“What if this pain in my arm means that I have a serious illness?”
“What if I fail at my new job?”
“What if I said too much at the party and people are talking about me?”
If you often find yourself asking “What If?” questions like these, you probably also attempt to seek reassurance that your feared “What If?” scenario is unlikely to occur. People seek reassurance from a variety of sources, including spouses, family members, friends, the internet, and A.I. chatbots.
Unfortunately, reassurance-seeking is a poor coping strategy. This is because:
- The person from whom you’re seeking reassurance might not be qualified to give it to you (e.g. A.I. chatbot, random person on the internet, your mom).
- In many cases, reassurance is not possible. For example, how would a person’s family members or friends know what is causing the pain their arm? Searching for reassurance just leaves you frustrated, and causes you to keep searching more, in the hopes that you’ll find your answer. This can take up a lot of time, headspace, and energy (thank you, “Dr. A.I.” and the endless internet).
- Constant requests for reassurance often begin to annoy loved ones, who might start responding with frustration or anger.
- When you seek reassurance from other sources, you are relying on these sources, rather than yourself, to manage your worry.
- Perhaps the biggest problem with reassurance-seeking as an anxiety management strategy is that it doesn’t work. After a relatively brief period of calm, anxiety has a way of coming back stronger after reassurance is provided, rendering the reassurance unhelpful.
So here’s an alternative: Use the tried-and-true cognitive-behavioral therapy technique of looking at the facts. For example, someone who worries about failing at their new job could ask themselves if there is actual, cold-hard-evidence to suggest that they will fail at their job. Have they ever failed at a job? Are there supports in place to keep them from failing at their job? What could they do if they started experiencing problems?
Seeking out factual evidence is much more productive than constantly seeking reassurance. And examining evidence is something you can do on your own, without having to rely on others (or on the notoriously unreliable internet). When you next feel the impulse to reassurance-seek, try examining the evidence instead.
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