6 Triggers for Anxiety (So You Can Stay Ahead of It)
Knowing what triggers your anxiety can help you predict when it’s going to flare up so you can double down on your healthy coping strategies (I brought you 9 of my personal favorites last week) and hopefully prevent a meltdown, breakdown, or shutdown.
Today, I’m bringing you 6 triggers for anxiety so you can stay ahead of it.
Everyone has their own idiosyncratic anxiety triggers.
For some people it’s being away from home, for others it’s public speaking, and for some it’s spiders or balloons or even puppies.
This post isn’t about listing every single thing that could trigger anxiety (that’d be impossible)…it’s about listing the general life factors that trigger just about everyone’s individual brand of anxiety.
Anxiety Trigger #1: Stress
The number one, absolute biggest, most reliable, most consistent trigger of anxiety (and all mental health problems) is stress. Hands down.
This includes big stressors (like having a baby, losing a loved one, getting married or divorced, being diagnosed with a chronic illness, caring for someone with a chronic illness, etc.) and ordinary stressors (like working long hours, being unhappy in your job, raising children, managing tight finances, planning for Christmas and other holidays, or losing sleep).
Stress can also be generally positive (e.g., starting school, getting a promotion, going on vacation) or negative (e.g., losing your job, being separated from your spouse, getting hospitalized).
Almost invariably, more stress = more anxiety, regardless of what type of anxiety you have.
So you buy a new house and suddenly your health anxiety flares up, even though a new house has nothing to do with your concern about whether you’re going to get sick.
Or you’re having frequent arguments with your teenage daughter and you notice your financial anxiety increases, despite your daughter’s irritability having nothing to do with your financial security.
Monitor your stress on a regular basis so you can identify when things are heating up and when your anxiety might follow suit.
Anxiety Trigger #2: Ignoring What Your Body Needs
When we start ignoring what our bodies need, anxiety will start to flare up as well.
What I mean here is realizing at 4PM that you haven’t eaten all day.
Or ignoring that you have to pee and suddenly it’s been 6 hours and you’re about to wet your pants.
Or staying up late to watch television or do chores even though you’re exhausted.
Our bodies send us these physical cues on a routine basis to communicate with us and let us know what we’re needing to stay healthy.
Just like babies cry and plants wilt…your body will communicate with you and let you know what it needs.
But when you ignore the crying baby or the wilting plant, they start to suffer.
And the same thing happens when you start to ignore the cues your body sends you.
In part, when we get in the habit of ignoring the physical cues our bodies send us, we can’t take care of ourselves very well.
It’d be like trying to take care of a baby that never cried…how in the world would you ever know what it needed?
When you start to ignore your body’s physical, you end up in the same position — clueless about what you’re needing and then unable to provide the right type of nurturance or care.
Often, when we’re ignoring physical cues, we’re also ignoring emotional cues.
So this means we miss the small indicators that we’re starting to become stressed or frustrated or overwhelmed.
When we ignore those small indicators, the problems become massive in a hurry and suddenly anxiety will start showing up.
Anxiety Trigger #3: Drinking Too Much Caffeine & Alcohol
You get addicted to caffeine because of trigger #2, but the bad news is that caffeine can perpetuate the problem.
Honestly, the research regarding the relationship between caffeine and anxiety is mixed: there is some evidence that people with anxiety are especially sensitive to caffeine and that caffeine can increase anxiety, and there is also some evidence that caffeine can actually reduce anxiety (at least in small-ish doses).
The important point here is to collect some data for yourself: note how anxious you feel on days you consume caffeine versus days you don’t consume caffeine and use that information to inform whether caffeine could be a trigger for you.
People with anxiety are at increased risk for developing problematic patterns of alcohol use, in part because of the perception that alcohol decreases anxiety.
But alcohol can actually increase anxiety, especially as it’s wearing off.
Anxiety Trigger #4: Skipping Exercise
I talk a lot about exercise around here because it’s just so freakin’ effective in treating mental health conditions.
Exercise has repeatedly been shown to decrease anxiety, so skipping exercise is a potential trigger for anxiety.
If you don’t want to go to the gym, consider walking your dog (in my experience, they love that) or walking with your coworkers over your lunch break or dancing while you do chores.
Get creative about how to get your heart pumping.
Anxiety Trigger #5: Not Resting Enough
Having insufficient rest periods in our life is another general trigger for anxiety.
Like your muscles, your brain needs to rest periodically to replenish the neurotransmitters that keep it going.
Interesting things happen when you rest your brain.
You might think your brain isn’t active when it’s resting, but actually your brain does this really cool thing where it activates different parts when it’s at rest versus when you’re busy.
This is where creativity happens, where your brain processes and learns from all the information it just took in, and where you have the space for the introspection that allows you to become the person you want to be.
By the way, rest doesn’t necessarily mean sleep, though sleep is definitely restful.
And rest absolutely doesn’t mean lying on the couch watching television or scrolling on your phone — let’s just put that under the “doesn’t count” column because it really does almost nothing for your body’s rest needs.
Rest can happen when you’re awake but you’re not consuming new information…you’re just pausing to take a mental break.
This can happen while you’re riding the bus or subway, while you’re sitting at a stoplight, while you’re walking to your office, while you’re waiting on your kid to get finished with soccer practice, or at a time you deliberately set aside for resting.
Rest can look like taking a nap, sitting in nature, or even meditating (side note: meditation has actually been shown to increase connections in the part of the brain that are more active at rest, which might be part of why it works so well).
This is low-tech stuff, folks.
Whatever it looks like, taking time to rest can prevent this anxiety trigger.
Part of the reason people with anxiety don’t rest is because they feel unsettled or tense when they try to relax.
When they sit down to relax, they have thoughts they should be doing something more productive…or they gravitate habitually to a combo of their phone + the TV to drown out thoughts of personal inadequacy or feelings of disquiet.
Avoiding relaxation, though, is a trigger for anxiety.
Be aware that relaxation is something that takes practice, so it might be uncomfortable or even generate some anxiety as you get started with it…just like anything new you’re trying.
But if you can start making space for rest and relaxation in your life, it will protect you from anxiety.
Anxiety Trigger #6: People Pleasing
A lot of people with anxiety have trouble doing all the things they know would help protect them from anxiety and give in to all the triggers I’ve listed in this article because of deep-seated rules we’ve made up for ourselves about needing to meet other people’s expectations….rules like, “I should always do what others ask of me,” “I should never let anyone down,” or “People must like me.”
So we absorb extra stress (trigger #1), get in a cycle of not taking care of ourselves (trigger #2), drink too much caffeine and alcohol to compensate (trigger #3), and skip the gym (trigger #4) and essentially all forms of rest (trigger #5) to be able to find the time to be what we think other people want us to be.
Really, it comes down to fear: a fear of disappointing other people that causes us to place other people’s needs before our own.
To find freedom from anxiety, we have to make a tough choice to accept the reality that some people will be upset or disappointed that we are aligning our behavior with our own desires, values, and needs rather than someone else’s.
Master Your Anxiety
There you have it, folks: 6 things that consistently trigger anxiety in just about everyone, no matter what kind of anxiety you have.
Being aware of these triggers helps us know when to put our coping skills into place.
If you’re ready to start making tough changes to master your anxiety, grab my list of 9 ways to manage anxiety without medication here:
Next week, we’re continuing this conversation about anxiety as we talk specifically about panic. Panic is caused by a 4-part spiral, and I’ll show you exactly how it works. Understanding how panic works is a big step in being able to master it. Don’t miss it.
Talk to you soon,
Dr. Finch
P.S. Remember, this is education, not treatment. Always consult with a psychologist or therapist about your mental health to determine what information and interventions are best for you. See the disclaimer for more details.
Hayden C. Finch, PhD, is a practicing psychologist in Des Moines, Iowa, dedicated to helping you master your mental health.
