Anyone who experiences chronic anxiety knows constant worry can be hard. However, not worrying can also be difficult.

I’m not being facetious. Worriers usually have positive beliefs about worry: ‘worry shows I care, not worrying is irresponsible, worry keeps me prepared’, and these beliefs make letting go feel risky rather than relieving. Researchers have studied these beliefs for decades. Recently, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and anxiety expert Prof Michelle Newman has focused on a process known as contrast avoidance. According to this model, people with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) worry to maintain a steady level of distress and avoid sudden emotional shocks.

You think: ‘If I stay slightly worried, I’m less likely to be blind-sided by bad news’ Worry becomes an emotional buffer. This approach may feel helpful, but it has two major drawbacks. Firstly, many people with GAD learn, often without realising it, to limit positive feelings. You think, ‘If I don’t get too happy, I won’t be too disappointed when things go wrong.’  You prefer to expect the worst and exhale with relief when things turn out okay. However, this so-called ‘killjoy’ thinking prevents people from fully experiencing pleasant emotions.

Secondly, when you worry and the feared outcome doesn’t occur, you feel relief.  The mind links that relief with the act of worrying, as if worry caused the good result. This mistaken association strengthens the habit and keeps the worry cycle going.  Over time, this pattern leaves people feeling safer when worried than when calm.

Paradoxically, states of relaxation can leave worriers on edge. You think: this can’t last, something bad is coming.  If contrast avoidance involves suppressing positive emotions to stay prepared, the opposite strategy is to deliberately strengthen positive experiences. This is the principle behind savouring: paying attention to, extending, and amplifying feelings of pleasure or contentment.

Savouring study

In a recent study, Dr Newman predicted that practising savouring could help in two ways. Firstly, it builds tolerance for emotional change. By staying with positive feelings, you learn it is safe to move between pleasant and unpleasant states. You become less afraid of emotional shifts and less likely to see happiness as a risk. Secondly, you interrupt the reinforcement cycle. Spending more time in a positive state reduces the sudden relief that usually follows worry.  Since that relief is what unintentionally rewards the worrying, reducing it weakens the incentive to stay anxious.

To test this, adults with GAD were recruited. One group used an experimental app, SkillJoy, that prompted savouring several times a day.  People were encouraged to notice positive experiences, reflect on enjoyable moments, and intentionally extend those feelings. The other used a similar app, but without a positive emotion focus.

Results: the SkillJoy group showed a clear reduction in contrast avoidance, directly linked to increased savouring ability. The more people savoured, the less they felt the need to keep themselves on edge. Prof Newman notes many types of savouring that people can practice. There is in-the-moment savouring; when something positive happens, take some moments to notice it fully. Pay attention to the details and the feelings it brings. There is anticipatory savouring, where you look forward to a planned pleasant activity and take time to imagine it.
Reflective savouring refers to when you recall a recent good experience and allow yourself to mentally revisit it.

Gratitude focus, where you think about events that turned out better than expected or moments you appreciated, is also helpful. These practices train the mind to tolerate and value positive feelings without fear. For people who associate calmness or happiness with vulnerability, this can take practice and will initially seem uncomfortable. Newman’s findings confirm that recovery from chronic worry involves more than managing negative emotions.

It also requires learning to maintain positive ones. Worriers must remember that moments of peace or pleasure don’t make them more vulnerable but more resilient. Savouring helps counter the instinct to stay on guard. It broadens emotional life beyond a constant state of concern and teaches the anxious mind a new lesson: feeling good can be safe, even in an uncertain world.

Linda Hamilton is a Kinsale-based cognitive behavioural therapist.

If you would like to get in touch with her, call
086-3300807

For more information, go to www.kinsalecbt.com