The 3 Anxiety Cycles (and the One Move That Gets You Out)

In our latest Rattled podcast episode, Dr. Nicole Pensak and I got out a whiteboard and drew the loops that so many of us fall into as new parents. I promised I'd write them down for you, so here they are.

Dr Becky Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist

4 min read

overhead of mom checking on baby in crib

Introduction

A quick thing before you read. These cycles are normal. Anxiety can be helpful. Until it’s not.

Almost every parent lands in at least one of these cycles, and that's not a sign something's wrong with you. The trouble starts when the loop becomes the boss of you and runs the show. That's what we're undoing here.

One rule: pick one move. Not all three. I have a feeling you're an overachiever, and change gets overwhelming fast if you try to fix everything at once. Read all 3, find the one you saw yourself in most, and try that single move this week.

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1. The reassurance cycle

You're sitting on the couch. "Is my baby breathing?" You don't know for sure. So you get up, walk to the crib, and check. She's breathing. You sit back down and feel better.

Ten seconds later, the thought is back. "Is she breathing now?"

Checking makes you feel better for a minute. Then the thought returns, and now your brain has learned that the way to feel okay is to go check again. So it keeps asking. The relief is real, but it's teaching the loop to run faster.

The move: surf the urge. When the pull to check hits, ask yourself one question first: "Is this an emergency?" Your body is acting like it is. It rarely actually is. Then wait a little longer than you did last time before you check. Even 10 seconds. Say to yourself, "I can tolerate this for 10 more seconds." Those 10 seconds count. That's the first crack in the loop, and it lets the anxiety start coming down on its own.

2. Emotional reasoning

Your baby isn't rolling over yet. Your pediatrician looked at her and said, "She's fine, this is in the normal range." But at playgroup, everyone else's baby is basically doing cartwheels. And somewhere inside, you just feel like something's wrong.

Then a quiet, sneaky thing happens. The intensity of the feeling starts to feel like proof of the size of the problem. "If I feel this strongly that something's wrong, something must be wrong." Nicole calls this a cognitive distortion, a filter on your thoughts that isn't accurate but feels completely true.

And it often leads somewhere: you stop going to playgroup so you don't have to feel it. Which only turns the volume up.

The move: compassion first, then separate the two things. There's a lot of shame tangled up in this. Mom guilt, mom shame, all of it. So talk to yourself the way you'd talk to a good friend. Then untangle two things that got fused together: your feeling is real, and whether there's an actual problem is a separate question. You're allowed to feel disappointed your baby isn't rolling over yet, and you're allowed to trust the pediatrician who says she's fine. Both are true. Feel the disappointment. And try not to stack a feeling on top of the feeling ("I shouldn't even be feeling this").

3. The avoidance cycle

"What if my baby freaks out crying at the grocery store?" You know what, I'll just have someone else go. I'm not doing the grocery store.

And the anxiety drops. Fast. Avoidance is incredibly effective in the moment, and that's exactly the problem. It works so well that it spreads. No grocery store, then no restaurants, then no friends coming over. Before long you're not leaving the house, not getting a break, not restoring, and the whole thing spirals down into burnout.

The move: do the thing in a small dose. Make it a dry run. Go to the store for 10 minutes, grab one item, check out, come home. Set yourself up for a win, then build from there. Your baby will probably cry at some point. You'll both survive. That's actually how capability gets built, by doing the hard thing, watching it go a little sideways, and learning you can handle it anyway.

Where to go from here

Remember: pick one. Find the cycle you recognized most and try that one move this week.

And if none of these quite fit, if your cycle feels different from the 3 we drew, email me at podcast@goodinside.com. I really want to get this right for you.

One of the things we're proudest of about Good Inside Baby is that yes, we cover feeding and sleep and solids - but we also focus on parental mental health, coping skills, and partnership communication. Because the early months are about so much more than what's happening with your baby. They're about what's happening with you. Check it out here - it's the best investment you can make in your first year as parents.

Introduction
1. The reassurance cycle
2. Emotional reasoning
3. The avoidance cycle
Where to go from here

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