Subconscious Anxiety: Signs, Causes, & Treatment

What Is Subconscious Anxiety?

Subconscious anxiety is a form of anxiety that exists beneath conscious awareness, impacting a person’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors without them realizing it. Anxiety remains subconscious when an individual has unresolved trauma or emotional issues that have not been treated. Subconscious anxiety can cause a person to experience stress, difficulty concentrating, and irritable mood throughout the day without a seemingly plausible explanation.

How Does Subconscious Anxiety Differ From Regular Anxiety?

Subconscious anxiety differs from regular anxiety in how it is present in a person’s day to day. Regular anxiety typically involves being able to identify triggers and events that you can pinpoint where your worry comes from. Subconscious anxiety is beneath your awareness and will influence your daily thoughts and emotions without a clear understanding of what is triggering those reactions.¹

What Causes Subconscious Anxiety?

Subconscious anxiety is caused by unresolved past experiences or traumas that have not been fully processed or treated. Traumatic childhood experiences, unhealthy family dynamics, and maladaptive learned behaviors can contribute to subconscious anxiety and the way in which you react or don’t react to stressful situations.

Signs of Subconscious Anxiety

Signs of subconscious anxiety are often very subtle and tend to be more physical in nature. Common signs include muscle tension, headaches, and stomach pain.  Behavioral signs include avoidance patterns, procrastination, and heightened reactions to minor stressors. Recognizing behavioral signs as key indicators of subconscious anxiety is crucial in being able to identify anxiety triggers, process the anxiety, and thereby begin to heal.

Here are ten common signs of subconscious anxiety:

1. Avoidance Patterns

Individuals with subconscious anxiety often develop avoidance patterns to not engage in situations or activities that would leave them feeling uncomfortable. This comes from an attempt to rid the anxiety in social settings. These avoidance behaviors are a coping mechanism to reduce anxiety at the moment but will cause continued avoidance patterns when activities are uncomfortable.

2. Irritability & Mood Swings

Subconscious anxiety can manifest as irritability or mood swings through underlying unease or tension as it continues to build and generate. Continued anxiety on the subconscious level can continue to wear on a person’s emotions and lead to heightened sensitivity and reaction to external actions. The build-up of unreleased anxiety can lead to sudden anger and intense mood swings.²

3. Changes in Sleep Patterns

Disturbances in sleep, such as insomnia or oversleeping, can be a behavioral indicator of subconscious anxiety. When a person is anxious, they may have difficulty unwinding from the day, which can result in anxiety-induced insomnia. Ongoing underlying tension can interfere with the ability to fall or stay asleep, and cause continued unease through a cycle of subconscious anxiety.

4. Compulsive Behaviors

Compulsive behaviors, such as excessive cleaning, checking, or repetitive routines, can be a manifestation of subconscious anxiety. These behaviors often help a person to feel that they are in control, which can decrease underlying worry. Repetitive behaviors or rituals to ease discomfort are a way to comfort perceived threats and provide temporary relief from worry and tension.

5. Social Withdrawal

Individuals with subconscious anxiety are prone to social withdrawal in an attempt to minimize their exposure to stress or triggers. The less an individual interacts with the world, the less likely they are to be put in situations that might amplify their anxiety.

6. Procrastination

Chronic procrastination can be linked to subconscious anxiety with a continued cycle of apprehension to avoid discomfort in various situations and, therefore, leads to avoidance behavior. Responsibilities might be linked to heightened stress and trigger opportunities to avoid them. This cycle will continue and make it more and more difficult to engage, leading to further procrastination.

7. Difficulty Concentrating

Individuals with subconscious anxiety often have a hard time concentrating because their mental energy is diverted toward distracting themselves from their underlying unease. Additionally, the background of worry causes them to have anxiety brain fog, which makes it challenging to focus.

8. Muscle Tension, Stomach Aches, or Headaches

Subconscious anxiety often has physical manifestations in the form of muscle tension, stomach aches, and headaches. When anxiety is beneath a person’s consciousness, the distress can become stored in various parts of the body.

9. Perfectionism

Perfectionism is often connected to anxiety as an attempt to control things that are perceived to be uncontrollable. When a person’s anxiety is subconscious, perfectionism can become even more exacerbated.³

10. Difficulty Relaxing

Difficulty relaxing can be linked to subconscious anxiety because of underlying distress and an inability to unwind. If an individual has prolonged subconscious anxiety, they can develop hypervigilance and find it difficult to relax.

Physical Symptoms of Subconscious Anxiety

Physical symptoms of subconscious anxiety include muscle tension, headaches, fatigue, sweating, gastrointestinal disruptions, or changes in sleep patterns. These physical symptoms occur without a clear cause or trigger but will persist because of underlying distress.

Physical symptoms of subconscious anxiety include:

• Digestive issues: Digestive issues such as nausea, stomach ache, or change in bowel movements are physical symptoms of subconscious anxiety. These will show up without warning and will occur even when an individual does not typically suffer from digestive issues (i.e., someone who is sensitive to dairy having digestive issues when they have not consumed dairy).
• Fatigue: An individual with subconscious anxiety may consistently feel tired even if they have had enough rest. This is often due to disrupted sleep patterns because of subconscious anxiety.
• Sweating: A person who has subconscious anxiety may experience clammy hands or excessive sweating in moments of heightened subconscious anxiety. This also might happen at random throughout the day without a trigger.
• Headaches: Frequent headaches that arise due to tension but not from other external factors are often a symptom of subconscious anxiety. It may be difficult to pinpoint the trigger for a headache or to ease the feeling.
• Muscle tension: Individuals with subconscious anxiety often have muscle tension, which is categorized by continued knots or pains in muscles without obvious signs of injury. This may be in one particular spot of the body or change.

Benefits of Becoming Conscious of Subconscious Anxiety

There is a transformative impact of bringing subconscious anxiety into conscious awareness. When a person becomes aware of their anxiety triggers, they can begin to develop coping skills for their anxiety and thereby reduce the symptoms of subconscious anxiety that are dragging them down.⁴ Additionally, it will provide an individual with increased self-awareness and an opportunity for growth within themselves and their relationships.

Here are some of the benefits of becoming conscious of subconscious anxiety:

Enhanced Self-Awareness

Understanding yourself through enhanced self-awareness allows you to comprehend your reactions and emotions better, leading to improved emotional regulation and emotional intelligence. This awareness will help you to distinguish between your reactions and connection to underlying triggers. This understanding will help you to gain perspective in being able to regulate when met with your triggers or find ways to avoid those triggers.

Improved Coping Strategies

Becoming conscious of subconscious anxiety enables you to develop more effective coping mechanisms. Instead of relying on automatic, often unhelpful behaviors, you can adopt strategies that directly address your anxiety. This shift will allow you to foster resilience and help you navigate challenges that might arise in the future with new clarity to address the challenge without intense emotion.

Better Relationship Dynamics

When you begin to become aware of your subconscious anxieties, you can improve the relationships you have. Understanding the root of certain reactions and behaviors can lead to more effective communication and healthier interactions with others. Partners or friends can gain insight into the struggles you are experiencing. The awareness can lay the foundation for healthy communication when you understand triggers.

Prevention of Escalation

Recognizing and addressing subconscious anxiety early can prevent it from escalating into more severe mental health issues. Early intervention is important because it will allow you to acknowledge hidden anxieties early on and intervene before they intensify and create more complex conditions or diagnoses. This proactive approach will allow you to establish a foundation for long-term well-being.

Empowerment & Personal Growth

The sense of empowerment that comes from gaining insight into your subconscious mind can help you foster personal growth and create a feeling of resilience. You will be able to navigate better challenges that might arise and cope when stressors are triggered. This empowerment and growth becomes a foundation for self-assurance and the ability to adapt to challenges.

Improved Sleeping Patterns

When you are aware of the subconscious anxiety, your sleeping patterns will improve. This will include the quality of your sleep, how much sleep, and how you feel even during the day after a full night’s sleep. These improved sleeping patterns come directly from the decrease in having subconscious thoughts and anxieties when going to bed or sleeping through the night.

How to Cope With Subconscious Anxiety

Alleviating subconscious anxiety involves bringing awareness to your symptoms, such as muscle tension, and developing healthy coping mechanisms to handle them. Additionally, focusing on self-care, engaging in regular exercise, and eating a balanced diet can be helpful in easing subconscious anxieties. Finally, opening up to loved ones and/or a professional can be a crucial part of beginning to heal from subconscious anxiety.

Here are some tips for how to cope with subconscious anxiety:

Speak to a Therapist or Counselor

Therapy plays a crucial role in uncovering and treating subconscious anxiety. A therapist who specializes in treating anxiety can help you uncover what is driving your anxiety and provide you with targeted techniques to diminish the impact of triggers. Therapy provides a safe space to process your subconscious anxieties and reframe the thought patterns to feel empowered and gain control over your mental health.⁵

Effective therapy options for subconscious anxiety include:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT for anxiety is a therapy model that involves identifying negative thoughts and reframing the way you think about them. A CBT therapist will help you to identify subconscious anxious thoughts that are driving unhealthy behaviors. They will then work with you to challenge those thoughts and reframe them into healthy thought processes.
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR for anxiety can help you process the past traumas that are contributing to subconscious anxiety. EMDR uses techniques such as bilateral stimulation to bring the suppressed memory to the surface and reprocess it in a helpful manner.
• Mindfulness-based therapies: Mindfulness-based therapies, such as mindfulness-based CBT or mindfulness-based stress reduction, focus on helping you to remain present and not be swept away by symptoms of your subconscious anxiety. Anxiety usually involves ruminating about the past or anxiously anticipating the future, so remaining in the present moment can help to reduce subconscious anxiety.
• Psychodynamic therapy: Psychodynamic therapy helps to uncover patterns and past experiences by recognizing hidden conflicts within your life. A psychodynamic therapist will explore with you what is driving your subconscious anxiety and how to heal that part of you so the subconscious anxiety subsides.
• Exposure therapy: Exposure therapy for anxiety involves gradually exposing yourself to your anxiety triggers until they no longer trigger anxiety within you. Exposure therapy requires a person to have a basic understanding of their anxiety, and so this type of therapy is only appropriate if you have already begun to understand your anxiety triggers a little bit.
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): ACT for anxiety is aimed at accepting thoughts and emotions, no matter how uncomfortable they are. ACT can help you to accept your anxiety and give you the courage to sit with it no matter how distressing it is. Over time, this will result in your anxiety decreasing and your resilience increasing.

Practice Mindfulness Daily

Using techniques of mindfulness for anxiety can help bring awareness to the present moment rather than allow subconscious thoughts to spin throughout the back of your mind. Engaging in mindfulness allows you to recognize the sense of control you have in the present.

Here are some mindfulness and self-awareness techniques to try:

• Walking meditation: A walking meditation is taking the time for a stroll and being present with the world around you. This can help alleviate subconscious anxiety by bringing an awareness to the present. You can get started by taking a short walk during the day and noticing the physical environment around you.
• Body scan meditation: Through a body scan, you are able to bring awareness to your body while bringing awareness to the here and now. Body scans can also help you draw your attention to where you are feeling muscle tension in your body and create a space to look out for triggers of that ache.
• Deep breathing exercise: Take the time to focus on slow, intentional breaths involving inhaling deeply through your nose and slowly exhaling through your mouth. This allows you to engage your parasympathetic nervous system and, in return, calms your body’s stress response and eases subconscious tension.
• Mindful observation: Through mindful observation, you will take the time to look at the world around you. Use this time to take in how you feel about your environment, the feelings that arise, and what you are noticing. This technique helps you to identify how you feel in particular situations.
• Guided imagery: Using guided imagery meditation for anxiety is a way to have a meditation that brings you ideas of what to draw your mind to. This allows your mind to wander a little less and focus on what you are being guided to think about, decreasing the chance of bringing your mind to the subconscious anxiety.

Incorporate Regular Exercise

Regular exercise to support decreasing anxiety that is beneath the conscious, as it will help you to release endorphins. This, in turn, will boost your mood and help decrease the subconscious feelings because your feelings of happiness will be heightened. Regular exercise can help you release the overall muscle tension you might be feeling and decrease your feeling of being overwhelmed.

Try Journaling for Self-Reflection

Taking time to journal about your anxiety allows you to look at what your potential triggers of anxiety might be. You may notice the tension in your body when journaling, and this can be a sign of what is causing you subconscious anxiety. Allowing yourself time for this self-reflection is a helpful tool in navigating triggers.

Engage With Social Support

Being surrounded by those who provide a sense of ease for you can be helpful when coping with subconscious anxiety. Your subconscious anxiety might be that you need a space of validation and comfort, and your social support can provide this. Being around loved ones can help you feel more comfortable and bring more joy to your day.

When to Seek Professional Support

Seeking professional help for subconscious anxiety is crucial to understanding and uncovering the feelings you have beneath the surface. It is important to seek support when you feel the unease in symptoms that are beginning to impact your daily life. An online therapist directory or online therapy platform for anxiety can be helpful in finding the therapist that is right for you.

If Not Subconscious Anxiety, What Else Could It Be?

While subconscious anxiety is a common underlying issue for many unexplained behavioral and emotional symptoms, there are other conditions and factors that might be at play. It is important to recognize there are conditions that can contribute to similar feelings. Knowing that this is a complex issue can help further identify the difference between subconscious anxiety and another condition.

Conditions with similar symptoms to subconscious anxiety include:

Physical Health Conditions

There is a possibility that physical health issues can mimic or contribute to anxiety-like symptoms. Some conditions that can seem similar to subconscious anxiety include thyroid disorders, heart problems, respiratory issues, and even nutritional concerns. Overlapping symptoms between anxiety and physical conditions include shortness of breath, fatigue, and rapid heartbeat. It is important to address physical concerns with a primary care doctor in order to rule out any potential physical disorders.⁶

Physical health conditions with similar symptoms to subconscious anxiety include:

• Hormonal imbalances
• Thyroid disorders
• Heart conditions
• Caffeine sensitivity or overconsumption
• Respiratory issues
• Low blood sugar

Sleep Disorders

Some sleep disorders can mimic or contribute to anxiety-like symptoms. Disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea, or restless leg syndrome will often interfere with sleeping patterns and can lead to fatigue, difficulty concentrating, or irritability. These sleep disturbances might heighten a person’s response to stress and impact emotional regulation and cognitive functioning. It is important to address sleep-related issues to alleviate symptoms.

Medication & Substance Side Effects

Certain over-the-counter medications, prescribed medications, recreational drugs, and caffeine can produce symptoms resembling anxiety. Stimulants, in particular, can trigger feelings of unease from the jitters that come with these medications. Additionally, when an individual stops taking certain substances, they may experience withdrawals, which can also cause anxiety-like symptoms.