Treating Anxiety with CBT: Rewiring the Worry Loop

Written By Raechel Callejo

By Raechel Callejo, LMFT, LPCC

May 18th, 2025

Anxiety can be relentless. It can keep you up at night, hijack your thoughts, tighten your chest, and make even simple tasks feel overwhelming. The worst part? It convinces you that something bad will happen—and that you won’t be able to handle it.

But anxiety is treatable. And one of the most effective tools we have is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

What Is CBT?

CBT is a research-backed approach that helps people identify and change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors that contribute to anxiety. It's not about "thinking positively"—it's about thinking accurately, and responding to fear with clarity instead of spiraling.

CBT teaches you how to:

  • Notice automatic anxious thoughts

  • Examine whether those thoughts are actually true

  • Learn to respond to anxiety with logic, groundedness, and action

  • Break the avoidance cycles that keep anxiety alive

The Anxiety Loop

Anxiety often creates a feedback loop:

Trigger → Scary Thought → Physical Symptoms → Avoidance → More Anxiety

For example, you might think, I’ll mess up this presentation, which leads to panic symptoms, so you cancel it. Temporarily, you feel better—but your brain learns that avoidance = safety, which reinforces the fear.

CBT helps you interrupt that loop.

Tools You Might Learn in CBT

  • Thought tracking and challenging
    You learn to write down anxious thoughts and evaluate them like a detective—not a frightened witness.

  • Behavioral experiments
    Gently testing your fears helps retrain your brain. You might try the thing you're afraid of—and discover it's not as catastrophic as anxiety predicts.

  • Exposure and response prevention
    Gradually facing feared situations (instead of avoiding them) reduces sensitivity over time. This is how the brain learns safety.

  • Breathing and grounding techniques
    CBT doesn’t ignore the body. Tools to calm your nervous system help you stay present enough to apply what you're learning.

You’re Not Doomed to Be Anxious Forever

Anxiety is a learned response—and what’s learned can be unlearned. CBT gives you tools to stop believing every anxious thought and start reclaiming control. It takes effort, yes—but it’s possible. And you don’t have to do it alone.

If you’re ready to stop letting anxiety run the show, CBT might be your next step toward peace and confidence.

Raechel Callejo
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