Why Being Anxious In The Evening Is A Cause For Concern
Anxiety should decrease as the day goes on, suggests a new study.
By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | March 1, 2022
A new study published in Personality and Individual Differences shows how worrying affects anxiety throughout the day, especially in individuals with high levels of worry-proneness.
"At healthy levels, worry can help us anticipate threats and prepare for the future," says Rebecca C. Cox, the lead author of the research from Vanderbilt University. "Worry can become a cause for concern if the frequency or intensity of the worry is disproportionate to the source of the worry. If I'm so worried about an upcoming test that I can't focus on studying, or I'm so frequently worried about storms that I don't leave my house, then worry has crossed into a problematic range."
According to previous research, in those with generalized anxiety disorder, worry may function to keep anxiety at a high but predictable level to avoid experiencing an unexpected shift in emotion.
To investigate this on a day-to-day level, Cox and her team asked participants to respond to daily survey prompts in the morning, afternoon, and evening to indicate how anxious they felt in that moment. This method, called ecological momentary assessment, is often employed by psychologists to measure emotions in real-time.
"We found that anxiety levels decreased across the day for low or average worriers," points out Cox. "In contrast, we found that anxiety stayed high and stable throughout the day in high worriers. This is consistent with the theory that problematic worry functions to keep the level of anxiety high but constant."
If you are someone who struggles with high worry-proneness or feel anxious throughout the day, here are some suggestions from Cox:
- Seek Treatment: High levels of worry-proneness and generalized anxiety disorder are both common and treatable. Those looking for treatment can find providers of evidence-based psychotherapy from reputable organizations such as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
- Change your lifestyle: Healthy lifestyle factors may also help with worry, like prioritizing sleep and exercising regularly.
- Embrace the uncertainty: We can also decrease worry's power by accepting the uncertainty in life. When we are worrying about something we have little or no control over, inserting some "maybe" thinking can be a powerful challenge to worry. Maybe I will fail that exam, maybe a terrible storm will hit….maybe, maybe not. Accepting and tolerating uncertainty can help us stop attempting to control the future by worrying.
One implication of Cox's research is that the anxiety that results from excessive worrying is a way to "protect" oneself from being blindsided by dramatic shifts in emotion.
"Attempting to avoid unexpected shifts in emotion may be a hallmark of worry proneness and generalized anxiety disorder, which suggests that exposure to emotional contrasts could be a novel treatment," concludes Cox.
A full interview with Rebecca Cox discussing her new research on anxiety can be found here: One reason why you may feel anxious all day