Your chest tightens. Your mind races through a hundred scenarios that haven’t happened yet. Maybe you’ve canceled plans again, or maybe you’re lying awake at 2 AM wondering why your brain won’t just shut off for a minute.
Anxiety doesn’t always announce itself with a neat label. Sometimes it shows up as that nagging feeling that something’s wrong, even when everything seems fine. Other times, it’s the exhaustion from constantly being on high alert, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Here’s what I want you to know: asking yourself the right questions can be the first step toward understanding what’s really going on beneath the surface. These aren’t questions designed to fix you because you’re not broken. They’re designed to help you see your patterns, understand your triggers, and find a path that actually works for your life.
Questions to Ask Yourself about Having Anxiety
These twenty questions will help you explore your relationship with anxiety from different angles. Some might resonate immediately while others might reveal something you hadn’t considered before.
1. When During the Day Do I Feel Most Anxious?
Pay attention to the clock. Your anxiety probably has a schedule, even if you haven’t noticed it yet. Some people wake up with their heart already racing, the dread settling in before their feet hit the floor. Others feel fine until mid-afternoon when work stress peaks, or evening when the house gets quiet and there’s nothing left to distract them.
Track this for a week. Jot down the times when anxiety spikes. You might discover that it happens right after you check your email, or during your commute, or when you’re getting ready for bed. Once you know when it strikes, you can start asking why those specific times trigger your anxiety. Maybe mornings are hard because you’re overwhelmed by everything ahead. Maybe evenings are rough because you’re finally alone with your thoughts.
This awareness matters because you can’t address what you can’t see. If Sunday nights consistently bring anxiety, there’s probably something about the upcoming week that needs examining. If it’s always after social events, your nervous system might need more recovery time than you’re giving it.
2. What Physical Sensations Show Up in My Body?
Anxiety isn’t just mental. It lives in your body, and learning its physical language can help you catch it earlier. Does your stomach twist into knots? Do your shoulders creep up toward your ears? Maybe your hands get sweaty, or you feel like you can’t take a full breath, or your heart pounds so hard you think everyone around you must hear it.
Some people experience dizziness, others get tension headaches. Your jaw might clench without you realizing it. You might feel shaky or get that weird tingly sensation in your fingers and toes. These physical symptoms aren’t separate from your anxiety—they’re your body’s way of responding to perceived threats.
Start noticing these signals before your anxiety gets overwhelming. Your body often knows before your conscious mind catches up. That slight tightness in your chest might be an early warning sign, giving you a chance to intervene before full-blown panic sets in. The more familiar you become with your body’s anxiety language, the more power you have to respond rather than just react.
3. Am I Avoiding Situations Because of This?
Look at your calendar. Look at the invitations you’ve declined, the opportunities you’ve passed up, the conversations you’ve sidestepped. Anxiety thrives on avoidance, and avoidance feeds anxiety—it’s a vicious cycle that can shrink your life down to an increasingly smaller comfort zone.
Maybe you’ve stopped going to social gatherings. Perhaps you avoid phone calls, letting them go to voicemail even when you know you should answer. You might be turning down work opportunities, romantic prospects, or chances to try something new. Each time you avoid something because of anxiety, you’re teaching your brain that the situation truly is dangerous, even when it’s not.
The tricky part is that avoidance feels like relief in the moment. You don’t go to the party, and you don’t feel anxious at the party—problem solved, right? Wrong. You’ve just reinforced the belief that parties are threatening. You’ve made your world a little smaller. You’ve missed out on potentially meaningful experiences. Recognizing your avoidance patterns is the first step toward breaking them. Start small, but start somewhere.
4. How Is Anxiety Affecting My Sleep?
Sleep and anxiety have a complicated relationship. Anxiety can steal your sleep, and lack of sleep can crank up your anxiety. It’s exhausting both ways. Are you lying awake replaying conversations from three years ago? Do you wake up at 4 AM with your mind already spinning through your to-do list? Maybe you can fall asleep fine but wake up multiple times, or you sleep through the night but wake up already feeling drained.
Some people use sleep as an escape, sleeping too much because consciousness feels overwhelming. Others develop a fear of bedtime itself, anxious about being anxious about not being able to sleep. That’s a special kind of torture.
Your sleep quality directly impacts your ability to handle stress the next day. When you’re running on empty, everything feels harder, bigger, more threatening. Small annoyances become major problems. Your emotional regulation goes out the window. You’re more likely to catastrophize, more likely to snap at people you care about, more likely to feel overwhelmed by ordinary tasks. Getting a handle on your sleep isn’t just about feeling rested—it’s about giving yourself a fighting chance to manage anxiety effectively.
5. Do I Often Think the Worst Will Happen?
Catastrophizing is anxiety’s favorite pastime. You send a text that doesn’t get an immediate response, and suddenly you’re convinced the person hates you, the friendship is over, and you’ll die alone. Your boss wants to talk, and you’re already planning your exit strategy and updating your resume.
This pattern has a name: catastrophic thinking. It’s when your brain jumps straight to the worst possible outcome, skipping over the ninety-nine more likely scenarios where everything turns out fine. Your mind creates entire disaster movies based on minimal evidence.
The thing is, most of what you worry about never happens. Studies show that roughly 85% of what we worry about doesn’t come true, and even when something negative does happen, people typically handle it better than they anticipated. But anxiety doesn’t care about statistics. It wants you to prepare for every possible threat, which leaves you exhausted and emotionally depleted. Start challenging these thoughts. Ask yourself: what’s the evidence? What else could this mean? What’s the most likely outcome? You might be surprised how often the worst-case scenario is actually the least likely one.
6. What Specific Things Trigger My Anxiety?
Triggers are personal. What sends one person into a spiral might not bother someone else at all. Maybe it’s crowded spaces, or conflict with loved ones, or uncertainty about the future. Perhaps it’s financial worries, health concerns, or feeling like you’re not measuring up. Some triggers are obvious—public speaking, job interviews, medical appointments. Others are more subtle.
Keep a running list for a few weeks. When anxiety spikes, note what was happening right before. You might start seeing patterns you hadn’t noticed. Maybe it’s always after you spend time with a particular person. Maybe it’s triggered by certain types of news stories, or by making decisions, or by having too many things on your plate at once.
Understanding your triggers gives you options. You can’t avoid everything that makes you anxious, and you shouldn’t try. But you can prepare differently, set boundaries, or develop specific strategies for known triggers. If you know that checking social media first thing in the morning triggers anxiety, you can change your morning routine. If Sunday night dread is real, you can create a ritual that helps you transition into the week more smoothly.
7. Who Can I Actually Talk to About This?
Anxiety can feel incredibly isolating. You might think you’re the only one struggling, or that people will judge you if they knew how much you were dealing with. But here’s something important: you need people. Connection is one of the most powerful antidotes to anxiety.
Think about your support system honestly. Who actually gets it? Who listens without trying to immediately fix you or minimize what you’re experiencing? It might be a close friend, a family member, a therapist, or a support group. Quality matters more than quantity here—one person who truly understands is worth more than ten who don’t.
If you’re drawing a blank, that’s information too. Building a support system might need to be a priority. This could mean finally scheduling that therapy appointment you’ve been putting off, joining an anxiety support group, or opening up to someone you trust. You don’t have to carry this alone, even though anxiety will try to convince you that you do.
8. What Do I Tell Myself When Anxiety Hits?
Listen to the voice in your head when you’re anxious. Is it kind? Is it harsh? Does it sound like a supportive friend or a critical parent? The way you talk to yourself during anxious moments either escalates the situation or helps you find your footing.
Many people with anxiety have an incredibly mean inner critic. You might call yourself weak, broken, or pathetic for feeling anxious. You might tell yourself to “just get over it” or compare yourself to others who seem to handle stress better. This self-talk doesn’t help—it piles shame on top of anxiety, making everything worse.
Try shifting toward compassion. What would you say to a friend going through this? You’d probably be kind, understanding, and encouraging. You’d acknowledge that what they’re feeling is hard. You’d remind them that they’ve gotten through difficult moments before. Can you offer yourself that same grace? Self-compassion isn’t about letting yourself off the hook or wallowing in feelings. It’s about treating yourself like someone worth caring for, even when things feel messy.
9. Is This Affecting My Relationships?
Anxiety doesn’t stay contained in your head. It spills over into your relationships, sometimes in ways you don’t immediately recognize. Maybe you’re irritable with the people closest to you. Perhaps you’re withdrawing, needing more alone time than usual. You might be seeking constant reassurance, asking again and again if everything’s okay, if they’re mad at you, if you said something wrong.
Some people become controlling when anxious, trying to manage every detail of plans or situations. Others become people-pleasers, saying yes when they mean no, avoiding any hint of conflict, twisting themselves into shapes to keep everyone happy. Both patterns take a toll.
Your relationships might also be providing clues about your anxiety. If you find yourself constantly worried about what others think, or if you’re exhausted from maintaining certain friendships, or if conflicts send you into days-long spirals—these are all worth examining. Healthy relationships should generally add to your life, not drain you. If anxiety is running the show in your relationships, it might be time to have some honest conversations or set some new boundaries.
10. What Am I Currently Doing to Cope?
Everyone has coping mechanisms. The question is whether yours are helping or hurting. Some coping strategies are genuinely useful: exercise, meditation, talking to friends, creative outlets, time in nature. These things might not eliminate anxiety, but they help you manage it without causing additional problems.
Other coping mechanisms provide short-term relief but create long-term issues. Maybe you’re drinking more than you used to. Perhaps you’re scrolling social media for hours, using shopping as a distraction, or overworking to avoid facing what’s really bothering you. These strategies might numb the anxiety temporarily, but they don’t address the root causes.
Take an honest inventory. What do you reach for when anxiety spikes? Is it helping you feel better in a sustainable way, or is it just pushing the feelings down for later? This isn’t about judgment—it’s about awareness. If your current coping strategies aren’t working, you have permission to try something different. You’re allowed to experiment with new approaches until you find what actually helps.
11. Am I Worrying About Things I Can Control?
Here’s a truth that might sting: a lot of anxiety comes from trying to control things that are fundamentally uncontrollable. You can’t control what other people think of you. You can’t prevent every bad thing from happening. You can’t know for certain how the future will unfold.
But you can control how you respond. You can control your own actions, your boundaries, how you spend your time, and how much energy you give to various situations. When anxiety hits, ask yourself: is this something I can actually do something about? If yes, what’s one concrete step I can take? If no, can I let it go?
This distinction matters enormously. Worrying about your upcoming presentation? That’s something you can work with—you can prepare, practice, or talk through your concerns. Worrying about whether people will like your presentation? That’s out of your hands. Worrying about global events you have no control over? That’s anxiety without a productive outlet.
Learning to differentiate between what you can and cannot control takes practice. But it’s incredibly freeing to stop exhausting yourself trying to manage the unmanageable. Put your energy where it can actually make a difference.
12. How Much Caffeine or Alcohol Am I Consuming?
Your anxiety might be getting chemical assistance without you realizing it. Caffeine is a stimulant that can mimic or amplify anxiety symptoms—racing heart, jitters, restlessness, difficulty concentrating. If you’re downing multiple cups of coffee while wondering why you feel on edge all day, there’s your answer.
Alcohol is trickier because it initially seems to help. A drink or two might take the edge off, make you feel calmer, help you sleep. But alcohol disrupts sleep quality, increases anxiety during withdrawal (which can happen even from one night of drinking), and creates a dependency cycle where you need it to feel okay. It’s a temporary band-aid that often makes the underlying problem worse.
Try cutting back on both for a couple weeks and see what happens. Switch to decaf or herbal tea. Find other ways to unwind in the evening. You might be surprised at how much your baseline anxiety level drops when you’re not chemically fueling it. This doesn’t mean you can never have coffee or a drink again, but it’s worth understanding how these substances affect your specific nervous system.
13. Am I Moving My Body Enough?
Exercise sounds like such generic advice that people often dismiss it. But there’s a reason everyone recommends it: it works. Physical activity doesn’t have to mean hitting the gym for an intense workout. Movement is movement. A walk around the block counts. Dancing in your kitchen counts. Stretching while you watch TV counts.
Your body stores stress and anxiety physically. When you move, you’re giving all that pent-up energy somewhere to go. Exercise also triggers the release of endorphins, improves sleep, boosts self-confidence, and provides a break from anxious thoughts. It’s hard to spiral about your problems when you’re focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
The key is finding movement you actually enjoy, or at least don’t hate. If running makes you miserable, don’t run. If yoga feels impossible because your brain won’t quiet down, try something more active. Experiment until you find what works. Even ten minutes makes a difference. The goal isn’t to become an athlete—it’s to help your body process anxiety in a healthier way.
14. What Would My Life Look Like With Less Anxiety?
This question might hurt a little because it asks you to acknowledge how much anxiety is currently taking from you. But it’s worth sitting with. If anxiety weren’t running the show, what would you do differently? Would you take that trip you’ve been putting off? Would you apply for that job? Would you have hard conversations you’ve been avoiding?
Maybe you’d sleep better. Perhaps you’d feel more present with the people you love. You might laugh more, worry less, feel lighter. This isn’t about imagining some perfect anxiety-free life—that’s not realistic. But what if anxiety were just something you experienced occasionally rather than something that dictates your choices?
Getting clear on what you want helps you move toward it. If you want to feel more confident socially but anxiety keeps you home, that’s valuable information. If you want deeper relationships but anxiety makes you keep people at arm’s length, you know where to focus your energy. Let yourself want things, even if anxiety says you can’t have them.
15. Have I Actually Talked to a Professional About This?
There’s still so much stigma around therapy, but here’s the deal: if your car was making a weird noise, you’d take it to a mechanic. If your tooth hurt, you’d see a dentist. Your mental health deserves the same care and attention as your physical health.
Therapy isn’t just for people in crisis. It’s for anyone who wants to understand themselves better, develop healthier coping strategies, or work through persistent problems. A good therapist can help you identify patterns you can’t see on your own, teach you practical skills for managing anxiety, and provide a safe space to process difficult emotions.
If you’ve been thinking about therapy but haven’t taken the step, ask yourself what’s stopping you. Is it cost? Many therapists offer sliding scale fees, and some insurance plans cover mental health services. Is it time? Teletherapy has made it easier than ever to fit sessions into busy schedules. Is it fear of judgment? The right therapist won’t judge you—they’re trained to help. You deserve support, and seeking it is a sign of strength, not weakness.
16. Do I Compare Myself to Others Constantly?
Social comparison is anxiety’s playground. You scroll through social media seeing everyone’s highlight reel and conclude that you’re falling behind, doing it wrong, not enough. Someone else seems to have their career figured out. Another person’s relationship looks perfect. Everyone else appears confident, successful, and unburdened by the worries that plague you.
But you’re comparing your inside to everyone else’s outside. You’re seeing their curated moments, not their 2 AM anxiety spirals. You’re seeing their wins, not their struggles. You’re seeing what they want you to see, not the full reality of their lives.
This comparison trap is exhausting and pointless. There will always be someone doing better in some area. There will always be someone who seems to have it more together. But their success doesn’t diminish yours. Their path isn’t your path. Their timeline isn’t your timeline. The only person you need to compare yourself to is who you were yesterday. Are you growing? Are you learning? Are you moving forward, however slowly? That’s what matters.
17. Do I permit Myself to Feel Anxious?
This might sound counterintuitive, but fighting against anxiety often makes it stronger. When you feel anxious about feeling anxious, you create a secondary layer of suffering. You’re not just dealing with the original anxiety—you’re also dealing with shame, frustration, and self-judgment about having anxiety in the first place.
What if you stopped fighting it? What if, when anxiety shows up, you simply acknowledged it: “I’m feeling anxious right now.” Not as a failure, not as something to immediately fix, just as a current reality. Anxiety becomes less powerful when you stop treating it like an enemy to be defeated and start treating it like a signal to be understood.
This doesn’t mean giving up or wallowing. It means making space for your feelings instead of pushing them down. It means recognizing that anxiety is part of the human experience, not a personal defect. When you stop adding shame to anxiety, you free up energy to actually address what’s causing it. You can feel anxious and still do what matters to you. The anxiety doesn’t have to be gone for you to move forward.
18. When Did I Last Feel Genuinely Calm?
Anxiety can make you forget that calm is even possible. You get so used to operating at high alert that you start thinking this is just how life is. But there are moments—maybe brief ones—when your nervous system settles. When was the last time you felt that?
Maybe it was during a walk in nature, or while listening to music, or in the shower, or while playing with a pet. Perhaps it was during a conversation with someone who makes you feel safe, or while doing something creative, or simply sitting in silence early in the morning before the day’s demands kicked in.
These calm moments are clues. They show you what conditions help your nervous system relax. They remind you that anxiety isn’t constant, even if it feels that way. They point toward activities, environments, or people that might help you find more peace. Pay attention to them. Seek them out intentionally. Your nervous system needs these pockets of calm to recover and recharge. They’re not luxuries—they’re necessities.
19. Is Perfectionism Driving This Anxiety?
Perfectionism and anxiety are best friends. If you’re convinced that anything less than perfect equals failure, you’re setting yourself up for constant worry. Perfectionism says you have to get it right, can’t make mistakes, need to have everything figured out, and should be able to handle things better than you do.
But perfect doesn’t exist. Striving for it means you’ll always fall short, always find something to criticize yourself for, always feel like you’re not quite there yet. It’s an impossible standard that feeds anxiety and keeps you stuck. You avoid trying new things because you might not excel immediately. You overthink decisions until you’re paralyzed. You beat yourself up for normal human mistakes.
What if good enough actually was good enough? What if making mistakes was part of learning? What if you gave yourself permission to be imperfect, messy, and still figuring things out? Lowering your impossible standards isn’t about becoming mediocre—it’s about becoming human. It’s about freeing yourself from the constant pressure to be more, do more, achieve more. Sometimes done is better than perfect. Sometimes showing up imperfectly beats not showing up at all.
20. What’s One Small Step I Can Take Today?
You don’t have to fix everything right now. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t need to completely overhaul your life by next Tuesday. But you can do something small. One tiny step toward understanding your anxiety better or managing it differently.
Maybe that step is scheduling a therapy appointment. Perhaps it’s going for a ten-minute walk. It might be texting a friend to tell them you’re struggling. It could be trying a breathing exercise, cutting out that third cup of coffee, or simply sitting with your feelings for five minutes instead of immediately distracting yourself.
Small steps compound. They build on each other. They create momentum. They remind you that you have some agency here, even when anxiety makes you feel powerless. You don’t need to see the whole staircase—you just need to take the first step. Then the next one. Then the one after that. Forward motion, however slow, matters more than you might think.
Wrapping Up
These questions aren’t meant to overwhelm you—they’re meant to illuminate. Some will resonate deeply, others might not apply to your situation, and that’s completely fine. Use what’s helpful and leave what’s not.
The fact that you’re here, reading this, asking questions about your anxiety? That matters. You’re not ignoring it, not pretending everything’s fine when it’s not. You’re trying to understand what’s happening beneath the surface, and that’s genuinely brave.
Start somewhere. Pick one question that hit home and sit with it for a while. See where it leads. Your relationship with anxiety can change, but that change starts with awareness, compassion, and the willingness to look at what’s really going on. You’ve got this.