Anticipatory Anxiety: When Fear Shows Up Before Anything Even Happens
- Randi Camirand
- Jan 16
- 3 min read
Anticipatory anxiety is the anxiety that arrives early.It’s the tight chest before a conversation, the racing thoughts days before an appointment, the sense of dread that builds long before a feared event actually occurs.
Nothing is happening yet — and still, your body is already bracing.
If you live with anticipatory anxiety, you may find yourself constantly preparing for what might go wrong, replaying future scenarios, or trying to control outcomes in order to feel safe. This kind of anxiety can quietly take over daily life, making it difficult to relax, be present, or trust that you’ll be okay.
What Is Anticipatory Anxiety?
Anticipatory anxiety is a form of anxiety driven by the nervous system’s expectation of threat. Rather than responding to something happening in the present moment, your body reacts to a predicted future experience.
Common triggers include:
Upcoming social interactions or difficult conversations
Medical appointments or test results
Travel or changes in routine
Work deadlines or performance situations
Relationship uncertainty
Trauma reminders that haven’t happened yet, but feel imminent
Your mind may say, “I need to think this through so I can be prepared,” while your body is already in fight-or-flight mode.
Why Anticipatory Anxiety Feels So Hard to Control
Anticipatory anxiety isn’t a failure of logic or willpower. It’s a protective response rooted in the nervous system.
Often, this pattern develops when:
You’ve experienced past trauma or emotional unpredictability
You learned early that being prepared helped you survive
Your system associates uncertainty with danger
Your body learned to stay “ahead” of pain or disappointment
Even when your current life is relatively stable, your nervous system may still be operating from old survival strategies.
That’s why reassurance, positive thinking, or “just relaxing” rarely work. The anxiety isn’t coming from your thoughts alone — it’s living in the body.
How Anticipatory Anxiety Shows Up in the Body
Anticipatory anxiety is often experienced physically before it’s recognized mentally. You may notice:
Tightness in the chest or throat
Shallow breathing
Restlessness or agitation
A knot in the stomach
Fatigue from constant mental vigilance
Difficulty sleeping before events
These sensations are signals, not problems to eliminate. They reflect a nervous system that learned to stay alert in order to stay safe.
How I Work With Anticipatory Anxiety
In my work, we don’t try to outthink anticipatory anxiety. We work directly with the nervous system and the body where the anxiety is actually happening.
I blend trauma-informed psychotherapy with mind-body practices to help clients gently shift out of chronic anticipation and into present-moment safety.
This may include:
Nervous system regulation to reduce fight-or-flight responses
Mindfulness and body awareness to notice sensations without being overwhelmed
Trauma-informed techniques, including EMDR and Clinical EFT, to process stored fear responses
Realization Process practices, which support grounding, embodiment, and a deeper sense of internal safety
Rather than pushing anxiety away, we create space for your system to feel supported, oriented, and less alone with the fear.
Over time, clients often notice that the future no longer feels quite so threatening — not because life is perfectly predictable, but because their body trusts its ability to respond.
You Don’t Have to Live in Constant Anticipation
Anticipatory anxiety can make life feel like it’s always on hold — waiting for the next thing to happen, the next wave of fear, the next moment to endure.
Healing doesn’t mean eliminating uncertainty.It means helping your nervous system learn that it can meet uncertainty without collapsing or bracing against it.
You deserve to experience more ease now, not just after the anxiety passes.
Ready to Begin?
If anticipatory anxiety is running your life, you don’t have to navigate it alone. I offer individual therapy and guided mind-body work for people who want to understand their anxiety at a deeper level and gently shift long-standing patterns.
Reach out today to schedule a session or learn more about how we can work together.
Relief is possible by supporting your system in a new way.
