Your Anxiety Is Trying to Protect You

Healing Is My Hobby | October 12, 2026

Last week we asked, is this a problem, or is this a prediction? This week we go deeper into why anxiety shows up the way it does. Underneath the overthinking, checking, avoiding, rehearsing, and 3 a.m. wake-up calls, anxiety usually has one message: something might go wrong, and I want to make sure you're prepared.

In this episode, Jessica Colarco, LCSW, explains how your brain's alarm system works, why it can become oversensitive, and why anxiety can be protective without being accurate. You'll learn how avoidance, reassurance-seeking, and overthinking bring short-term relief while teaching your brain that the danger was real, and how to start relating to anxiety differently without fighting it.

In this episode:

• Why your brain is designed to look for danger, and what happens when the smoke detector goes off every time you make toast
• Why feeling unsafe and being unsafe aren't always the same thing
• How past experiences teach your brain what to watch for, and why it sometimes works from old information
• Anxiety can be protective without being accurate
• How avoidance, reassurance, and overthinking can keep anxiety going
• Why trying to shut anxiety down often leads to anxiety about anxiety
• Why the goal isn't to never feel anxious

Your practice this week:

When anxiety shows up, ask yourself:

1. What is my anxiety trying to protect me from?
2. Is there an actual threat or problem happening right now?
3. What would I do next if I didn't need absolute certainty first?

Coming up next week: The anxiety loop: why the things that make anxiety feel better right now can keep it going.

Free resource:

Download Your Personal Care Plan, a simple place to start noticing what you need and what actually supports you, from the resource library at heal.jessicacolarcolcsw.com.

Connect:

📩 Join the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com

📷 Instagram: @healingismyhobby

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby

🩺 Work with Jessica: jessicacolarcolcsw.com

📷 Instagram: @jessicacolarcolcsw

🎵 TikTok: @jessicacolarcolcsw

anxiety, anxiety is trying to protect you, why do I have anxiety, anxiety and the nervous system, overactive alarm system, smoke detector analogy anxiety, feelings aren't facts, anxiety vs danger, avoidance and anxiety, reassurance seeking, overthinking, rumination, intolerance of uncertainty, anxiety about anxiety, 3am anxiety, why does my body feel anxious when I know I'm okay, anxiety loop, how to stop overthinking, living with uncertainty, nervous system regulation, CBT for anxiety, ERP, exposure and response prevention, anxiety therapist, Henderson NV therapist, Las Vegas anxiety therapist, Jessica Colarco LCSW, Healing Is My Hobby podcast, mental health podcast, therapist podcast

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy or professional mental health care.

Welcome back to Healing is My Hobby. I'm Jessica Collarco, a licensed clinical social worker, CBT therapist, and someone who believes healing doesn't have to become another thing you have to perfect. Last week we started talking about anxiety.

And I gave you a question that I hope you've been playing around with. Is this a problem or is this a prediction? Because anxiety is really good at taking something that could happen and making it feel like something that is happening. This week I want to take that conversation a little deeper.

Because I think one of the biggest shifts we can make in how we relate to anxiety is understanding this. Your anxiety is trying to protect you. I know. Sometimes it has a very interesting way of showing it. Because it might be protecting you by waking you up at three o'clock in the morning to remind you about something you already thought about 17 times yesterday. Very helpful. Thank you, Brain.

But underneath all of that overthinking, checking, planning, avoiding, rehearsing, and worrying, anxiety usually has one basic message. Something might go wrong, and I want to make sure you're prepared. And when we understand that, we can start changing our relationship with anxiety. Your brain is designed to look for danger. Let's start with something important.

Okay, your brain is not malfunctioning simply because it notices potential threats. It's supposed to do that. Your nervous system is constantly taking in information and asking some version of, am I safe? you walk into a parking lot at night and automatically become more aware of your surroundings. You hear a loud crash somewhere in your house and your attention immediately shifts. Someone suddenly swerves into your lane.

While you're driving and your whole body responds before you even had time to think. That's your protective system doing exactly what it's supposed to do. The problem isn't that we have an alarm system, we need one. The problem is that sometimes the alarm system becomes a little too sensitive. Think about a smoke detector. A smoke detector is incredibly important when there's fire, but if your smoke detector goes off

Every single time you make toast, the alarm itself isn't necessarily telling you how dangerous the situation is. It's telling you something triggered the alarm. And anxiety can work the same way. An alarm is not proof of danger, and that distinction is so important. Feeling unsafe and being unsafe are not always the same thing. Feeling anxious and being in danger are not always the same thing.

Your body can sound an alarm in response to uncertainty, a memory, a sensation, a thought, a facial expression, a text message, a change in someone's tone, a deadline, doctor's appointment, a conversation you know you need to have. And once that alarm goes off, your brain naturally starts looking for an explanation. Why do I feel like this? What's wrong? What am I missing? What if something happens?

And sometimes we accidentally use the feeling itself as evidence. I feel anxious, therefore something must be wrong. But feelings are not always facts, they're information. And that's something we've been talking about a lot on this podcast. Your nervous system gives you information, but information still has to be interpreted. Why does my anxiety react to things that aren't dangerous? This is something people ask me all the time.

Why am I anxious about this? I know it's not a big deal. Or I know logically that I'm okay. Why doesn't my body believe me? And I think this is where we need to have some compassion for how our brains learn. If something has hurt you before, embarrassed you before, overwhelmed you before, or made you feel out of control before, your brain may become more alert to anything that resembles that experience. And sometimes that makes perfect sense. If you've been betrayed,

You might become more sensitive to signs that someone is pulling away. If you've experienced panic attacks, you might become hyperaware of changes in your heart rate. If you've been criticized frequently, you may pay very close attention to someone's tone. If you've gone through a period where life felt chaotic, uncertainty itself might start to feel threatening. Your brain essentially says, I remember this. Let's make sure that doesn't happen again. And sometimes that protective response is useful.

Other times it's working from old information. Anxiety can be protective without being accurate. And I really want you to hear this part. Just because anxiety is trying to protect you doesn't mean anxiety is always right. And that's an important distinction. We can understand why something is happening without automatically believing what it's telling us. Your anxiety might say, Don't speak up. Someone might judge you. Don't go.

You might feel uncomfortable. Check again, you might have missed something. Ask them if they're upset something feels urgent. Don't make the decision yet. You might make the wrong one. Keep thinking about it. There has to be an answer. The intention underneath all of those messages is protection. Avoid embarrassment. Avoid rejection. Avoid uncertainty. Avoid discomfort. Avoid making a mistake.

Avoid being caught off guard. But here's the tricky part. If we follow anxiety's instructions every single time, we can accidentally teach our brains, you're right, that was dangerous. Good thing we avoided it. And that is where anxiety can start getting bigger. So let's talk about avoidance. Imagine you're anxious about going to a social event. Your brain starts generating predictions. What if I don't know anyone? What if I don't know what to say? What if I feel

Awkward, what if I want to leave? Your body responds. You feel uncomfortable, you're tense, you're thinking about it all day, and finally you decide, you know what? I'm not going. And almost immediately, relief. Your shoulders drop. You can breathe again. You don't have to deal with it. And your brain goes, excellent. We escaped danger. Except

Was the event actually dangerous? We don't know, because you never went. And this is one of the frustrating things about anxiety. The things we do to feel better in the short term can sometimes strengthen anxiety in the long term.

Reassurance can work the same way. Avoidance isn't the only way we do this. Sometimes we seek reassurance. Maybe someone you love seems quiet and your anxiety says they're upset. So you ask, Are you okay? And they say, Yeah, I'm fine. And then you feel better. And for about 10 minutes. And then anxiety says, they sounded weird when they said that. So you ask again, are you sure?

And they reassure you again. Relief. And then maybe later, did I do something? More reassurance. More relief. And here's what's interesting. Every time you get reassurance, your anxiety decreases temporarily. So your brain learns when I feel anxious, I need reassurance to feel safe. And the next time uncertainty shows up, your brain asks for reassurance again.

This doesn't mean that reassurance is bad. We're humans. We need connection. We need support. But here is a difference between receiving support and repeatedly trying to get someone else to eliminate uncertainty for us. And anxiety loves the second one. Overthinking can be protective too. This one is huge. Sometimes anxiety doesn't look like avoidance at all. Sometimes it looks like thinking.

And thinking

And thinking because your brain believes if I think about this long enough, I'll figure out the perfect answer. Should I take the job? Should I send the text? Should I say something? What did they mean by that? Did I make the right choice? What if I regret it? Maybe I'll replay the conversation. Maybe I'll make another pros and cons less. Maybe I'll ask three more people what they think. Maybe I'll research it again. And at some point we're no longer problem solving. We're trying to think our way.

Into certainty, and certainty isn't available. What is anxiety protecting me from? So here's a question I want to practice this week. Instead of asking, how do I make this go away? Try asking, what is my anxiety protecting me from? Maybe it's rejection, embarrassment, disappointing someone, maybe it's making a mistake.

Losing control, uncertainty, feeling uncomfortable. Maybe it's grief. Maybe it's a possibility that something could happen to someone you love. You don't have to argue with the answer. Just notice it. My anxiety is my anxiety is trying to protect me from making the wrong decision. My anxiety is trying to protect me from someone being disappointed in me. My anxiety is trying to protect me from feeling embarrassed. My anxiety is trying to make sure I'm prepared.

And then add one more question. Do I actually need protection right now? Not could something theoretically go wrong? Because the answer to that question is almost always yes. Something could always go wrong. Instead, is there something I actually need to respond to right now? And that brings us back to the present. You don't have to fight the alarm. Sometimes when people realize they're anxious, they immediately start trying to shut it down. Stop thinking about it.

Calm down, distract yourself, tell yourself everything's fine. And then you get anxious about being anxious. Why can't I stop this? I should be better at this. I know all the coping skills. I shouldn't feel this way. And suddenly we have anxiety about anxiety. You don't have to fight the alarm. You can notice my alarm system is activated. You can get curious. What does my brain think it's protecting me from? You can check the facts.

Is there something happening right now that requires action? And then you can decide how you want to respond. That's very different from automatically obeying anxiety. The goal isn't to never feel anxious. I want to keep coming back to this throughout the series because it's so important. The goal is not to become a person who never experiences anxiety. That just isn't realistic. And honestly, I don't think it would even be desirable because anxiety can tell us.

That something matters. It can help us prepare, it can make us aware, it can mobilize us. We're not trying to rip the smoke detector off the ceiling. We're learning to recognize when it's detecting a fire and when we just burn the toast. So this week, when anxiety shows up, try these three questions. What is my anxiety trying to protect me from? Is there an actual threat or problem happening right now? What would I do next if I didn't?

Need absolute certainty first. The last question is a big one because sometimes the next step isn't getting rid of the anxiety. Sometimes the next step is doing something while anxiety comes along for the ride. Sending the email, going to the event, having the conversation, making the decision, waiting for the answer, not checking again.

Allowing someone to be quiet without immediately deciding what their silence means. That's how we start teaching the nervous system something new. Not nothing uncomfortable will ever happen, but I can experience uncertainty and still be okay. Next week, we're going to put all of this together and talk about something I see constantly in my therapy practice: the anxiety loop.

Because once you understand the loop, you start noticing it everywhere. Anxious thought, uncomfortable feeling. Something we do to get temporary relief. And then the anxiety comes back. We're gonna talk about why that happens and why some of the things that make anxiety feel better right now can actually keep it going. Before you go, if you've been trying to take better care of yourself, but you're not even sure what that looks like anymore, you can download my free personal care plan from my resource library.

at heal h e a l dot Jessicacolarcolcw.com. It's a simple place to start noticing what you need and what actually supports you. And remember, your anxiety isn't your enemy. It's a protective system, but you don't have to let it make every decision. I'll see you next Monday. And if you follow me for more tips or see what else is going on, you can follow me on TikTok at Jessica Colarco L C S W and on Instagram and Facebook at jessicacolarcolcsw

If you want to know more about my clinical practice, you can visit me at Jessica Clerkolcsw.com. If you'd like to sign up for the newsletter, you can go to healing is my hobby.com. Take care.