Safety behaviors

Safety Behaviors: The Secret Strategies We Use to Avoid Anxiety
​by Hayden Beach

Do you ever find yourself engaging (or not engaging) in certain behaviors in an effort to avoid anxiety or discomfort? Maybe you avoid eye contact or constantly check your phone when you're in a situation that's new and anxiety-producing. In CBT, we refer to these as safety behaviors.

Many of these tendencies may be automatic or seem insignificant, but we use them for a reason. Engaging in these behaviors is a way we can reduce anxiety in the moment and feel safer in those anxious, high-stress situations. Just like maladaptive coping mechanisms, safety behaviors can manifest in various situations – whether it's dealing with social interactions, body image concerns, or perfectionism – and anything we do to find just a sliver of relief during stress or anxiety can be considered a safety behavior.

You might be wondering: what's the difference between healthy coping mechanisms and safety behaviors? The distinction between the two is that safety behaviors avoid stress and anxiety, while healthy and adaptive coping mechanisms help us adapt to stress and anxiety. Rather than looking to escape the discomfort, adaptive coping mechanisms help us to confront it and move forward in a way that builds resilience.

Although these behaviors may help us feel better in the moment, they actually hold us back and reinforce our anxiety in the long run.

A personal example: I help lead a weekly social anxiety group, and one of the most frequent conversations we have in session is about the things we do to feel safer in anxious situations. Through exploring members' safety behaviors, I realized I had quite a few of my own to work through as well!

Here's one way safety behaviors show up in my own life: For as long as I can remember, public speaking has always been a challenge for me. Whenever I give a presentation, I tend to script out on paper nearly everything I plan on saying – rather than relying on my own knowledge and competency from the research I have done, I have a script laid out in front of me so that I can avoid any mishaps. I used to think that this was just another way I like to be prepared, but when I gave this action some more thought, I realized that I am prepared enough on my own, without reading a script or having one at my disposal; I just hadn't relied on or trusted my own capabilities to get me through.

What makes safety behaviors harmful
The tricky part about dealing with safety behaviors is that they actually work in the short term. If they provide us with this momentary relief, why should we want to drop them?

Here's why they can be harmful, add fuel to our anxiety, and work against us:

1. They create dependence: The more we engage in these behaviors, the more we come to believe that we cannot survive without them.
2. They can backfire: Many times, the behaviors we use make us seem withdrawn (i.e., avoiding eye contact, checking our phones, only asking the questions during a conversation). Using behaviors like this can make us appear unfriendly or uninterested, leading to a negative outcome we were trying to prevent all along.
3. They hold us back: They prevent us from learning that our feared situations are not as dangerous as we think.
4. They maintain anxiety: The outcome that we fear so much (messing up, saying the wrong thing) is unlikely to happen, and if it does, it's likely much less catastrophic than anticipated – often unnoticeable to those around us.

​Safety behaviors may feel helpful in the short run, but they often trap us in a loop of anxiety and avoidance. The first step you can take this coming week is to simply notice these behaviors and where/when they show up in your life. Once we become aware of them, know what they are, and how they work against us, we can begin the next steps and work through safety behaviors.

Stay tuned for next week's blog where we will discuss challenging these behaviors and gradually let them go in a way that builds real confidence.