mayo Clinic.

Putting Research Into Practice

Evidence supports that psychological treatments are effective for anxiety, and that the quality of connection between therapist and client plays a central role in outcomes. My approach integrates evidence-based techniques with relational depth, recognizing that anxiety as a signal is not merely something to suppress, but something to understand and transform.

An Invitation

If anxiety has been a persistent companion, interfering with your relationships, daily function, or sense of peace, I want you to know that your experience is valid, meaningful, and worthy of care. You do not have to navigate it alone.

 

Therapy is a space where your anxiety can be listened to with empathy, your history honoured with nuance, and your inner life gently supported toward healing.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are common questions people ask when they start viewing anxiety as a signal.

Q: What does it mean to treat anxiety as a signal?

A: It means approaching anxiety as information, not a personal failure. Anxiety can be your nervous system’s way of flagging uncertainty, unmet needs, overload, or something that feels emotionally important. When you ask “What is this protecting?” you often move from panic into clarity and self-compassion.

Q: How can I calm anxiety in the moment without avoiding it?

A: Start small and body-first. Exhale longer than you inhale, name five neutral things you can see, and place a hand on your chest or belly. Then ask: “What is the next kind, realistic step?” Calming is not about forcing anxiety away, it’s about helping your system feel a little safer so you can think more clearly.

Q: How do I know if my anxiety is connected to grief or loss?

A: Anxiety often spikes during transitions, uncertainty, and unprocessed sadness. If you’ve experienced changes in identity, relationships, health, or stability, anxiety may be signaling emotional work that needs space and support. If your worry comes with a sense of heaviness, longing, or “something ended,” grief may be part of the picture.

Q: When should I seek professional help for anxiety?

A: Consider support if anxiety disrupts sleep, work, relationships, or your sense of peace, or if you’re relying on avoidance to get through the day. You can start by exploring the GoodTherapy directory to find a clinician. If you’re in immediate danger or feel unable to stay safe, contact emergency services or reach out to the 988 Lifeline (U.S.) or 9-8-8 (Canada).

About the Author

David Rothman, Licensed Professional Counselor

David is a Licensed Professional Counselor based in Louisville, Colorado (with telehealth available). He works with adults and couples navigating anxiety, relationship stress, life transitions, and the painful feeling of disconnection.

His approach is calm, supportive, and collaborative, moving at a pace that feels right for you. Drawing from relational and psychodynamic work, Emotion Focused Therapy, AEDP, and depth therapy, David helps clients explore the patterns beneath the surface and move toward steadier, more authentic connection.

View David’s GoodTherapy profile ↗

References

• American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Anxiety
• American Psychological Association. (2017). Clinical practice guideline for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults
• Craske, M. G., Stein, M. B., Eley, T. C., Milad, M. R., Holmes, E. A., Rapee, R. M., & Wittchen, H.-U. (2017). Anxiety disorders. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 3, 17024. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrdp.2017.24
• Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427–440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1
• Immordino-Yang, M. H., Darling-Hammond, L., & Krone, C. R. (2019). Nurturing nature: How brain development is inherently social and emotional, and what this means for education. Educational Psychologist, 54(3), 185–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2019.1633924
• Leichsenring, F., Abbass, A, Hilsenroth, M. J., Leweke, F., Luyten, P., Munder, T., Rabung, S., & Steinert, C. (2017). Psychodynamic therapy meets evidence-based medicine: A systematic review using updated criteria. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(7), 648–660. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00155-8
• National Institute of Mental Health. (2023). Anxiety disorders
• Stein, M. B., & Sareen, J. (2015). Generalized anxiety disorder. The New England Journal of Medicine, 373(21), 2059–2068. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMcp1502514
• Thwaites, R., & Freeston, M. H. (2005). Safety-seeking behaviours: Fact or function? How can we clinically differentiate between safety behaviours and adaptive coping strategies across anxiety disorders? Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 33(2), 177–188. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465804001985
• Wampold, B. E., & Imel, Z. E. (2015). The great psychotherapy debate: The evidence for what makes psychotherapy work (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203582015

As feeling overwhelmed and stressed in daily life has come to be the norm for millions of Americans, the practice of grounding to manage anxiety and stress has been gaining popularity as of late. For those unfamiliar with the concept, grounding is the practice of redirecting your focus away from intrusive worry and anxiety triggers through both physical and mental exercises. While the practice of mental and physical grounding to regulate the nervous system and manage anxiety has been around for decades, a type of physical grounding called “Earthing” has been experiencing amplified popularity on social media lately among mental health practitioners and wellness influencers alike as a way to combat anxiety. 

Earthing is a type of physical grounding that involves going barefoot into a grassy natural space and physically grounding down through your feet into the bare earth, focusing on the physical sensations of the experience. While this is an excellent physical grounding exercise, it is not always an accessible one for those needing to manage overwhelming anxiety symptoms on the fly at the workplace or somewhere they can’t access nature, or for those with sensory issues and other mental health diagnoses that make it difficult to be barefoot or in an uncontrolled environment. 

There are both mental and physical grounding exercises that can be done in daily practice to help manage and reduce anxiety symptoms in daily life. Here are five easy-to-do grounding exercises that can reduce anxiety when in indoor spaces places such as work, home or even in a (safely parked) car.

Five Easy Grounding Exercises

Grounding Chair

Find a seat in a comfortable chair in which your feet firmly touch the ground. Place your arms and hands at your side or in a resting position that feels comfortable to you. Next, close your eyes and begin to focus on your breathing, drawing in each breath slowly for the count of four and exhaling for a count of four. Begin to notice how your body feels while sitting in the chair. Notice the sensation of the chair against your back, how your head feels between your shoulders and the sensation of your arms against the chair or in your lap. Imagine that with each deep inhale you are filling your body with positive light energy and expelling stale, negative energy with each exhale. You may envision this positive light energy as a color like soft pink, light blue, or pale yellow.   

Next, bring your focus to your abdomen, backside, legs, and down to your feet. Notice the sensation of the chair against the back of your body. Firmly push your feet into the ground and begin to envision your feet as growing roots into the ground.  Envision the tension in your body draining down from your head to your shoulders and arms and out through your rooted feet into the ground. You may repeat this process for several minutes with the help of a phone timer or for as long as time permits.

Four-minute Box Breathing

A highly effective physical and mental grounding exercise that combines both the instant calming power of breathwork with the powerful awareness of mindfulness. Begin in a comfortable seated position. Next, draw in a long inhale through your nostrils for a count of four, then hold the breath for a count of four, and lastly, exhale through your mouth for a count of four. Do this at least four times in a row for however long it takes for you to begin feeling less anxious. Add a 4-minute timer and do box breathing for the duration of the timer for a full mental and physical reset using just the power of oxygen and your mind! 

Grounding Object

This mindful exercise requires that you bring your focus to a comforting object and away from anxiety triggers. First, identify a comforting object around your home like a marble, an energy crystal, a soft blanket or a small bean bag. Next, hold the comforting object in your hand and bring your focus to how it looks and feels. Feel the weight of the object in your hand. Notice the object’s shape, what color(s) it is, notice any textures, whether it is translucent or opaque, whether it feels heavy or light. Spend several moments just noticing all things about the object and staying present with it.  

A small object tends to work best for this exercise since its easier to carry in your pocket or purse and have ready when experiencing emotional distress. 

Five Senses Grounding

This exercise invites you to ground down through all five senses. Like the previous exercises, you may begin in a seated and comfortable position. Next, close your eyes and begin drawing in your breath for a count of four and then releasing for a count of four. Take 4 deep breaths, drawing in through your nose and exhaling out through your mouth. Now, open your eyes and take a look around the room, and begin to notice/state out loud: 

5 things that you can see (ex./ Items you see around the room or the view outside) 

4 things you can feel (ex./ the texture of the chair, the tabletop or any nearby surface) 

3 things you can hear (ex./ the hum of the fan, birds outside, etc.) 

2 things you can smell (ex./  

1 thing you can taste (ex./ take a sip of water or your favorite smoothie) 

 Grounding to a Safe Place

This is a mental grounding exercise that can be done anytime you are able to find stillness. Grounding to a safe place encourages you to identify a happy place or safe place in your mind and begin to envision yourself there. Start this exercise in the usual manner by finding a safe and comfortable seat in which you can sit with your eyes closed. Once you’ve found stillness with your eyes closed, begin to imagine your safe and happy place. Perhaps it is a place you have traveled to before or a place of happy memories like a beloved family member’s home, or maybe it is a place that you invent for yourself in your mind. Once you’ve identified your safe and happy place, flesh out the vision by picturing the sights, sounds, locations, and sensations of your special place. Allow yourself to just breathe and rest within this safe mental retreat for several minutes. Perhaps incorporate a 3–5-minute timer to fully relax within your safe space. Practice as many times per day as needed. 

Grounding Tips  

Practice and consistency are key to making grounding an effective and vital coping tool for anxiety in daily life. The more you can practice grounding (even when not so stressed), the easier it will be for you to access grounding tools when experiencing heightened distress. It is also important to have patience with yourself through the process and to resist the urge to judge yourself for any missteps or for the need to ground down in the first place. Our difficult emotions are a part of ourselves and learning to manage them is a lifelong process that takes patience, practice, and support. Speaking of support, if you find it difficult to manage your anxiety and difficult emotions through grounding on your own, please show yourself compassion and reach out to a licensed mental health professional to help guide and support you through your self-actualization journey! 

 

The idea of seeking therapy after experiencing a traumatic event can be daunting. For some people, it can be almost as frightening as the trauma itself. Whether the traumatic event (or events) happened days, months, years, or decades ago, the prospect of facing it can make it seem like it was just yesterday.

If you are considering this path, it may be helpful for you to know we hold trauma and traumatic memories in the body. This means when you start to process sexual trauma (or consider processing it by starting to talk to a therapist), your body may start to have what we call “body memories.” As Peter Levine has explained, body memories can be described as a physical reexperiencing of the traumatic event(s). In other words, your nervous system and your body experience the feelings and sensations you experienced during the original traumatic event. These memories may be explicit (you have always remembered them) or implicit (not connected to a linear story line). Implicit memories can happen for any traumatic event and may be particularly common if you were under the influence of alcohol or drugs, were a child during the abuse, or if the abuse happened over a prolonged period of time.

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If you experience this, your therapist can help you learn how to practice bringing your awareness back to the present moment. One such example of this type of “grounding” is to bring your awareness or focus to your feet, saying to yourself, “My feet are on the ground. I’m present in this moment. These feelings are from the past.” This may sound simplistic or even silly, but this grounding technique can help you stay in the moment rather than flashing back to the past. Wiggling your feet and saying these simple phrases out loud may help to remind you that, regardless of what is happening in your body, the actual trauma is over.

For people who are not prepared to experience body memories when they start talking about their trauma(s), the shock of doing so may lead them to abruptly stop coming to therapy. It is uncomfortable, after all. They may reexperience post-assault symptoms in an overwhelming, rather than productive, way and fear becoming retraumatized. The potential for this is why I start all therapeutic relationships by establishing safety. Judith Herman, in her classic Trauma and Recovery, outlines the three necessary stages to any effective trauma resolution process: (1) safety, (2) remembrance and mourning, and (3) reconnection. That first piece, safety, is where developing the grounding skill happens.

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Other grounding and safety techniques may include the following:

The brilliant part about trauma therapy’s building of safety nets and grounding skills is it is limited only by one’s imagination.

• Developing a “safe place” you can call upon when you need to regulate an intense experience of emotions
• Developing self-care coping skills and a plan to use them regularly
• Establishing an external compartmentalization tool

Creating a compartment can be as simple as drawing a treasure chest where you imagine putting the traumatic memories when you are not in session, or as complex as a developing an end-of-session routine to keep the traumatic stimuli in the office so you can continue functioning in everyday life. This list is by no means exhaustive. In fact, the brilliant part about trauma therapy’s building of safety nets and grounding skills is it is limited only by one’s imagination.

Practicing the above won’t make the traumatic experience, or even the memories, go away. However, when practiced consistently, these skills—along with a consciously supportive healing relationship with a knowledgeable trauma therapist—can help you remain grounded. The ability to ground is the first step toward the reprocessing and resolution of sexual trauma rather than a retriggering of trauma and retraumatization in therapy.

References:

1. Courtois, C. A., & Ford, J. D. (2009). Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders: An Evidence-Based Guide. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
2. Herman, J. L. (1997). Trauma and Recovery. New York, NY: BasicBooks.
3. Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. Berkeley, Calif: North Atlantic Books.
4. Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York, NY: Viking.