Anxiety Avoidance Behaviors: Why It Grows the More You Avoid It and How to Deal With It

Have you ever not opened a message for days because you were afraid of the results, or kept looking for other things to do whenever you thought of what you had to do? The desire to simply avoid an anxious situation is an anxiety avoidance behavior. The moment you avoid it, you feel comfortable. But the problem is, the anxiety you avoided grows bigger.

What are Anxiety Avoidance Behaviors?

Anxiety avoidance behavior is a pattern of avoiding or postponing anxious situations or emotions instead of facing them. Not checking your health checkup results for a week, continuously putting off an important conversation, or not even being able to start a task that feels difficult all fall into this category.

Mowrer’s (1960) Two-Factor Theory explains this well. At first, a specific situation becomes linked to anxiety (classical conditioning), and the sense of relief felt when avoiding that situation acts as a reward, leading to repeated avoidance (operant conditioning). In other words, because avoiding makes you feel comfortable, you continue to avoid.

The problem is that this relief is a temporary fix. Avoiding does not make the anxiety disappear—in fact, it feels much larger the next time that situation arises.

Patterns of Anxiety Avoidance Behavior — How About Me?

Putting off checking out of fear of the results. Test scores, health checkup results, checking replies… you postpone checking itself for fear of bad results. You think, ‘If I don’t know, I won’t be anxious,’ but actually, the ‘state of not knowing’ continues to create another form of anxiety.

Escapist behaviors emerge. A pattern of turning on YouTube, playing games, or taking a nap when there is work to be done. It’s an attempt to escape anxiety, but since the task remains, the anxiety is not resolved.

The safety zone is gradually shrinking. At first, you only avoided large gatherings, but later, small meetups and phone calls might also become difficult. The scope of avoidance gradually widens.

Self-efficacy decreases. If you keep avoiding, the belief that ‘I am someone who cannot handle this’ becomes stronger. You can actually do it, but because you haven’t tried, you don’t know.

Why does anxiety grow the more you avoid it?

In Barlow’s (2002) three-component model of anxiety, avoidance corresponds to the ‘behavioral component.’ As avoidance behavior repeats, the brain increasingly reinforces the signal that ‘that situation is dangerous.’ In the end, avoidance itself magnifies the anxiety.

Research on Exposure Therapy proved the opposite principle. When you actually face a fearful situation, the brain relearns that ‘it was better than I thought,’ and the anxiety decreases. Avoiding is not the answer; facing it is the practical way to reduce anxiety.

How to break free from anxiety avoidance behaviors

Try facing it starting from very small things. There’s no need to take on a massive challenge all at once. ‘Opening the reply right away today,’ ‘Focusing on that task for just 5 minutes.’ Graduated exposure is the key. As small successes accumulate, confidence builds.

Compare when you avoided and when you faced it. The next time the urge to avoid comes, face it just once and write down the result. As the experience of ‘it was better than I thought’ accumulates, your brain relearns.

Practice ‘It’s okay to be anxious.’ Trying to eliminate anxiety makes it grow bigger. Instead, try accepting it by saying, ‘I’m anxious right now, but I’ll still give it a try.’ This is a core principle of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), practicing moving forward with anxiety instead of fighting it.

Try talking to someone you can trust. Don’t try to handle it alone. Saying ‘I’m struggling with this these days’ is itself the first action to break the avoidance pattern.

The desire to avoid is not a mistake

The desire to avoid in the face of anxiety is a natural self-protective response. It becomes a problem when it becomes a habit, not because your willpower is weak from the start.

Try doing just one thing today. Open that message you’ve been putting off, or look at those results you were afraid to check for just 5 minutes. That one time is the starting point to changing the avoidance pattern.

If you want to check what your anxiety type is → Anxiety Type Test

If you want to check if it comes with stress → Stress Level Test