Just One More Check

The strange thing about reassurance is that it works. For a little while, you really do feel better. That brief relief is why your mind reaches for another check the next time uncertainty shows up. Today’s edition is about experimenting with a different kind of relief: realizing you can stay unsure and still return to your day.

Today’s Quick Overview:

🔬 Science Spotlight: The relief that keeps returning…
🗣 Therapist Corner: Learning to leave uncertainty alone…
📰 Mental Health News: Youth wellbeing and help-seeking…
🫂 Community Voices: A compliment became a worry…

What you want and what you think you should want are often completely different. Which one are you actually living?

This week, did you notice the gap between what you want and what you think you should want? What would change if you picked one and followed it?

The relief is real, which is exactly why asking again feels tempting the next time anxiety rises. What most often breaks the loop for you?

You Already Do This

A simple printable page to map out the things you're actually looking forward to this week: a coffee date, an empty evening, or a project you're excited to finish. Keep it on your desk as a reminder that the week isn't just a list of obligations.

Why Reassurance Doesn't Actually Fix Anxiety (And What Does)

Answered by: Jacqui Parkin, MBACP (Accred)

When the Relief Wears Off

You've read the message three times before sending it. An hour later, you're reading it again. Did that last sentence sound strange? You ask someone what they think, and they tell you it sounds absolutely fine.

You feel better. Then, while you're making lunch, you remember the look on the recipient's face yesterday. Perhaps your friend didn't know about that.

If this feels familiar, you'll know how convincing the urge to check can be. You're looking for an answer so you can get on with your day. And the answer does help, for a bit.

When something matters to you, uncertainty can feel surprisingly hard to leave alone. Perhaps you're worried about upsetting someone, getting something wrong, or missing a sign that there's a problem. Your mind goes looking for certainty so you can feel safe enough to relax. Reassurance gives you a brief taste of that safety, which is why it's so tempting to go back for more.

Anxiety rarely stops at the question you've just answered, though. It finds a detail you missed or comes up with a new "what if." Soon you're asking again, searching online, rereading the message, or going back over a conversation in your head. Each check brings relief, and each spell of relief makes checking feel like the thing to do next time.

Try a Five-Minute Pause

There may be a more useful question beneath the one you keep asking: Can I bear feeling unsure about this?

That's difficult when uncertainty has you feeling on edge. You could begin by putting a little time between the urge and the check.

Next time it happens, try saying to yourself: "I'm anxious, and I want to check." Then ask: "Do I need information to do something about this, or am I hoping another answer will settle the feeling?"

If there's something you need to find out or deal with, do that. If you've already had an answer, see whether you can leave the question alone for five minutes. Notice if your mind tries to make a case for checking just once more. It probably will.

After five minutes, you can decide what to do. The useful part is discovering what happens when you don't respond to the urge straight away. It may feel uncomfortable, especially at first.

Start Small and Return to Your Day

Try practising with something small, such as sending an ordinary message without one last re-read. If five minutes begins to feel manageable, you could try ten another day. There's no prize for choosing the hardest worry first.

It can also help to return to what you were doing before the worry took over. Finish making lunch. Step outside for a moment. Listen to what the person beside you is saying. An ordinary activity can give you something to focus on while the anxious feeling is still there.

And if you need someone alongside you, you can ask for that too. "I'm having an anxious moment. Could you keep me company for a bit?" asks for something different from another guarantee that everything will turn out fine.

You can start with one question and one five-minute pause. Over time, those small moments give you a chance to discover that you can feel unsure and still get on with your life.

Jacqui Parkin is an accredited online Psychotherapist/Counsellor and Therapeutic Coach with nineteen years' experience supporting women through change and growth. She specialises in working with women who over-commit, feel overwhelmed, and risk burnout. She is the creator of The Over-Responsibility Pattern Audit, a free assessment designed to help you identify why you are taking on more responsibility than you should. Known for her warmth, humour, and grounding presence, she writes about emotional wellbeing with compassion, honesty, and a deep understanding of the messy realities of being human. Connect with Jacqui on Psychology Today, visit her website, or join her Facebook community.

When Reassurance Becomes a Loop

Read the Study

The Research: Researchers at an anxiety and OCD treatment center studied 738 people seeking help for panic disorder, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, or OCD. Before and after cognitive behavioral therapy, participants completed a scale measuring how often they ask others for safety-related information even when they already have an answer.

Higher reassurance seeking was moderately linked with more severe anxiety and depression. Over the course of CBT, people sought reassurance less often, and those who reduced it more tended to improve more.

Why It Matters: Most of us ask for reassurance sometimes. You check a text twice, ask a friend whether the presentation went okay, or reread an email before sending it. That's ordinary. The concern is when it becomes a loop. The relief is real, which is exactly why asking again feels tempting the next time anxiety rises.

Cognitive-behavioral models suggest repeated reassurance may keep anxiety going by giving people fewer chances to sit with uncertainty without trying to remove it.

Try It Today: Notice the loop without fighting it. When you feel pulled to ask someone whether you did the right thing, pause and ask yourself what you're hoping they'll say, and how long the relief will last. If it feels appropriate, try delaying one reassurance check for ten minutes and notice what happens to the urge.

You're not trying to need nothing from anyone. You're finding out you can get through not knowing. If the loop is taking hours of your day or straining your relationships, it's worth raising with a therapist.

Note: This study tracked changes during CBT without a comparison group, so it can't show that reducing reassurance caused improvement. Participants were seeking treatment at one center, so findings may not apply broadly. The mechanism described reflects CBT theory, not something this study tested directly.

I can feel uncertain today without reaching for something to make it stop. The discomfort of not knowing isn’t a problem I’ve failed to solve. It’s what uncertainty feels like, and I can be in it without acting on it.

Think of a time you sat with uncertainty long enough for it to settle on its own, without checking or asking or searching for another answer. What did you find out about your ability to tolerate it when you didn’t give the urge what it wanted?

It’s okay if the anxious feeling is still there after you’ve already had an answer. That doesn’t mean the answer was wrong or that you need to look again. Anxiety just finds the next question to chase, and you’re allowed to notice that without following it.

Next time you feel the urge to check something you’ve already checked, or ask for reassurance you’ve already received, try waiting five minutes first. You don’t have to decide not to check. Just wait, and notice what your mind does and whether the urge changes. That’s the whole practice for today.

A note for readers with OCD: Repeated checking and reassurance seeking can also be part of OCD. If these urges feel compulsive, take up significant time, or are tied to intrusive thoughts, working with an OCD-informed therapist can help. You do not need to turn today’s practice into another rule you have to follow perfectly.

“The Compliment I Gave Someone Came Back Meaner”

Shared by Hannah, 34

I gave a coworker a genuine compliment on a deck she'd spent two weekends working on. Instead of just taking it, she made a sarcastic joke about my phrasing, and a few people in the chat jumped on it.

It wasn't a major crisis, but it made me hyper-aware of how I talk to people at work. Ever since, I’ve found myself overthinking simple praise, like sticking to a quick thumbs-up emoji instead of saying something nice, worrying it'll get taken out of context or turned into a bit.

She probably didn't mean anything bad by it, but it’s annoying how one small, weird interaction can make you second-guess something that used to be completely natural for me.

Share Your Story

Have a mental health journey you'd like to share with our community? Reply back to this email. All submissions are anonymized and edited for length with your approval before publication. Each published story receives a $10 donation to the mental health charity of your choice.

Evening Reset: Notice, Write, Settle

You’re sitting outside, watching clouds move in a direction that might mean rain or might mean nothing. You catch yourself trying to read what’s coming. Then at some point you stop and let the sky be whatever it’s going to be. The uncertainty doesn’t go anywhere. You just stop treating it as something that needs your attention. Notice what that release feels like, letting something uncertain happen without asking you for a verdict.

Spend three minutes writing: what have I been checking or asking about repeatedly lately, and what am I hoping another answer will give me? Is there something I’m trying to feel that more information can’t produce?

Close your notebook and ask: where did I act on an anxious urge today without pausing first? Where did I manage to wait, even briefly, and what happened to the urge when I didn’t feed it right away? What’s one small uncertainty I could leave alone tomorrow, just to see what happens?

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” — John Allen Paulos

The goal was never to eliminate uncertainty. It was to find out you could live with it.

Podcast: Addicted to Anxiety? Why Reassurance, Checking and Control Keep You Stuck

Listen: Addicted to Anxiety? Why Reassurance, Checking and Control Keep You Stuck

Psychotherapist Owen O’Kane joins The Prescription Strength Podcast to explore why some of the things we do to feel safer, including checking, Googling, avoiding, and asking for reassurance, can end up keeping anxiety active. The conversation looks at why anxious thoughts can feel so convincing, why certainty is so tempting, and what it can look like to respond differently when the urge to check shows up.

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Coming Monday: Why having something to look forward to matters, and how ordinary pleasures placed on the horizon can lighten the days in between.

Researched and edited by Natasha. Designed with love by Kaye.

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*The Daily Wellness shares educational content only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice and diagnosis. Please consult a licensed provider for personalized care.