You’ve had a long, stressful week. You finally sit down, put something calming on, and tell yourself to relax. But instead, your mind starts racing. You feel restless and maybe even a little guilty. So you try harder. You close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and remind yourself you deserve a break. Yet the more you try to relax, the worse it feels. The thoughts get louder, your chest feels tighter, and what was meant to be a quiet evening starts to feel like another thing you are failing at.
It is frustrating because you are not asking for much, just a little peace. But the more you chase it, the further away it seems. Many people assume this means they are too stressed or bad at relaxing, when in reality the brain can actually learn to resist calm. Once that happens, simple techniques like breathing or trying harder do not always work until you understand what is really going on.
The Relaxation Paradox
For some people, trying to relax actually triggers more anxiety. Not less. This is called relaxation-induced anxiety, or RIA. Psychologists Heide and Borkovec first documented it in 1983, and it has been studied and written about ever since.
Research published in BMC Complementary Medicine by Luberto, Cotton, and McLeish found that between 17 and 53 percent of adults report experiencing RIA at some point. Even at the lower end, that’s a significant number of people trying breathing exercises and meditation and walking away feeling worse than before.
What Actually Happens When You Try to Relax
When you’re anxious, your body stays in a constant state of high alert. That feels exhausting, but over time it also becomes familiar. It becomes your baseline. So when you try to switch it off, your brain reads the shift as a problem, not a solution.
This is explained by the Contrast Avoidance Model, developed by researchers Newman and Llera at Penn State University. Their work found that people with ongoing anxiety become afraid of sudden shifts in emotion. If you go from calm to distressed quickly, that spike feels unbearable. So the brain decides it’s safer to stay anxious all the time. Worry starts to feel like protection. Staying on edge feels like staying in control. Relaxing feels like dropping your guard.
Your Brain Is Trying to Keep You Safe
This isn’t a character flaw. It’s your nervous system doing what it was built to do. There are a few reasons why it responds to calm the way it does:
- It learned that alertness kept you safe : if you’ve lived with chronic stress or grew up in an unpredictable environment, staying on guard was the sensible thing to do. That learning gets wired in. It doesn’t automatically switch off when your circumstances change.
- It still scans for threats even when there aren’t any : your nervous system carries old patterns forward. So even sitting quietly at home with nowhere to be, part of your brain is checking for danger. Quieting down feels like leaving yourself exposed.
- Trying not to worry makes the worrying worse : researchers describe this as ironic process theory. When you tell yourself to stop thinking about something, your brain monitors for exactly that thing. The harder you push for calm, the louder the anxious thoughts get.
The Physical Side of It
When you try to relax, your body starts to come down from that state. For most people those changes feel like relief. But for someone whose nervous system has been braced for a long time, the same changes can feel unsettling. People with RIA commonly notice these physical reactions the moment they try to wind down:
- Heart rate goes up instead of down : the body reads the drop in tension as a threat and responds by ramping back up.
- Breathing becomes shallow or uncomfortable : deep breathing feels strange rather than calming, sometimes even triggering mild panic.
- Muscles tighten again : just as the body starts to release tension, it pulls back and braces itself.
- A general sense that something is wrong : the physical signs of calm, slower heartbeat, looser muscles, get mistaken for symptoms of something bad happening.
These reactions can occur during meditation, a breathing exercise, or simply sitting still with no distractions.
The Problem with "Just Relax"
People with anxiety hear this a lot. Just relax. Switch off. Take a break. For someone with RIA, this advice doesn’t land. Not because they don’t want to relax, but because trying to actually makes things worse. When the attempt fails, self-blame usually follows. Why can’t I just switch off? Something must be wrong with me. That self-criticism adds to the anxiety that was already there.
It becomes a cycle. Anxiety leads to trying to relax. Trying to relax increases anxiety. More anxiety leads to more attempts. Understanding why rest feels uncomfortable is part of working through it. Many people who look into anxiety treatment find the focus isn’t on learning to switch off. It’s on understanding why switching off feels threatening in the first place.
Why Mindfulness Doesn't Always Help
Mindfulness is often recommended for anxiety and it does help many people. But for those with RIA, it can backfire. A few reasons why:
- It asks you to sit with discomfort, not escape it : mindfulness encourages observing thoughts and feelings without changing them. When those feelings are mostly fear and dread, staying with them can feel unbearable rather than helpful.
- It can increase awareness of the very things that trigger anxiety : paying closer attention to your internal experience works against you when that experience is already overwhelming.
- Pace matters, and most people start too fast : research involving people with generalised anxiety disorder found that jumping straight into long, structured relaxation sessions sometimes increased anxiety. Starting slowly, with support, makes a difference.
This doesn’t mean mindfulness is harmful. It means it needs to be introduced at the right time, in the right way, with proper guidance.
What Tends to Help
RIA responds well to the right approach, but what works varies from person to person. Some options that have shown results:
- Exposure-based therapy : gradually practising the experience of relaxing in small, supported doses. Over time the brain starts to associate letting go with safety rather than danger. This is different from just being told to relax more.
- Shorter practice windows : instead of aiming for long, sustained calm, two to three minute stretches are more manageable. The goal isn’t to feel perfectly relaxed. It’s to sit with the discomfort briefly without pulling away immediately.
- Low-demand activities : things like walking, cooking, drawing, or tidying. These keep the body gently occupied without demanding the mind go blank, which feels more achievable for most anxious people.
- Physical movement : not as a relaxation technique, but as a way to give stress hormones somewhere to go. Even short bursts of movement can help the body process some of the tension it’s been holding.
The Hustle Culture Side of It
Many people live in environments where constant productivity is treated as a virtue. Rest gets read as laziness. Slowing down feels like falling behind. For some people, the anxiety around relaxing isn’t just neurological. It’s also social. There’s a fear of being seen as unproductive, of what might surface if the busyness stops and things get quiet.
This means RIA isn’t always purely a clinical issue. It can also be shaped by the environment around a person. Dr Christina Luberto, whose research at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School developed the Relaxation Sensitivity Index, found that social fears, like worrying that relaxing looks lazy or unproductive, are a measurable component of relaxation anxiety. Those fears are real and they’re part of why some people can’t switch off. If relaxation techniques keep backfiring, it’s worth talking to someone who understands why, not just learning more techniques. People exploring therapy for anxiety sometimes find this is where the real work begins.
It Gets Easier With the Right Help
There’s a point many people reach, usually slowly, where sitting quietly starts to feel less threatening. Where the body begins to connect stillness with safety rather than danger. Where rest starts to feel like rest. That shift doesn’t come from pushing harder to relax.
It comes from understanding what the anxiety is about and working through it at a pace that makes sense for that person. If trying to unwind leaves you more wound up than before, you’re not doing it wrong. You’re dealing with something that doesn’t resolve through breathing alone.If you want gentle guidance or support in finding ways to feel calmer, The Help Clinic has excellent specialists available.
Should I stop deep breathing if it makes me panic?
Not necessarily, but stop forcing it. If internal focus feels overwhelming, try external grounding instead. Focus on your surroundings (like counting five blue objects) while letting your breath settle naturally.
Is this the same as being a "workaholic"?
No. Workaholism is often driven by a need for achievement. RIA is a neurological response where your nervous system misinterprets a drop in tension as a threat. You want to rest, but your body feels unsafe doing so.
Can I have RIA without an anxiety disorder?
Yes. Anyone who has lived through prolonged stress or “survival mode” can develop it. Your brain gets stuck in a high alert setting and views any attempt to power down as a system malfunction.
How long does it take to "unlearn" this?
It is a gradual retraining of the nervous system. By practicing micro doses of calm (just 1 or 2 minutes at a time), you slowly teach your brain that stillness is safe. Consistency matters more than duration.
What can I do if sitting still feels impossible?
Try Active Relaxation. Activities like gardening, walking, or even washing dishes keep your body occupied while allowing your mind to decompress without the vulnerability of total stillness.
