Overthinking & Reassurance Anxiety Loop: Why You Can’t Stop Spiraling

There’s a very specific kind of anxiety spiral that doesn’t look like what people think anxiety “should” look like 👀

You’re not crying on the bathroom floor. You’re not having a full panic moment. You’re just… in your head 🧠

Lying in bed replaying something you said earlier 😵‍💫
Texting your friend like, “wait… did that feel weird to you?” 📱
Googling a symptom you’ve already Googled 17 times 🔍
Refreshing your email like something magically changed in the last 3 minutes 📩

On the surface, it feels low key. Almost harmless 😌

But then it keeps happening. And happening. And suddenly your brain is stuck in this loop of overthinking → needing reassurance → feeling better for a second → then right back into overthinking again 🔁

It’s exhausting 😩

If you’re reading this thinking “ok wait… this is literally me,” you’re not alone 🤍 I see this all the time, especially in smart, self aware women who are doing their best to hold it together and not come off as “too much.”

And just to be clear, this is not because you’re dramatic or irrational. It’s because your brain found something that gives quick relief and now it’s like… cool, let’s keep doing that forever 🙃

Annoying, honestly 😑

The good news is once you see the pattern for what it is, everything starts to click 💡 And when it clicks, it becomes way easier to actually change it ✨

What this loop actually looks like

This kind of anxiety loop usually starts with something small that just feels… off.

Maybe someone takes a little too long to text back.
Maybe your boss sends a short email and now you’re reading into it.
Maybe your stomach feels weird and your brain immediately goes there.
Maybe you remember something slightly awkward you said three days ago.
Maybe you’re about to make a decision and suddenly it feels like the most important choice of your life.

And then your brain grabs onto it. You start thinking about it. Then thinking about it more. Then trying to figure it out.

You text someone to get their take.
You check again.
You Google.
You replay the situation.
You run through every possible outcome like you’re training for some kind of emotional Olympics.

And eventually… you get a little relief.

Your friend says, “I promise, it’s fine.”
Google tells you it’s probably nothing.
Your partner reassures you.
Or you convince yourself you’ve finally “figured it out.”

For a moment, your body actually relaxes. And it feels real. But it doesn’t last.

Because the next time something uncertain pops up, your brain is like, “oh I know what we do here.”

We overthink. We check. We ask. We get relief.

And that’s exactly how the cycle keeps reinforcing itself.

Why reassurance feels so good and backfires so hard

This is where Judson Brewer’s work actually makes anxiety make a lot more sense in a very real, non-therapist-y way.

In his book, Unwinding Anxiety, he talks about habit loops. Basically, your brain learns to repeat behaviors that give it some kind of reward.

It usually looks like this:

Trigger: something feels uncertain, uncomfortable, vulnerable, or a little scary

Behavior: you start overthinking, checking, Googling, replaying, or asking someone for reassurance

Reward: you feel a little calmer, a little safer, a little more in control… for a minute

And that little moment of relief? It matters more than you think.

Because your brain is obsessed with anything that makes discomfort go away quickly. It’s not thinking long term. It’s not like, “is this helping us grow?” It’s like, “oh wow, that made us feel better fast… let’s do that again.”

So the issue isn’t that reassurance doesn’t work.

It’s that it works a little too well in the moment… and not at all in the bigger picture.

Which is why you keep getting pulled back into the same cycle.

It’s giving situationship energy.

And here’s the kicker… the relief you get starts to shrink too.

What used to calm you down for hours now lasts maybe minutes. You need more reassurance, more checking, more mental effort just to feel baseline okay.That’s how it becomes chronic.

Not because something is “wrong” with you… but because your brain has been unintentionally trained into this loop on repeat.

It’s like building a muscle, but unfortunately the muscle is anxiety.

The more you use the cycle, the stronger and faster it gets.

Which is why breaking the loop isn’t about “thinking better” or finding the perfect answer.

It’s about slowly teaching your brain a new rule: “Uncertainty is uncomfortable… but not dangerous.”

Why overthinking and reassurance become a pair

Overthinking and reassurance seeking usually show up together because they’re both trying to do the exact same thing.

Get rid of uncertainty.

Overthinking is like, “let me think this through from every possible angle until I feel okay again.”

Reassurance is like, “I don’t trust my own read on this right now, so let me borrow someone else’s certainty.”

Different strategies, same goal.

And just to say this clearly, wanting reassurance does not make you needy or dramatic. It makes you human.

Of course you want comfort.
Of course you want clarity.
Of course you’d love to know exactly how that text, conversation, or situation is going to play out.

That’s just not how life works.

Where this starts to backfire is when reassurance becomes your go to move every time you feel uncertain.

Because then your brain never gets the chance to learn something way more important:

“I can feel unsure… and still be okay.”

The ability to feel unsure, uncomfortable, or “off”… and not immediately panic or try to fix it.

To stay in the moment and trust, “I can handle this, even if I don’t have all the answers right now.”

That’s the skill.

And it’s exactly the part anxiety pushes back on.

Because anxiety wants instant certainty. But real growth comes from learning you can tolerate the unknown and still trust yourself inside of it.

Because anxiety wants quick certainty. But what actually helps long term is building your capacity to tolerate not knowing.

The part no one loves hearing is reassurance usually keeps anxiety going.

I know. Annoying.

But if every time anxiety shows up, you immediately go get soothed, your brain does not learn that the feeling is tolerable. It learns that the feeling is dangerous enough to require urgent fixing.

So instead of becoming more confident, you become more dependent on relief.

More checking. More asking. More analyzing. More spiraling. More relief. More repeating.

That is how anxiety quietly becomes chronic. Not always because the fear is huge, but because the loop gets practiced over and over again.

Overthinking does not shorten the suffering. Reassurance does not resolve the deeper fear. Together, they just keep the cycle alive.

Signs you might be stuck in this loop

This loop can show up in a lot of different ways, but here’s what it often looks like in real life:

📱 You ask multiple people the same question because one answer just doesn’t stick

🔍 You reread texts, emails, or conversations like there’s some hidden meaning you need to decode

🌐 You Google symptoms, relationship stuff, or worst case scenarios… over and over again

😌➡️😵‍💫 You feel calm for a minute after getting reassurance, then an hour later you’re right back in it

🌀 You know you’re spiraling, but it still feels impossible to stop until you “figure it out”

🧠 You tell yourself you’re being responsible or self aware, but honestly you just feel drained

And you don’t need to check every single box for this to apply to you. Even one or two of these patterns can tell you a lot about what’s going on under the surface.

Why this hits women especially hard

From a really young age, a lot of us were socialized to be this way as women.

To be agreeable.
To be easy to be around.
To notice other people’s moods and adjust accordingly.
To keep the peace, read the room, and not rock the boat.

So we learned to be very tuned in to other people.

Not just noticing… but tracking.
Reading between the lines.
Sensing shifts in tone, energy, mood.
Trying to stay one step ahead so nothing goes wrong.

Which is why anxiety doesn’t always show up as obvious fear. It shows up as monitoring everything. Anticipating. Over functioning. Reading the room. Managing the vibe. Trying really hard not to mess it up.

So when something feels even a little off, your brain doesn’t go, “huh, that’s interesting.” It goes, “we need to figure this out immediately.”

Before we upset someone.
Before we get rejected.
Before we look stupid.
Before we somehow ruin the relationship and end up completely alone.

A little dramatic? Sure. But your nervous system is not exactly known for being chill in these moments.

And this is why the loop feels so hard to step out of.

Because it’s not just about getting information or “figuring something out.”

It feels like your safety is on the line.
Your sense of belonging.
Your relationships.
Your identity as someone who keeps it together.

So of course your brain goes all in trying to solve it.

What actually helps break the cycle

This is usually the part where people expect me to say, “just stop asking for reassurance.”

I’m not going to say that.

Because one, it’s not realistic. And two, your nervous system would absolutely panic.

A better approach is to start interrupting the loop in smaller, more doable ways. Not perfect. Not all or nothing. Just enough to start building tolerance and self trust.

1. Learn your go to version of reassurance

Not everyone is texting a friend for reassurance. A lot of it is way more subtle.

It can look like:

🔍 Googling
🧠 Checking your body or symptoms
🔁 Replaying memories
👀 Comparing yourself to other people
📱 Scrolling old texts
🎭 Reading into tone or energy
🌀 Mentally reviewing everything until you feel “sure”

If you only count it when you ask someone else, you’ll miss half the pattern.

2. Catch the moment you’re chasing relief

Pause and ask yourself: “What am I actually hoping this will do for me right now?”

Usually it’s something like:

“I want to feel certain.”
“I want to calm down.”
“I want proof I’m okay.”
“I want to know I didn’t mess up.”
“I want this feeling gone.”

That awareness matters. It helps you see this isn’t about solving a problem, it’s about escaping discomfort.

3. Get curious instead of trying to control it

Instead of jumping straight into fixing mode, slow it down.

“What does this urge feel like in my body?”
“What feeling am I trying to get away from?”
“What would happen if I didn’t act on this right away?”
“Does this actually help me… or just soothe me for a minute?”

Curiosity pulls you out of autopilot. It lowers the intensity just enough to give you a choice.

4. Practice delaying, not denying

You don’t need to go from spiraling to fully unbothered overnight.

Start with a pause.

Wait ten minutes before texting.
Wait before Googling.
Wait before rereading the message again.

Let yourself sit in a little uncertainty without immediately trying to fix it.

This is how you build tolerance.
This is how you build self trust.

5. Shift how you reassure yourself

Self reassurance isn’t about convincing yourself everything is definitely fine. Your brain won’t buy that anyway.

It’s about grounding yourself in something more honest:

“I don’t know for sure right now, and I can handle that.”
“This feels uncomfortable, not dangerous.”
“I don’t need to solve this in this moment.”
“I can let this be unfinished for now.”
“My urge for certainty is loud, but I don’t have to follow it.”

That’s a completely different energy.

Less frantic. More steady. More trusting of yourself, even in the middle of uncertainty.

What healing actually looks like

Healing doesn’t mean you suddenly never want reassurance again.

You’re human. Of course you’ll still want comfort, clarity, and someone to say “you’re good.”

Healing is about changing your relationship to the urge.

It’s not an instruction anymore. It’s just… an urge.

It could look like:

• Noticing the spiral sooner, before you’re ten steps deep in it

• Pausing instead of immediately reacting

• Trusting the urge for reassurance a little less

• Building the ability to sit with discomfort without rushing to fix it

• Reminding yourself, “this feels intense, but it’s not an emergency”

Over time, your brain starts to learn something new.

Uncertainty isn’t dangerous.
Discomfort isn’t something you have to escape immediately.
You can handle not knowing.

And that’s where things start to shift.

Not because you finally figured everything out. But because you’re no longer being run by the need to.

Therapy can help with this a lot

Especially if you’re the kind of person who’s like, “I know I do this… and yet here I am doing it again.”

That doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means this isn’t just a mindset thing.

You can’t outthink a pattern your brain and nervous system have practiced on repeat.

This is about rewiring a loop, not just having better thoughts.

And that’s where therapy can actually be really helpful.

It slows everything down so you can see what’s happening in real time
It helps you understand what’s underneath the spiral, not just the surface level thoughts
It gives you a way to build tolerance for uncertainty that doesn’t feel like you’re just gritting your teeth and suffering through it

This kind of loop shows up a lot if you tend to be someone who is:

• High functioning but anxious all the time

• Hard on yourself and stuck in perfectionism

• Constantly overthinking your relationships

• Very tuned in to other people and quick to people please

• Afraid of making mistakes or getting it wrong

• Needing reassurance to feel okay

• Self aware… but still feeling stuck in the same patterns

If that’s you, you’re not broken. You’ve just been practicing a pattern your brain got really good at.

Final thoughts

If this hit close to home, that’s actually a really good sign. It means you’re already starting to see the pattern.

And when you can see it, you can change it.

You don’t need to have everything figured out to feel better. You just need a different way of responding when your brain starts doing its thing.

And that shift? It adds up fast.

More peace in your day to day. More confidence in yourself. Way less mental noise running the show.

Life starts to feel lighter. Easier. More yours.

And that’s very doable with the right support.

Get Help for Overthinking and Anxiety in NYC or Miami

If you are tired of looping through overthinking, reassurance seeking, and temporary relief, therapy can help. At Bianca VonBank Therapy, I work with Millennial and Gen Z women who feel stuck in anxiety cycles, mental spirals, perfectionism, and busy brain energy that never really shuts off.

If you are looking for anxiety therapy in NYC or Miami, you can schedule a free 20 minute consultation directly through my contact page. Together, we can work on calming the loop, building tolerance for uncertainty, and helping your mind feel like a safer place to be.