Why Do We Avoid Uncomfortable Feelings? Understanding Emotional Avoidance.
Feeling uncomfortable is part of being human. Anxiety, uncertainty, embarrassment, disappointment, loneliness and vulnerability aren't experiences most of us would choose, but they aren't necessarily signs that something is wrong.
What can become more difficult is what happens when we feel we need to get rid of that discomfort.
We might distract ourselves, procrastinate, seek reassurance, withdraw, overthink or try to control what's happening. We might keep ourselves constantly occupied, become more perfectionistic, turn to food or alcohol, scroll through our phones, or find another problem that suddenly needs solving.
On the surface, these can look like very different behaviours. Psychologically, however, they can sometimes serve a similar purpose: they change how we feel.
Sometimes that's useful. We all need ways of regulating ourselves. But when escaping discomfort becomes automatic, we can gradually find more and more of our behaviour organised around avoiding what we don't want to feel.
What is emotional or experiential avoidance?
Emotional avoidance, sometimes discussed in psychology as experiential avoidance, is the tendency to escape, suppress or control thoughts, feelings, memories or bodily sensations that feel uncomfortable.
That doesn't necessarily mean consciously pushing emotions away. Often, we may not even realise avoidance is taking place.
Procrastinating can provide temporary relief from the anxiety associated with starting something. Reassurance from another person might briefly settle uncertainty. Overthinking can create the feeling that we're getting closer to an answer. Staying busy can leave less space for difficult thoughts to surface.
None of these behaviours is automatically unhealthy.
What can be more useful to understand is the function the behaviour has started to serve. What happens immediately before it? What changes afterwards? And what might we have to experience if we didn't do it?
Why does the brain want to avoid discomfort?
Our brains are continually interpreting information from the world around us and from within our own bodies. Previous experiences help the brain anticipate what might happen next and decide what deserves our attention.
Several interconnected brain systems are involved in this process. The amygdala plays a role in learning about and responding to potential threat. The insula is involved in processing and interpreting bodily sensations, while areas of the prefrontal cortex contribute to attention, planning, decision-making and emotional regulation.
It is tempting to reduce this to the popular idea of an emotional brain battling against a rational brain, but neuroscience is considerably more complex. Thoughts, emotions, memories, bodily sensations and expectations continually influence one another.
Importantly, our brains can respond not only to what is happening now, but to what we think might happen.
An unanswered message, an upcoming conversation, the possibility of rejection, making a mistake or simply not knowing what will happen next can all create genuine emotional and physical discomfort.
In other words, there doesn't need to be an immediate physical threat for our threat and stress systems to become involved. Sometimes uncertainty itself is enough to make us want to do something that restores a sense of safety or control.
Why avoidance can make anxiety stronger
One reason avoidance can become so persistent is that it often works extremely well in the short term.
Imagine you've been putting off a difficult conversation. Each time you think about having it, you feel anxious. Eventually you decide you'll deal with it another day.
The anxiety reduces.
In behavioural psychology, this can be understood through negative reinforcement. The word "negative" doesn't mean harmful here; it means that something unpleasant has been removed. A behaviour reduces discomfort, which can make us more likely to repeat that behaviour in similar situations.
In simple terms, when something reduces discomfort, the brain can learn to do it again.
This helps explain why behaviours such as avoidance, procrastination, reassurance-seeking and checking can become increasingly automatic. They provide relief.
The difficulty is what we may not get the opportunity to learn.
Perhaps the anxiety would have risen and then fallen. Perhaps the conversation would have been uncomfortable but manageable. Perhaps we could have coped with somebody being disappointed in us. Perhaps the uncertainty could have remained unresolved and nothing terrible would have happened.
Repeatedly escaping discomfort can unintentionally reinforce the idea that the discomfort needed escaping in the first place.
Avoidance doesn't always look like avoidance
We often imagine avoidance as staying away from something we're frightened of. Sometimes it is that straightforward.
But emotional avoidance can also look surprisingly productive, responsible or socially acceptable.
Perfectionism might reduce the possibility of making a mistake or being criticised. People-pleasing can help avoid conflict or disapproval. Reassurance-seeking can temporarily quiet uncertainty. Working constantly can reduce opportunities for difficult thoughts or feelings to surface.
Someone who feels anxious when things are uncertain might become highly organised or controlling. Someone uncomfortable with vulnerability might become fiercely independent. Another person might withdraw before there is any possibility of rejection.
These behaviours aren't necessarily signs that someone is emotionally avoidant. There can be many reasons we behave in particular ways, and context matters.
A useful question isn't simply "Is this avoidance?"
It might be:
"What happens if I don't do it?"
If I don't check, what do I feel? If I don't ask for reassurance, what happens to my anxiety? If I don't make everything perfect, what am I worried might happen? If I stop and do nothing for a while, what begins to show up?
Sometimes those questions tell us more than the behaviour itself.
When overthinking becomes a way of managing feelings
Overthinking is often described as simply "thinking too much", but that doesn't really explain why it can be so difficult to stop.
Sometimes thinking becomes another attempt to regulate discomfort.
If we can understand exactly why something happened, work out what somebody else is thinking, predict every possible outcome or find the correct explanation, perhaps we'll finally feel settled.
Thinking then offers the possibility of certainty.
The problem is that some situations don't have certain answers. We can't always know what somebody thinks of us. We can't predict exactly what will happen. We can't eliminate every possibility of making the wrong decision.
At that point, thinking can shift from problem-solving into repeatedly trying to achieve a feeling of certainty that never quite arrives.
The question may no longer be "How do I solve this?"
It may be "Can I tolerate not knowing?"
When we turn discomfort into a problem to solve
Sometimes discomfort arrives without an obvious explanation.
We might feel unsettled, tense, irritable or simply not quite ourselves. Because the human brain is very good at searching for patterns and explanations, we can begin trying to work out what is wrong.
Is something wrong at work? Is there a problem in my relationship? Did I say something wrong yesterday? Why hasn't that person replied? Am I unhappy? Should I change something?
Sometimes those questions lead us towards something genuinely important. Emotions can provide valuable information, and there are situations in life that need action rather than acceptance.
But not every uncomfortable feeling means there is a problem that needs solving.
There can be something reassuring about turning vague discomfort into a concrete problem. A problem gives us something to analyse, research, control or change. An unexplained feeling leaves us with something much harder to achieve: certainty.
This doesn't mean we deliberately create problems for ourselves. Rather, the mind may be trying to make sense of an uncomfortable internal experience and attach an explanation to it.
The explanation can then start to feel like a fact.
Learning to distinguish between "I feel uncomfortable" and "something must be wrong" can be an important part of understanding anxiety and emotional avoidance.
Coping strategies, defence mechanisms and emotional avoidance
Many of the ways we manage uncomfortable feelings develop for understandable reasons.
Psychology uses terms such as coping strategies and defence mechanisms to describe some of the ways we protect ourselves from, regulate or adapt to difficult internal and external experiences.
These strategies aren't inherently unhealthy.
Distraction can give us breathing space. Planning can reduce genuine uncertainty. Reassurance can help us feel connected to other people. Working hard can be rewarding. Stepping away from a difficult situation can sometimes be exactly what we need.
Difficulties are more likely to emerge when a particular response becomes rigid, automatic or increasingly necessary.
Someone who has learnt to manage vulnerability through independence may find asking for help extremely uncomfortable. Someone who manages anxiety through control may struggle particularly when circumstances genuinely cannot be controlled. Someone who has learnt to gain security through pleasing other people may find another person's disappointment disproportionately difficult to tolerate.
The aim isn't necessarily to remove these coping strategies.
It can be to understand why they developed, recognise when we're using them and develop greater flexibility in how we respond.
Why trying not to feel something can sometimes make it stronger
There is also a paradox in trying very hard not to experience particular thoughts or feelings.
When anxiety itself becomes frightening, we can start monitoring ourselves for signs of anxiety. When uncertainty feels intolerable, we become increasingly alert to things we don't know. When a particular thought worries us, we may repeatedly check whether we're still having it.
Our attention becomes increasingly focused on the very experience we're trying to avoid.
This doesn't mean that we should stop regulating our emotions or deliberately expose ourselves to unnecessary distress. Emotional regulation is important, and sometimes distraction, reassurance or stepping away from something is helpful.
The issue is flexibility.
Psychological wellbeing probably isn't about never avoiding discomfort. It's about having enough ways of responding that avoidance doesn't become the only option available to us.
Learning to tolerate uncomfortable feelings
Being able to tolerate discomfort doesn't mean enjoying it, ignoring genuine problems or simply putting up with circumstances that need to change.
Instead, it can involve becoming more able to notice a thought, emotion or physical sensation without immediately needing to remove it.
There is a subtle but important difference between:
"I feel anxious, so something must be wrong."
and:
"I'm noticing that I feel anxious."
Or:
"I need to know what's going to happen."
and:
"I'd really like to know what's going to happen, but perhaps I can't know yet."
That small amount of psychological space can give us an opportunity to decide what happens next rather than simply reacting to the discomfort.
The aim isn't to eliminate uncomfortable emotions.
It's to become more confident that we can experience them without always needing to escape, suppress, solve or act on them.
Can counselling help with emotional avoidance?
Emotional avoidance isn't a diagnosis. It describes a pattern that can occur alongside anxiety, stress, low mood, perfectionism, difficulties with self-esteem and other psychological experiences.
As an integrative counsellor and psychotherapist, I don't assume there is one explanation for why somebody finds particular emotions or experiences difficult to tolerate.
In counselling, we might explore the situations that trigger discomfort, what you notice happening internally and the strategies you've developed for managing it. We might also become curious about where those strategies came from, the experiences or relationships that influenced them, and whether they're still serving you in the same way today.
My integrative and pluralistic approach means that I can draw on different therapeutic perspectives depending on you and what you need, including person-centred, CBT-informed, psychodynamic and Solution-Focused ways of working.
Therapy isn't necessarily about taking away coping strategies that may have helped you for years.
Sometimes it starts with understanding what those strategies have been helping you cope with.
Counselling for anxiety, overthinking and emotional avoidance in Oxfordshire and online
If you recognise patterns of overthinking, avoidance, perfectionism, reassurance-seeking, people-pleasing or finding uncertainty particularly difficult, you don't need to understand exactly why they're happening before coming to counselling.
I'm Andrew (Andy) Selway, an integrative counsellor and psychotherapist based in Heyford Park (Upper Heyford), near Bicester in Oxfordshire. I work with adults experiencing anxiety, overthinking, burnout, low mood, confidence difficulties and ADHD-related patterns.
I offer face-to-face counselling from my private practice in Heyford Park, within reach of Bicester, Banbury, Woodstock, Kidlington, Chipping Norton and Oxford, alongside online counselling across the UK.
Counselling can provide somewhere to explore these patterns without judging them as good or bad: understanding what they do for you, what may be maintaining them and whether you would like to develop different ways of responding.
Sometimes the starting question isn't:
"How do I stop doing this?"
It might be:
"What happens if I don't?"
Frequently asked questions
Why do I avoid uncomfortable feelings?
Avoiding uncomfortable emotions is a normal human response. Behaviours that reduce distress can become reinforced because they provide short-term relief. This can mean distraction, procrastination, reassurance-seeking, overthinking or avoiding situations becomes an increasingly automatic response to discomfort.
Avoidance becomes more problematic when it significantly restricts our choices or when increasingly more effort is needed to prevent ourselves experiencing particular thoughts, emotions or situations.
Why can't I sit with uncomfortable feelings?
There isn't one explanation. Previous experiences, anxiety, beliefs about emotions, learned coping strategies and how we interpret physical and emotional sensations can all influence our tolerance of discomfort.
If escaping or controlling a particular feeling has repeatedly brought relief, that response can also become learned over time.
Is overthinking a form of emotional avoidance?
It can be, although not all thinking or analysing is avoidance. Thinking about a problem can help us understand it and decide what to do.
However, repeatedly analysing something can sometimes become an attempt to eliminate uncertainty or change how we feel rather than solve a problem that actually has a solution. In those situations, the search for certainty can itself maintain the cycle of overthinking.
Is emotional avoidance a defence mechanism?
There is some overlap, but they aren't exactly the same concept. Defence mechanisms generally describe psychological processes that protect us from difficult thoughts, feelings or conflicts, while experiential avoidance more broadly describes attempts to escape or control unwanted internal experiences.
Both can be useful ways of understanding why apparently different behaviours sometimes serve a similar psychological purpose.
Why do I always need reassurance?
Reassurance can help reduce anxiety and uncertainty, which is why seeking it is completely understandable. If reassurance repeatedly produces relief, however, we can become increasingly reliant on receiving it.
This can sometimes make uncertainty more difficult to tolerate without reassurance rather than helping us develop confidence in our ability to cope with not knowing.
Why do I always need to feel in control?
For some people, control makes uncertainty feel more manageable. Planning, checking or trying to anticipate what will happen can reduce anxiety by creating a greater sense of predictability.
Counselling can help explore what uncertainty means to you, what happens when control isn't possible and why feeling in control may have become particularly important.
Can counselling help me tolerate difficult emotions?
Counselling can provide a space to understand your emotional responses and the strategies you've developed for managing difficult experiences.
The aim isn't necessarily to stop uncomfortable emotions occurring. Instead, therapy can help you develop greater awareness and flexibility in how you respond when they do.
References
Hayes, S. C., Wilson, K. G., Gifford, E. V., Follette, V. M. & Strosahl, K. (1996). Experiential avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(6), 1152–1168.
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D. & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change. Guilford Press.
Hofmann, S. G., Sawyer, A. T., Fang, A. & Asnaani, A. (2012). Emotion dysregulation model of mood and anxiety disorders. Depression and Anxiety, 29(5), 409–416.
LeDoux, J. E. & Pine, D. S. (2016). Using neuroscience to help understand fear and anxiety: A two-system framework. American Journal of Psychiatry, 173(11), 1083–1093.
About the Author
Andrew (Andy) Selway is a qualified integrative counsellor, psychotherapist and clinical solution-focused hypnotherapist based in Upper Heyford, near Bicester, Oxfordshire.
He supports adults with anxiety, workplace stress, burnout, confidence, perfectionism, relationship difficulties and life transitions through counselling, psychotherapy and solution-focused hypnotherapy, both in person and online across the UK.
Before retraining as a therapist, Andrew spent over 20 years working in senior HR, recruitment and business leadership, giving him a particular understanding of the pressures faced by professionals, managers and business owners.