Anchoring Techniques for Anxiety Management
Anxiety has become incredibly prevalent. So many people say they suffer from it, yet very few people really understand how it works, what causes it, or indeed how to change it.
After working for many years as a Harley Street fear, phobia and anxiety specialist, I’ve found there are some very effective ways to help people shift how they respond. One of the quickest and most useful tools I’ve come across is something called anchoring.
Understand what anxiety actually is
One of the biggest misconceptions about anxiety is that it says something about your character. People often assume that if they were just braver, stronger or more confident, they wouldn’t feel it. But the truth is, anxiety has nothing to do with how brave or intelligent you are. It is much more often a learned reflex. A conditioned response. And trying to think your way out of it often doesn’t help, because emotions don’t follow logic.
The foundations of this idea go back to the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s. Pavlov ran a series of experiments where he would ring a bell and then feed a dog. Bell, then food. Bell, then food. After repeating this enough times, the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell, even when no food appeared.
The bell had become a trigger. The brain had learned the association.
Scientists later showed that this kind of learning works in humans too.
The brain links emotions to triggers
Anxiety and phobia are often used interchangeably, but the key differences are important.
Phobias tend to be tied to a very specific trigger. The time you were chased by a dog. The turbulent flight that frightened you. The moment you were forced to get up and speak in class and everyone laughed. The brain links one thing to one fear response.
Anxiety, however, is often more of a prolonged sense of unease. It can come from growing up with anxious parents, moving around a lot, being bullied at school, or going through a prolonged period of stress at work. Rather than one very clear moment, it’s often a longer period of not feeling safe, or supported, or in control.
And what then happens in the brain is that instead of flying = fear, or dogs = fear, the mind starts to generalise. Anything out of your comfort zone, anything slightly uncertain, anything that feels even vaguely unpredictable can begin to trigger that same emotional response.
Your subconscious, your emotional mind, your amygdala starts linking potential danger to it. So, in some ways anxiety can be even more frustrating than a phobia, because the person often struggles to place exactly what they are fearful of in the moment. It just feels as though the world is more unsafe or out of control than it really is.
The good news is that we are not only conditioned negatively. We can also be conditioned positively. You catch the smell of a certain perfume and suddenly you are back in a moment where you felt safe, loved and completely at ease.
A piece of music starts playing and within seconds you are transported back to an amazing summer holiday, feeling lighter, freer and happier.
You smell fresh-cut grass or sunscreen and instantly you are back in childhood or on a beach somewhere, with your whole body remembering the feeling before your mind has even caught up.
So while we can be anchored positively or negatively, most of the time these associations happen without us even being aware of them. The exciting part is that we can also create our own positive conditioning deliberately. And that is where anchoring comes in.
One client’s story
An interesting thing happened a few years ago with a client. She had come to see me, and we’d been working on general anxiety. It was near the end of the session when she suddenly explained that she also had anxiety around flying.
With very little time left, I remember thinking, is there much I can do here? And then I thought, yes — the anchoring process seemed the best bet with the time we had. So I asked her a simple question: “What specifically are you afraid of?”
She said, “Turbulence.”
I got her to think about turbulence and really step into what she was scared of. As she did that, I linked that state to a touch on one arm.
Then I asked her to think of a time when she had felt very loving and connected. A moment where she felt safe, warm and emotionally close. As she stepped into that feeling, I linked that state to a touch on the other arm.
Then I fired them together.
What happens when you do this is that the two emotions rush in together, and the stronger state starts to take over. It doesn’t always mean an instant miracle, but when you’ve conditioned a powerful enough positive emotion, it is possible to completely change how you feel.
A few months later she messaged me to say she was sitting on a plane. At first I assumed she was reaching out because she still needed more work, and I was already thinking about the many different ways we could continue helping her.
But that wasn’t what she meant at all.
She wrote back and said, in effect, “No, you don’t understand. Now whenever I think about turbulence, I get really happy.”
That’s the power of conditioning in the right direction.
You can do this yourself
What you want to do first is think of a time when you felt very relaxed. Maybe you were sitting on a beach, maybe you were in nature, or maybe it was just that lovely moment before you went to sleep.
Go fully to that time.
See what you saw.
Hear what you heard.
Feel what you felt.
Turn up the volume on it a little. Double it. Really let yourself step into that sense of calmness and ease.
Then, at the peak of that feeling, squeeze your thumb and forefinger together.
Hold that for as long as you can stay in that feeling.
The second the feeling begins to fade, let go.
Now do it again.
This time think of a time when you felt very loving or connected. Maybe looking into the eyes of someone you love. Maybe watching your children play. Maybe holding a pet. Maybe being with family or friends.
Go fully into that moment.
See what you saw. Hear what you heard. Feel what you felt.
And at the peak of that experience, squeeze your thumb and forefinger together again in exactly the same way.
Then do it with another emotion.
Think of a time you couldn’t stop laughing. Really go there. Feel it properly. Build it up. At the peak, squeeze your fingers together.
Then perhaps think of a time when you felt very confident or very safe. Again, step into it fully and at the peak, squeeze your fingers together.
You can do this with as many positive emotions as you want.
Now test it.
Clear your mind for a moment. Then squeeze your fingers together in exactly the same way, with the same pressure.
Done right, just like Pavlov’s bell, it should start sending you back to those positive emotions.
Then, in future, whenever you start to feel anxious, use it immediately.
Don’t wait for the feeling to build.
The second you notice it rising, squeeze your fingers together in exactly the same way and fire off that motion.
If the anchor is strong enough, it should take out or at least neutralise much of the emotional charge before it snowballs.
And from there you can keep building it.
Whenever you have five minutes, you can repeat the process and strengthen the anchor. Even better, whenever you are genuinely in a moment of love, calm, confidence or happiness, squeeze your fingers together and anchor that real feeling in.
Over time, it becomes like carrying a button for calmness, confidence and happiness with you. And whenever unhelpful emotions or thoughts begin to show up, you can press that button.
Don’t be hard on yourself
The key thing to remember is that anxiety isn’t a flaw in your character. It’s a pattern your brain learned while trying to protect you.
That’s the real power behind techniques like anchoring. They work with the brain’s natural wiring rather than fighting against it. And once you realise your emotions are not fixed, and that you do not simply have to live with them, everything starts to shift.
You may find that situations that once felt overwhelming begin to feel manageable. Not because you forced yourself through them, but because your mind learned a different response.
And that gives you something incredibly valuable: the sense that you can start taking control back.
Find out more about anchoring here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Christopher Paul Jones is a leading Harley Street phobia expert and author of ‘Face your Fears’. Having overcome his own phobias, and conducted 20+ years of research across Europe, North America and Asia, Christopher has developed an integrated approach combining mainstream psychology with cutting edge techniques: The Integrated Change System™. The system aims to change the mind’s danger response and leave people free and happy to enjoy things they once found terrifying. A fear, anxiety or phobia can be cured in as little as a session. Christopher’s clients come from all over the world and include Hollywood actors and Oscar nominees, models, musicians, presenters and celebrities. His latest book ‘Face your Fears’ has been translated into multiple languages. www.christopherpauljones.com