Bonus Episode: What Is Anticipatory Anxiety (And Why It's Often Worse Than the Thing Itself)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Your Anxiety Toolkit – Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression

Episode: Bonus Episode: What Is Anticipatory Anxiety (And Why It's Often Worse Than the Thing Itself)
Host: Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT
Release Date: May 1, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this insightful bonus episode, Kimberley Quinlan unpacks the concept of anticipatory anxiety—the overwhelming fear, dread, and rumination that occurs before a potentially stressful event. Kimberley’s goal is to normalize these experiences, explain the science behind why anticipation is often worse than the event itself, and offer actionable skills for coping, rooted in her 15+ years of clinical expertise in anxiety and OCD.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Anticipatory Anxiety

• Anticipatory anxiety is the intense apprehension and dread about an event that hasn't occurred yet.
• Common triggers: social gatherings, tough conversations, public presentations, flights, or even texting someone.
• Kimberley clarifies, “If this is you, you’re not alone… Sometimes the hardest part about these events isn't the event itself, it's the actual anticipation.” (00:01)

2. Why Anticipatory Anxiety Feels So Intense

a. Uncertainty Is the Main Driver

• The brain is “fueled by uncertainty” and starts generating potential negative outcomes to keep us safe.
• “Anytime things are uncertain, our brain is going to get lit up. It’s going to start to go, wait, wait a second. Bad things might happen.” (03:25)

b. Thoughts Are Mistaken for Reality

• The anxious brain interprets “what ifs” as genuine threats.
• Physical symptoms follow: rapid heartbeat, tense muscles, sweating.

c. Catastrophic Rehearsal Loop

• The brain replays worst-case scenarios repeatedly, like a fire alarm that won’t turn off.
• Kimberley shares a vivid analogy:
  “It’s your brain pulling that fire alarm. It’s your brain saying, danger, danger.” (07:50)
  “Like the alarm has been pulled… ‘please exit the building, please exit the building’… and it just keeps saying it. Now this is what your brain does too.” (08:31)

d. Avoidance & Control Strategies

• In response, people often:
  • Over-prepare
  • Seek reassurance
  • Delay (procrastinate)
  • Check or replay conversations/events in their mind
• These strategies offer short-term relief but reinforce long-term anxiety.

e. Emotional & Cognitive Fatigue

• All this pre-event stress leaves us “completely wiped out” before the event even arrives.
• “We end up being completely burnt out. We have emotional fatigue. We have cognitive fatigue. We’re irritable...” (11:09)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the universality of anticipatory anxiety:
  “If you’re someone who’s experiencing this, I want you to remember there’s nothing wrong with you.” (02:20)

• On brain evolution and protection:
  “Your brain is just trying to protect you. This is your brain’s job… It’s simply trying to list off all of the potential, maybe, probably could happen things. That’s its job.” (04:10)

• On the futility of over-preparing:
  “There are many subtle forms of avoidance… these behaviors are temporary, do take away the discomfort in that moment, but they only reinforce the fear in the long term.” (10:40)

• Using a personal story to illustrate avoidance:
  Kimberley humorously describes signing up for a half marathon at 10 pm, only to immediately start imagining excuses to avoid it:
  “The next morning, my brain started to come up with all of the ways in which I could plan to avoid it… It’s ridiculous how our brain does this.” (09:57)

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Actionable Skills & Recommendations

1. Self-Reflection Exercise (03:00)

• Kimberley encourages listeners to journal about a specific event they're currently dreading and jot down how their anticipatory anxiety manifests.

2. Mindfulness and Acceptance Skills (13:45)

• Practice staying present and compassionately acknowledging anxious thoughts without reacting to them.
• Kimberley’s suggestion:
  “Put your hand on your heart and say, okay, this is my mind. This is what my mind does. It’s just trying to help me, but I don’t need to solve this right now.”

3. Normalize and Pace Yourself

• The intensity of anticipation is NOT a predictor of how an event will go:
  “The one thing I want you to take away is the intensity of your anticipation is not a reliable predictor of how the event will go.” (12:40)

• Take action “one step at a time, one day at a time” and focus on willingness to be uncomfortable rather than trying to eliminate it.

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Important Timestamps

• 00:01 — Introduction; What is anticipatory anxiety?
• 03:00 — Self-inquiry/journal prompt: Name your own anticipated event.
• 04:10 — Uncertainty as the driver of fear.
• 07:30 — Brain-overestimation and physical stress reactions.
• 08:31 — Fire alarm story: How your brain gets stuck on “danger.”
• 09:57 — Kimberley’s half-marathon story as an example of avoidance.
• 11:09 — Emotional fatigue before the event even begins.
• 12:40 — Key takeaway—anticipation does not predict reality.
• 13:45 — Practical skills: mindfulness, acceptance, allowing discomfort.

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Closing Message

Kimberley closes the episode with encouragement to be gentle with yourself, to notice anticipatory anxiety as a normal brain response, and to keep moving toward your values with “patience and compassion.”
Signature closing: “Today is a beautiful day to do hard things.”

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Transcript

[Kimberly Quinlan]

Have you ever noticed the incredible degree of dread, uncertainty, anxiety, terror about an upcoming event? You are waiting, you're ruminating, it's all you can think about. And you are spiraling on what if, worst case scenarios. Now, if this is you, you're not alone. And I know it can be so overwhelming. And what's so interesting is when the event actually happens, we realize it wasn't as bad as thought it was. Has this happened to you? Because the truth is this is actually really, really common. Sometimes the hardest part about these events isn't the event itself, it's the actual anticipation of that. So by the end of this episode, what I want to promise you is that you will know what anticipatory anxiety is and why it is often so much worse than the thing itself. Self welcome. My name is Kimberly Quinlan. I am an anxiety and OCD therapist and I am on a mission to help 10 million of you to help suffer less with anxiety. I feel like the one thing I can really do is to speak a little louder than all of the Internet craziness that you're hearing about these quick fixes and, you know, solve it Right now. I want to give you actual effective skills, skills that have been proven by research to help you manage your day to day anxiety. So let's get into it. What is anticipatory anxiety? Anticipatory anxiety is an intense fear or uncertainty. It can also be dread that shows up before the event or before the trigger. And so what this means is you know something is going to happen. It has created anxiety for you. And until that event happens, you spend a lot of your time. In many cases, people say they spend their entire day and much of the evening worrying about this event, worrying about how it will go, what could or could not happen, how they will cope, Will it be as bad as they think it is? This is what it's like to have anticipatory anxiety. Now, anticipatory anxiety can show up in many areas. It could be before a social event. It could be anticipation of a difficult conversation. It might be of a flight. If you're afraid of flying, it might be even the fear of sending a simple text message may create an immense degree of anticipatory anxiety. And if you're someone who's experiencing this, I want you to remember there's nothing wrong with you. I don't want you to feel bad because you struggle in these areas. We all have different degrees of anticipatory anxiety about different things. Now the other thing to remember is it shows up in different ways. Some people with a lot of anticipatory anxiety, they might ruminate about catastrophization, they might ruminate about the worst case scenario, Whereas others ruminate about how they're going to handle it. They're strategizing, what will I do if that happens? How can I avoid it? What will I say? How could I handle it? So there are many ways in which we can try to manage our anticipatory anxiety. But my goal today is to teach you what is going on so that you can change the way you respond. So if you've been thinking, why am I so upset about this event? It hasn't even happened yet. You're totally not alone. Okay? So, as always, these episodes, I want to make them as specific to you as possible. I want you to bring to mind the specific way in which this concept applies to you. So I want you to get out your journal and I want you to think about something you are anticipating. It could be an event, it could be a conversation, it could be a presentation you have to give or a test. It does, it doesn't matter. I just want you to bring to mind an event you're anticipating. Write it down at the top of the page. Now we're going to go through some of the reasons why, and you, as we go, can start to jot down specific points that apply to you. Now, the first reason we struggle with anticipatory anxiety is that uncertainty is the fuel behind fear. Anytime things are uncertain, our brain is going to get lit up. It's going to start to go, wait, wait a second. Bad things might happen. And now what I want to do is try to predict all of those potential bad things. It's going to start to think, what if I mess up? What if I can't handle it? What if something goes wrong? Now, the gentle truth here is your brain is just trying to protect you. This is your brain's job. You might be thinking, why does my brain keep coming up with these worst case scenarios? Because this is what's kept us alive all these years. Our brain is simply trying to list off all of the potential, maybe, probably could happen, things. That's its job. So when we wrote down the thing that you're anticipating, it makes sense. Let's say the thing you're writing down is like a doctor's appointment, doctor's visit. It makes sense that your brain is going to want to prepare you for potential problems. It's going to say, it could be this thing, it could be that. What will you Say, how will you handle it? Who will you call? That's your brain's natural way of handling any anything that is uncertain. Now, second of all, then your brain often gets caught thinking or responding to thoughts as if they are real. So let's break it down. You're preparing to go to the doctor's visit. We know based on point number one that your brain's going to tell you all of the potential what ifs. And then the next piece is your brain is going to mistakenly think that just because you thought these things, they must be true in a high likelihood.

[NOCD Representative]

Now, as you know, I have a private practice. I have six amazing therapists in Calabasas, California. However, we do not take insurance. Now if you are looking for insurance covered OCD or BFRB treatment, I want to let you know about no cd. NOCD provides face to face live video sessions with specialized licensed OCD therapists. Now, their therapists use exposure and response prevention. We know this is the gold standard for ocd. So you can be absolutely confirmed that you're in the right place there.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

And they have a clinically proven app

[NOCD Representative]

that helps you stay connected to your therapist and others who have OCD between sessions so you'll always feel supported. Now the cool thing is NOCD is available in all 50 US states and even internationally and they accept most insurance plans, making it affordable and accessible. We love that. Now if you think you might have OCD or you're struggling to manage your symptoms, you can book a free call. Just click the link in the show [e-mail] I am honored to partner with with no CD. I want to remind you that recovery is possible. Please do not forget that. Now big hugs and let's get back to the show.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

We know with anxiety they tend to overestimate the risk. That's why things feel a lot more scary for us. So what happens here is when we interpret our thoughts as real, our body is then going to trigger off an increased heart rate, muscle tension, maybe you start to sweat, you're going to have

[Guest or Co-host]

tension, you're going to have a lot of like overwhelmed thoughts.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

This is just like your brain pulling that fire alarm. It's your brain saying, danger, danger.

[Guest or Co-host]

Now's the time to go into action.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

That's what your brain is doing. Now. The third piece is then your brain is going to rehearse the worst on repeat. Think of it. It's pulled the lever. It's saying danger, danger, urgency, urgency. Like the alarm has been pulled. And you know when you see in the movies those alarms and like.

[Guest or Co-host]

Or they're like, please exit the building, please exit the building. And they say it over and over again, not re. It was just recently that I went to this event.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

It was this gorgeous event at this

[Guest or Co-host]

gorgeous hotel right on the beach.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

And somebody pulled the fire alarm. And so we're all sitting there like, trying to listen to this presentation. And over and over the speaker is,

[Guest or Co-host]

please exit the building, please exit the building, please.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

And it just keeps saying it. Now this is what your brain does too. When it thinks there's an actual danger, it's going to consistently tell you scary things. And when this happens, you are often going to attend to it, respond to it, overthink, ruminate, do mental checking, do mental replaying, go through every last potential scenario on how it might play out. Then what we know it does is it moves into avoidance and control mechanisms. It starts to plan out how you are going to survive again. The event hasn't even happened yet, but yet your brain is already, even if it's like months in advance, your brain is already starting to think about the ways in which you may exit. Now, recently I signed up for a half marathon. I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

[Guest or Co-host]

But what was so funny is I

[Kimberly Quinlan]

signed up at like 10pm at night.

[Guest or Co-host]

It was actually one of my former employees. He texted me and he said, hey, you always said we would do a marathon together and no take backsies. And so I agreed. I signed up that evening because I make a promise. I make a promise.

[Kimberly Quinlan]

And then the next morning, my brain started to come up with all of the ways in which I could plan to avoid it. I was like, well, maybe something might

[Guest or Co-host]

happen to my parents. It's coming up with even other catastrophes to help me avoid the thing I'm anticipating. It's ridiculous how our brain does this. So what I want you to note

[Kimberly Quinlan]

down here is just get curious about the ways that your brain starts to avoid and control and try to get back a sense of control over the event. Now, in this situation, your brain is learning, this must be dangerous. We must avoid it. Now, there are many subtle forms of avoidance, over preparing, reassurance seeking, procrastinating, repetitively checking or planning these behaviors. They are temporary, do take away the discomfort in that moment, but they only reinforce the fear in the long term. We move now on to number five. This is the last one, which is. By this point we are exhausted. We haven't even gotten to the event. Think of me. This marathon isn't till May of next year, but I could already Feel myself in April starting to do these behaviors

[Guest or Co-host]

because I'm scared and it's uncertain, and

[Kimberly Quinlan]

I have no idea how this is going to go. When we do all these behaviors, we end up being complet burnt out. We have emotional fatigue. We have cognitive fatigue. We're irritable. We have difficulty focusing. And we're so focused on this date in the future that we're unable to be present in this actual moment. So, again, by the time the event arrives, we are completely wiped. We're completely wiped out. So let's now recap what we've learned. Anticipatory anxiety happens when our brain treats an imagined danger as if it's real. It's driven by uncertainty, not an actual threat. And our mind and our brain create a whole story that grows stronger over time. And the more we catastrophize, the more anxiety and anticipatory anxiety we have about this event, because we're actually giving our attention to catastrophic thinking. And when we give attention to catastrophic thinking, we are driving our anxiety levels up. We often, in that case as well, just like me, is we start to engage in avoidant and control strategies. And this actually reinforces our fear and creates more anticipatory anxiety. And last of all, we get left feeling absolutely exhausted. So here's what I want you to take away. Everything we talk about on this podcast is about the skills. We've talked about them over and over again. Their mindfulness. They're being present. They're being willing. They're allowing thoughts to be there and not engaging in them. But of all of those things that I have taught you, please go back and listen to previous episodes. Of all of the things I've taught you, the one thing I want you to take away is the intensity of your anticipation is not a reliable predictor of how the event will go. I've actually spent time with clients spending months in anticipatory anxiety. And then the event came, and they were like, I have literally no idea why I freaked myself out so much. But now we know this is. We've explained it in this episode. Now, this is just a reflection of you having a normal human brain that's trying really hard to protect you. Our goal is, instead of trying to eliminate and remove that uncertainty and anxiety, we're going to practice allowing it to be there with patience and compassion and sitting with it and still engaging in the things that we value. We're with our friends. We're with our loved ones. We're with our work and the things that we love to do. Now, what we're going to do, as always, is we're just going to do this one step at a time. That is how we, we improve on anything. That's how we muster any skill. One step at a time, one day at a time. Try not to focus on the future event. Just focus on being willing to be uncomfortable in this moment. So when you're noticing this anticipatory anxiety in the future, I want you to just notice it rising and see if you can just pause, put your hand on your heart and say, okay, this is my mind. This is what my mind does. It's just trying to help me. It's just trying to prepare me, but I don't need to solve this right now. And then gently bring your attention back to this present moment now. Thank you so much for being here. I am so thrilled to have you be here with me on my mission. If there's anyone you think that this episode could help, please do share it with them. It'll help me meet my mission faster, which will make me so happy. And as always, today is a beautiful day to do hard things. I'll see you in the next episode.

[CBT School Disclaimer Voice]

Please note that this podcast or any other resources from CBTSchool.com should not replace

[Kimberly Quinlan]

professional mental health care.

[CBT School Disclaimer Voice]

If you feel you would bet benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day and thank you for supporting CBTSchool.com.