Intolerance Of Uncertainty And Anxiety (4 TIPS)

Intolerance of uncertainty is a key feature for people who experience anxiety, OCD and depression. In this video I will explore what is it, what are the effects and share four tips to tolerate uncertainty. Let's start by looking at an example, Charlotte is 18 years old and is moving out of the family home to go to university. Charlotte has thoughts of "What If I don't make friends", "What if I can't cope with the work load" and "What if I forget something that's really important". Charlotte is struggling not having a definitive answer to her concerns. As a way of trying to eliminate uncertainly Charlotte seeks reassurance from her parents, makes long detailed to do lists every day and refuses to delegate any tasks so she can be sure everything has been done correctly.

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🔵 CHAPTERS

0:00 What is intolerance of uncertainty?
2:05 Step 1, Notice safety behaviours
2:27 Step 2, Notice how you are thinking
3:15 Step 3, Practice graded exposure
4:26 Step 4, Identify your beliefs

🔵 Step one, notice safety behaviours. Safety behaviours include reassurance seeking, list making, double checking, avoidance of situations or over preparing. It's important you understand the impact of safety behaviour over time. For example, if you avoid social situations your anxiety may decrease in the short term but increase in the longer term because you are not actually learning to manage your anxiety, you are simply avoiding situations that cause anxiety. Avoidance actually interferes with your ability to manage anxiety.

🔵 Step two, notice how you're thinking. Look out for phrases starting with 'what if' which lead directly to safety behaviours. For example:

☐ What if mess up
☐ What if nobody talks to me
☐ What if I fail
☐ What if I can't cope

🔵 Step three, practice tolerating uncertainty via graded exposure. Eliminating safety behaviours and overcoming avoidance are central tasks when working with intolerance of uncertainty. Continuing to avoid situations that cause anxiety is, more than anything else, what keeps intolerance of uncertainty alive. Exposure may seem like an impossible task but you can break it down into small steps. When completing exposure work you may notice a temporary increase in anxiety. It's common to feel worse initially but its important to recognise that you're laying the foundations to feel better. Because of the initial spike in anxiety I do recommend working alongside a psychological therapist when doing exposure work.

🔵 Step four, identify your central beliefs regarding uncertainty. When people have an intolerance of uncertainty they tend to overestimate danger and threat and underestimate their ability to cope and their resources. Examples of unhelpful beliefs that fuel an intolerance of certainty include: I'm not safe, people can't be trusted and the world is a dangerous place. If can be helpful to explore how your beliefs developed. Did they develop as a child or as a result of a traumatic event? Limiting beliefs often develop from emotionally powerful events such as abandonment, betrayal, criticism, loss and rejection. Your beliefs can exacerbate unhealthy patterns of behaviour.

🔵 ABOUT TERESA LEWIS

Teresa Lewis is the founder and Director of Lewis Psychology and a Senior Accredited psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP Snr. Accred). Qualified in 1995, Teresa has been providing counselling and psychotherapy treatment for nearly 30 years. Teresa holds a masters degree in counselling and psychotherapy and is a qualified EMDR Practitioner having completed training accredited with EMDR Europe. Teresa is also a qualified adult educator and an accredited Mindfulness teacher As a recognised expert in her field Teresa is frequently asked to conduct editorial reviews and endorse counselling and psychotherapy books for international publishing houses.

🔵 GRAPHICS AND THUMBNAIL

#LewisPsychology

[LewisPsychology]

🔵Do you have any tips for dealing with intolerance of uncertainty? I'd love to hear from you.

[syzygy]

My traumatic events started from losing my job during the pandemic, slipping through every safety net, and a continuous feeling of unsafety and uncertainty. I feel like my fight or flight is triggered at least 5 times a week over things my best efforts can't control. I'm a single mom and I just feel broken and helpless. I can't even get DHS to process our SNAP case so we have food in the house. This is such a mans world I can take it anymore.

[IONov]

Good video. I never heard of the term safety behaviors. I definitely rely on reassurance seeking. I always second guess my perspective and I fear that one mistake will spiral into the worst case scenario. I have tendency to avoid situations that make me uncomfortable and make excessive lists

[thomasbradford]

Thank you for making these available, they are so very helpful.

[tamimamujib]

It helped me a lot. Thank you so much❤️.

[janekyte]

Thank you, your information is very welcome