Anxiety Hack
Use Paradoxical Intention to Beat Fear
The technique
When you dread something, your mind enters a loop: you fear the fear itself. This is anticipatory anxiety — and fighting it only makes it stronger.
The flip
Paradoxical intention flips the script. Instead of resisting, you deliberately wish for the feared outcome. Want to tremble during a speech? Try to tremble as hard as you can.
Why it works
This injects humor and distance between you and the fear, short-circuiting the anxiety loop. Your mind cannot genuinely panic about something it is actively trying to produce.
What if the best way to fight fear is to stop fighting it entirely?
Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz, developed a technique called paradoxical intention. The idea is beautifully counterintuitive:
Instead of running from what scares you, try to WISH for it to happen.
Afraid your hands will shake during a presentation? Tell yourself: "I'm going to try to shake as much as humanly possible."
Afraid you won't fall asleep? Say: "I'm going to stay awake all night on purpose."
What happens next is remarkable:
→ the anxiety loop breaks
→ humor creates psychological distance
→ your nervous system realizes there is no real threat
→ the symptom often disappears on its own
This works because anticipatory anxiety is self-fulfilling. You fear the fear, which creates the fear. Paradoxical intention cuts the wire.
Frankl used this with patients suffering from insomnia, phobias, and obsessive thoughts — often with rapid results.
Next time anxiety spirals, try wanting the worst outcome. You might be surprised how quickly the fear loses its grip.
Further reading
- •Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl
- •Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway — Susan Jeffers
- •The Courage to Be Disliked — Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga