Why “Just Relax” Doesn’t Work for Anxiety (and What Does)

Let’s face it: if gratitude journaling or deep breathing alone solved anxiety, you probably wouldn't be reading this right now. 

Think of your anxiety like a smoke alarm. Its job is to alert you to danger—and that function is essential for keeping you safe. But some alarms are hypersensitive, and they go off when you’ve burned the toast. 

That’s how anxiety can feel for many people. Its function is useful—anxiety can motivate you to show up on time for work, for example, or study for an exam. But sometimes, your nervous system is hypersensitive, interpreting everyday stress as danger and sounding the alarm ‘round the clock. 

Let’s unpack why the usual advice tends to backfire, what’s happening in your body when anxiety takes over, and what actually helps.

Your Body Isn’t Broken—It’s Protecting You

When your brain’s alarm center—the amygdala—detects a possible threat (like a new job), it sounds the alarm automatically. Your nervous system flips into survival mode, and your logic temporarily takes a backseat.  

That’s not a flaw; it’s your body trying to keep you safe. In a real emergency, your brain doesn’t want you calmly weighing your options. It wants you to react.  It’s the same process that helps you jump out of the way of a speeding car before you even realize what’s happening. Your body’s wired to handle the threat first and figure it out later.

But most of the time, what sets off that alarm isn’t a real emergency — it’s something that feels threatening, like a tough email or moment of self-doubt. When that happens, your body still reacts as if there’s danger, even if you’re just sitting at your desk. 

Why “Just Relax” Backfires

When you tell yourself to calm down, you’re layering judgment on top of activation:

“What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I handle this?”

That extra pressure keeps adrenaline pumping. It’s like trying to get your toddler to calm down by yelling at them—understandable, maybe, but ineffective. 

That’s why telling an anxious brain to “think positive” or “just relax” doesn’t work—it’s like reasoning with a smoke alarm. Logic simply can’t override a body that feels threatened. The body has to return to a sense of safety before your reasonable mind can come back online. 

What Actually Helps

You can’t outthink a nervous system—you have to out-soothe it.

Self-soothing isn’t pretending everything’s fine—it’s helping your system recognize that, at this moment, you’re not in danger. When your body begins to settle, even slightly, your thinking brain comes back online. That’s when you can meet your anxiety with curiosity instead of panic. 

The next step is learning you don’t need certainty to be okay. Anxiety wants guarantees—it wants to know exactly how things will play out, what happens next, how to avoid every possible mistake. But calm doesn’t come from knowing all the answers. It comes from trusting that you can handle the not knowing. 

When you stop trying to get rid of anxiety and start learning to live alongside it, your brain finally gets the message: This is an email, not a bear.