Many people don’t want to wear their struggles on their sleeve. People with anxiety, for example, often want to appear calm because they don’t want to broadcast how they are really feeling. But much as we’d like, we can’t always cover up every uncomfortable behavior or emotion.
If you’re someone who masks their anxiety, understanding these behaviors can help you better manage what you have going on. On the other hand, if you’re around someone with anxiety, it’s helpful to know these telltale behaviors to better practice kindness toward them. They will appreciate that bit of extra effort that they may not often get.
1. Perfectionism as a means of exerting control.
Anxiety often manifests as perfectionist thoughts and behaviors. The perfectionist tries to make themselves comfortable by exerting control over their life, environment, and the people around them. They believe that everything is predictable if it’s perfect. Unfortunately, people and life aren’t like that. They can get pretty messy and entirely unpredictable.
No matter how hard you work to make something perfect, it can’t ever be. People make decisions you haven’t accounted for, things can go wrong that you weren’t expecting, and sometimes stuff just doesn’t work out for no understandable reason. Still, the perfectionist strives for perfection in their own lives and often micromanages the people around them.
The fear of angering or disappointing other people can also induce anxiety, and achieving perfection is seen as the answer to this. But Healthline informs us that perfectionists often set impossibly high standards that they just can’t live up to, thus self-sabotaging and setting themselves up for failure anyway.
2. Busyness as an avoidance strategy.
Needing to be busy all the time is often an avoidant behavior, even though the person is overloading themselves with responsibilities and commitments. If they don’t have the time to stop and think, to be still with themselves, then they don’t have to think about what is going on in their mind.
Furthermore, an anxious mind is often one that is working in overdrive. The person may believe that they are just high-performing, highly productive, and striving to get all these things done because they have the mental energy for it. Unfortunately, that can quickly lead to burnout because their mind is already in overdrive, and they are just overloading it further.
Anxious people often have a difficult time just stopping, sitting down, and resting. That could either be in one’s personal or professional life.
3. Engaging in self-soothing.
Self-soothing comes in many forms, not all of them as serious as something like substance abuse. Anxious people may lean on the old and familiar to provide stability and comfort. Many will listen to the same bands or even the same song over and over because it’s predictable. Binge-watching beloved shows or having them run in the background may also be self-soothing. Since they’ve already experienced it, their brain knows what to expect, so there aren’t any surprises, and they can relax as much as they can.
Personally, I was always a fan of having shows like The Office playing in the background. It wasn’t until I learned this fact that I understood that I was subconsciously self-soothing to try to ease the stress of everything that was going on in my head. Similarly, sitting down to watch it the whole way through the 40th time is comforting because it’s just something I know and I’m familiar with.
Anxious people may also repeat self-soothing statements and affirmations like “I’m fine” or “It’s no big deal.” They may also claim to just not care about things because they are trying to convince themselves that they don’t care or that the thing is unimportant. After all, if they can convince themselves of that, they don’t need to worry and be anxious about it.
4. Overthinking to the point of hyperfixation.
Anxiety can cause you to hyperfixate on things you may feel are wrong, could have been wrong, or could have gone better. That hyperfixation isn’t limited to just what happened recently, either. It might be that you find yourself going over conversations or activities that happened long ago.
As Very Well Mind points out, everyone overthinks from time to time, particularly about important things in their life. However, someone with anxiety or who struggles with overthinking either can’t shut it off or they overthink about things that don’t matter.
Overthinkers often overplan, too. They try to account for every eventuality or thing that could possibly go wrong so that they aren’t caught off guard and unprepared. They don’t just have a Plan B; they also have a Plan C, D, and E ready to go, just in case.
Overthinking often disrupts relationships because people tend to find what they go looking for. And by that, I mean their perception colors what they’re interpreting. For example, someone may make a totally innocent statement, but you find offense in it because you’re looking for offense. By doing that, your brain latches onto the most unreasonable interpretation and convinces you that offense is there when none was intended.
5. People-pleasing to avoid conflict.
Conflict is an inevitable part of relationships, even if it’s just a mild disagreement that you need to talk your way through. However, people with anxiety often want to avoid conflict, so to keep the peace, they tend to just agree to things without establishing boundaries or standing up for themselves.
You often find this kind of behavior in survivors of child abuse who needed to keep the peace with adults or people who were stronger or had control over them. According to Very Well Mind, anxiety is a common part of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (C-PTSD), so there is quite a lot of overlap there.
People-pleasing may also be a comforting behavior for anxious people who need external validation, want to be liked, or feel like they need to be liked. They don’t want to say no because they believe that other people will think less of them or that they will lose relationships.
6. Body language give aways.
Body language often reveals more than we intend. That’s quite true for anxiety. People with anxiety may do things like clench their jaw, hold their breath regularly, or have their body tensed up without them ever realizing it. It’s just their body reacting to stress.
Other telltale nervous behaviors like biting nails or bouncing a leg to work off nervous energy are common. An anxious person may pick at their skin, repeatedly rub their hands or arms, or just give off a nervous vibe. Fidgeting and playing with objects may also indicate a nervous energy that the person is trying to calm themselves.
7. Avoiding events and activities.
Anxiety causes avoidant behavior because the activity may introduce an unknown that the person doesn’t feel like they can navigate. A phone call can be anxiety-inducing because you may not know what to say, you may feel like you’re put on the spot, or you just can’t conceptualize what you may have to do during the call, like digging through paperwork for information.
Social gatherings are full of unpredictable moments because people aren’t predictable. Unless you’re fully aware of what’s going on, what’s supposed to happen, and who will be there, anxiety may cause a difficult response that is hard to move past. Even if you can be assured of those things, you may still fear being overstimulated, which would make the anxiety worse.
A good sign that anxiety is at play is the reasons people give for not attending those events. They may be nonsensical or just repeated, like a person regularly being sick who isn’t known to have many health problems. But, then again, anxiety can manifest with symptoms of physical illness, so it may not be that far off to begin with.
Final thoughts…
Anxiety is harder to live with than most people might imagine, even people with anxiety. There are so many behaviors and decisions that can be influenced by anxiety that you wouldn’t expect. Since anxiety is amping up your stress response, you can even experience anxiety for things you might normally enjoy or be excited about.
If you can see these signs, you will be able to better manage what you have to live with. And if you’re someone who is close to or loves someone with anxiety, knowing these tell-tale signs can help you accommodate and help them when they really need it.
