Action as an Antidote for anxiety?

“Action is the antidote to anxiety.”

A wise friend said this to me recently and I have found myself coming back to it. It is one of those phrases that feels immediately helpful, particularly if you are someone who can get caught in your head, circling thoughts or overthinking things.

And yet, as we talked it through, I found myself getting curious about it rather than taking it at face value. Because sometimes it feels true and sometimes less so.

There are definitely moments where doing something shifts things.

When I am stuck in my head, even a small step can create a bit of movement. Not a dramatic change, but enough to loosen the grip of whatever I am caught up in.

I notice this in simple ways:

• Starting something I have been putting off.

• Going out for a short walk when everything feels a bit too much.

• Doing a few minutes of a task rather than waiting to feel ready.

It is not that the feeling disappears, but it often feels less intense. There is a sense of “I can do something here”, which feels important. In this sense, action is less about a big sweeping change and more about a small step that brings you back into motion.

Alongside this, I have also been reminded that anxiety itself is not necessarily something to get rid of. If I think about it through the lens of Steve Peters’ mind management work, anxiety can be seen as a protective response. Our Chimp System is trying to alert us, to keep us safe, to get our attention. The challenge is not its presence, but how we respond to it.

Yet what about when we stay in action in a way that feels less helpful? Busy and potentially productive, but not necessarily connected. Almost as if the doing is there to stop something else being felt.

For example:

• Filling the diary so there is no space to think.

• Keeping busy with tasks rather than sitting with and accepting what is actually going on.

• Moving quickly from one thing to the next without really pausing.

On the surface, it can look like coping well. But underneath, I wonder if it is sometimes a way of not having to acknowledge the feelings of overwhelm at all.

There seems to be a difference between action that feels chosen, even if small, and action that feels driven, almost like one cannot quite stop.

In one, there is at least a moment of awareness: “I feel a bit anxious… and I am going to take this step anyway.”

In the other, the awareness can get lost altogether.

I don’t think this is about getting it right, more about noticing what is going on in the moment.

Some ideas to experiment with might therefore be:

• Pausing, even briefly – Just long enough to notice what am I actually feeling right now.

• Taking one small step – Not everything, just something that feels manageable.

• Putting a light boundary around it – For example, I will do this for 10–15 minutes and then check back in.

• Noticing the energy behind it – Does this feel calm enough, or slightly frantic.

• Letting there be a bit of stillness as well – Even if it is uncomfortable, just allowing a moment where I am not doing.

• Being a bit more forgiving with myself – Anxiety seems to be part of being human. I am not sure it needs to be something I fix completely.

Sometimes just taking a pause to notice what we are actually feeling can shift things a little.

And from there, any action we take tends to feel more like a choice rather than a reaction.