Your Response to Anxiety is Anxious Fixation
You manage anxiety by keeping an eye on it — but its causing you more anxiety.
Don’t worry - you’re in good company. The vast majority of people with stuck anxiety respond this way. Especially if you have suffered a panic attack or struggle with health anxiety.
Anxious Fixation is a coping strategy that has gone wrong. Let me explain:
You’ve likely been through enough anxious episodes (like a panic attack or intense anxiety) that your brain is trying to stay one step ahead by monitoring every flutter, sensation, or shift in mood. It makes sense. When something has felt overwhelming before, your nervous system wants to catch it early next time. This is your body’s way of saying, “Let’s be prepared.”
Problem is, it’s causing more anxiety!
The more you check in on anxiety, the more anxious you feel.
Why? Because each time you check, you see anxiety and then believe you’ll stay stuck like this forever… sounds familiar, right?
Plus…checking reinforces the belief that anxiety is dangerous and keeps you anxious about being anxious.
…And that keeps the anxiety loop going.
You’re not doing anxiety wrong. You’ve just developed a response that’s making it louder.
What This Might Look Like:
Constantly monitoring your emotions or symptoms
Checking how anxious you feel throughout the day
Constantly asking “what if I get anxious”
A New Way Forward
Moving out of anxious fixation doesn’t mean ignoring anxiety, it means relating to it differently. We need to change your response to anxiety so you can break free of this pattern.
The E.A.S.E. Method provides 4 vital steps to do this, you will begin with the most important: SHIFT. (it’s the S of the method ;))
Here are two gentle ways to begin shifting your focus off anxiety:
1. Name It to Defuse It
When you catch yourself scanning, gently say:
“Ah, this is my brain checking for danger again.”
That simple label helps you notice the pattern, without fusing to it or focussing on it.
2. Shift from “How Do I Feel?” to “What Do I Need?”
Instead of checking how anxious you are, try asking:
“What would support me right now, whether anxiety is here or not?”
This moves your focus from monitoring to meeting your needs.
That’s is just the beginning.
There’s a way to stop fueling anxiety altogether — not by fixing or fighting it, but by changing your response to it entirely. That’s what I teach inside the EASE Method.
You’ll learn how to step into empowered acceptance, so anxiety no longer interrupts your life.
Created by Clinical Psychologist
ABOUT DIANTE FUCHS, CLIN. PSYCHOLOGIST
Diante Fuchs is a Clinical Psychologist, international anxiety coach, and author of The Gift of Anxiety. She’s been helping people heal from anxiety and panic since 2010 — not by managing symptoms, but by changing the way they understand and respond to anxiety altogether.
Through her signature EASE Method (and a refreshingly honest approach to mental health), Diante helps high-achieving, insightful people reclaim their confidence and feel like themselves again — without medication or endless coping strategies.
Her work is grounded in neuroscience, clinical expertise, and over a decade of experience, but what sets her apart is her belief that anxiety isn’t a disorder — it’s a message. And when we learn how to listen to it, everything changes.