What Is Situational Anxiety?

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsSymptomsDiagnosisCausesTriggersTreatmentsHow to Cope

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Symptoms

Diagnosis

Causes

Triggers

Treatments

How to Cope

Situational anxiety is a form of anxiety that happens in response to new, unfamiliar, or stressful situations. It’s that feeling you get right before you give an important presentation at work or interview for a new job. Your heart speeds up, your palms sweat, and your breathing becomes shallow and quick.

When faced with a situation outside your comfort zone, your body’s naturalfight-or-flight responsekicks in. There’s no real danger, but that doesn’t stop your body from responding with feelings of stress and anxiety.

Sometimes this response can be helpful. It helps you stay alert, motivated, and ready to do your best.

However, it can also vary in intensity depending on the person and the situation. These feelings can be manageable for some people but more overwhelming for others.

The great news is that there are ways to make situational anxiety more manageable. Such tactics often include self-help strategies like deep breathing. Or it might entail talking to your therapist about treatments that can help.

At a GlanceIf you get tense and anxious when dealing with situations you aren’t used to—like traveling to a new place or interviewing for a new job—then you are experiencing situational anxiety. Unfortunately, it can sometimes cause us to avoid situations that cause stress, limiting our ability to live our lives to the fullest. Fortunately, there are effective treatments and self-help strategies that can help you manage feelings of situational anxiety when they arise.

At a Glance

If you get tense and anxious when dealing with situations you aren’t used to—like traveling to a new place or interviewing for a new job—then you are experiencing situational anxiety. Unfortunately, it can sometimes cause us to avoid situations that cause stress, limiting our ability to live our lives to the fullest. Fortunately, there are effective treatments and self-help strategies that can help you manage feelings of situational anxiety when they arise.

Symptoms of Situational Anxiety

Feeling a little stressed or anxious in response to unfamiliar situations is normal. When you encounter a challenge or potential threat, this stress helps prepare your body to respond.

Too much anxiety, however, can create distressing symptoms that make it hard to focus. Everyone responds differently, however, and your own symptoms may vary depending on how anxiety-provoking you find the situation. In response to certain situations, you might experience:

Worry, trouble sleeping, and feelings of panic are also common signs of situational anxiety.

Such situations can also sometimes trigger apanic attack, which is an episode of intense anxiety or fear. To prevent these symptoms, people may sometimes begin avoiding situations that they know will trigger an anxiety response.

Identifying Situational Anxiety

Situational anxiety is not recognized as a distinct condition in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM-5), the clinical manual doctors use to diagnose mental health conditions.

However, if symptoms meet specific criteria, including being distressing and interfering with daily living, they may meet the criteria for a type of anxiety disorder known as aspecific phobia. Specific phobias involve an irrational and intense fear of a specific situation or object.

If you suspect you are experiencing situational anxiety, talk to your doctor. They will be able to assess your symptoms and determine if they relate to situational anxiety or a sign of another mental health condition, such as a phobia or other type of anxiety disorder.

Your doctor will ask you questions about the nature, duration, and severity of your anxiety symptoms. You may also be given a physical exam and have blood drawn to run lab tests that can help rule out certain medical conditions that might be causing or contributing to your anxiety symptoms.

You may also be asked to fill out a questionnaire that can help screen for conditions such as anxiety or depression.

It is important to distinguish between situational anxiety andgeneralized anxiety disorder(GAD). Where GAD involves an often continuous state of generalized worry,situational anxiety arises in response to a specific situation.

What Causes Situational Anxiety?

What causes situational anxiety can differ from one person to the next. Some common causes include the following:

Other factors that may play a role in causing anxiety disorders include genetics, brain chemistry, and environmental influences.

What Causes Anxiety Attacks?

What Triggers Situational Anxiety?

Situational anxiety can be linked to a number of different settings, experiences, or situations. Some of the most common triggers include:

Major life changes can also trigger feelings of situational anxiety—a wedding day, the birth of a child, or moving out to go to college, for example.

Novelty and unfamiliarity are common themes for many of the situations that trigger situational anxiety. It’s normal to feel anxious in the face of situations where you aren’t sure what to expect or what might happen. In many cases, situational anxiety begins to lessen once the situations become more familiar.

Treatment for Situational Anxiety

Situational anxiety can often be managed using self-help strategies, but in instances where your anxiety becomes very distressing or interferes with your daily life, you may need professional treatment.

Psychotherapy, medication, or a combination of the two are options for treating problems with anxiety.

Medication

Your doctor may prescribe an anti-anxiety medication such as Xanax (alprazolam), Klonopin (clonazepam), or Ativan (lorazepam) to help you manage symptoms of anxiety when they arise. Because these medications carry a risk for dependence, they are typically only prescribed for short-term use.

Psychotherapy

Your doctor or therapist may also recommend psychotherapy, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or exposure therapy, that can help alleviate your situational anxiety.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and How Does It Work?

What Can You Do to Cope With Situational Anxiety

Situational anxiety can be challenging and upsetting, but it is also something that you can often manage using a number of different coping strategies. Some ideas that may help:

Figure Out Your Triggers

Understanding the situations that tend to cause anxiety is an important first step. When you know that you are likely to be anxious in response to a certain situation, you can make a plan for how you might deal with those feelings. For example, if you know that you are going to be anxious about giving a presentation at work, you can take steps to feel more at ease beforehand.

Be Prepared

Situational anxiety often arises when you feel unprepared to deal with an unfamiliar situation. Making sure that you have adequately prepared yourself to manage whatever might happen, whether you’re giving a speech or starting a new job, can help reduce some of your feelings of anxiety.

Expose Yourself to Your Fears

Exposure therapy is an approach that is commonly used to cope with phobias and anxiety. The idea is to expose yourself to what you fear in order to familiarize yourself with it and discover that it really poses little danger.

You might start slow (maybe just thinking about what makes you anxious) and then gradually work your way up to actually facing your fears (such as putting yourself in the situation that makes you anxious).

Challenge Negative Thoughts

Engaging in catastrophic “what if” type of thinking where you imagine all of the worst possible outcomes is one common pattern ofnegative thinkingthat can contribute to situational anxiety. When you find yourself thinking this way, challenge your thoughts with more realistic, positive ones.

Quit Leaning On Unhealthy Coping Strategies

It’s also essential to assess how you tend to respond to feelings of situational anxiety. Do you tend to isolate yourself from others? Do you make impulsive purchases to make yourself feel better? Or do you turn to emotional eating or alcohol to de-stress?

Avoidance is also an unhealthy way of coping with anxiety. While it might reduce or eliminate the problem in the short term, it tends to worsen anxiety over time.

Once you recognize these unhealthy coping mechanisms, you can look for healthier (and more effective) ways of dealing with complex, distressing emotions.

Finding Healthier Ways to Manage Anxiety

More adaptive ways of coping with anxiety help you feel calmer and provide the support and strength you need to deal with the source of stress rather than hiding from it. Examples of healthy coping strategies include:

Use Relaxation Techniques

Learn and practice some relaxation strategies that you can then use when you find yourself experiencing situational anxiety.Deep breathingandvisualizationare two useful approaches that you can utilize to quickly calm yourself.

Progressive muscle relaxation(PMR) is another helpful tactic that involves progressively tightening and then relaxing different muscle groups throughout the body.

Regularly practicing these coping strategies can help you gradually decrease situational anxiety. The more often you face your fears—while also preparing yourself, challenging your negative thoughts, and using relaxation techniques—the less anxiety you will be likely to experience.

If you or a loved one are struggling with situational anxiety, contact theSubstance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helplineat1-800-662-4357for information on support and treatment facilities in your area.For more mental health resources, see ourNational Helpline Database.

For more mental health resources, see ourNational Helpline Database.

7 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Cleveland Clinic.Panic attacks.Munir S, Takov V.Generalized anxiety disorder. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing.Office on Women’s Health. Anxiety disorders.Padmanabhanunni A, Pretorius TB, Isaacs SA.We are not islands: The role of social support in the relationship between perceived stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and psychological distress.Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023;20(4):3179. doi:10.3390/ijerph20043179Aylett E, Small N, Bower P.Exercise in the treatment of clinical anxiety in general practice - a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC Health Serv Res. 2018;18(1):559. doi:10.1186/s12913-018-3313-5Zaccaro A, Piarulli A, Laurino M, et al.How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing.Front Hum Neurosci. 2018;12:353. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353Toussaint L, Nguyen QA, Roettger C, et al.Effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and guided imagery in promoting psychological and physiological states of relaxation.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021;2021:5924040. doi:10.1155/2021/5924040

7 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Cleveland Clinic.Panic attacks.Munir S, Takov V.Generalized anxiety disorder. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing.Office on Women’s Health. Anxiety disorders.Padmanabhanunni A, Pretorius TB, Isaacs SA.We are not islands: The role of social support in the relationship between perceived stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and psychological distress.Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023;20(4):3179. doi:10.3390/ijerph20043179Aylett E, Small N, Bower P.Exercise in the treatment of clinical anxiety in general practice - a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC Health Serv Res. 2018;18(1):559. doi:10.1186/s12913-018-3313-5Zaccaro A, Piarulli A, Laurino M, et al.How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing.Front Hum Neurosci. 2018;12:353. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353Toussaint L, Nguyen QA, Roettger C, et al.Effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and guided imagery in promoting psychological and physiological states of relaxation.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021;2021:5924040. doi:10.1155/2021/5924040

Cleveland Clinic.Panic attacks.Munir S, Takov V.Generalized anxiety disorder. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing.Office on Women’s Health. Anxiety disorders.Padmanabhanunni A, Pretorius TB, Isaacs SA.We are not islands: The role of social support in the relationship between perceived stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and psychological distress.Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023;20(4):3179. doi:10.3390/ijerph20043179Aylett E, Small N, Bower P.Exercise in the treatment of clinical anxiety in general practice - a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC Health Serv Res. 2018;18(1):559. doi:10.1186/s12913-018-3313-5Zaccaro A, Piarulli A, Laurino M, et al.How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing.Front Hum Neurosci. 2018;12:353. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353Toussaint L, Nguyen QA, Roettger C, et al.Effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and guided imagery in promoting psychological and physiological states of relaxation.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021;2021:5924040. doi:10.1155/2021/5924040

Cleveland Clinic.Panic attacks.

Munir S, Takov V.Generalized anxiety disorder. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing.

Office on Women’s Health. Anxiety disorders.

Padmanabhanunni A, Pretorius TB, Isaacs SA.We are not islands: The role of social support in the relationship between perceived stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and psychological distress.Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023;20(4):3179. doi:10.3390/ijerph20043179

Aylett E, Small N, Bower P.Exercise in the treatment of clinical anxiety in general practice - a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC Health Serv Res. 2018;18(1):559. doi:10.1186/s12913-018-3313-5

Zaccaro A, Piarulli A, Laurino M, et al.How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing.Front Hum Neurosci. 2018;12:353. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353

Toussaint L, Nguyen QA, Roettger C, et al.Effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and guided imagery in promoting psychological and physiological states of relaxation.Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021;2021:5924040. doi:10.1155/2021/5924040

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At a Glance#

Symptoms of Situational Anxiety#

Identifying Situational Anxiety#

What Causes Situational Anxiety?#

What Triggers Situational Anxiety?#

Treatment for Situational Anxiety#

Medication#

Psychotherapy#

What Can You Do to Cope With Situational Anxiety#

Figure Out Your Triggers#

Be Prepared#

Expose Yourself to Your Fears#

Challenge Negative Thoughts#

Quit Leaning On Unhealthy Coping Strategies#

Finding Healthier Ways to Manage Anxiety#

Use Relaxation Techniques#