Dropping Safety Behaviours: The Hidden Key to Overcoming Panic Attacks

Chris Zhang
Mar 28
3 min read

By this point, you may already understand what panic attacks feel like, how to challenge anxious thoughts, and why avoidance keeps anxiety alive. But there’s another, often overlooked factor that quietly maintains panic: safety behaviours.

What Are Safety Behaviours?

Safety behaviours are the subtle things we do to prevent panic or feel “safer” when anxiety shows up. They’re not always obvious. In fact, many feel logical—even helpful.

Examples include:

Carrying medication “just in case”
Sitting near exits
Bringing someone with you for reassurance
Constantly distracting yourself (phone, music, objects)
Monitoring your body for signs of panic

The key distinction isn’t what the behaviour is—it’s why you’re doing it. If the goal is to prevent anxiety or stop panic, it’s a safety behaviour.

Why Safety Behaviours Keep Panic Going

While these behaviours reduce anxiety in the short term, they reinforce it in the long term. Here’s how:

1. They block fear testing

If you rely on safety behaviours, you never truly find out what would happen without them. Your fears remain unchallenged.

2. You misattribute safety

If nothing bad happens, it’s easy to believe the safety behaviour “saved” you—rather than recognizing that the situation may have been safe all along.

3. They increase self-focus

Instead of engaging with the environment, your attention turns inward—monitoring symptoms, scanning for danger—which amplifies anxiety.

4. They can create the problem

Constantly checking your body or preparing for panic makes you more likely to notice harmless sensations and interpret them catastrophically.

5. They prevent tolerance

Most importantly, they stop you from learning a critical truth: anxiety is uncomfortable, but it is not dangerous—and you can handle it.

The Shift: From Preventing Panic to Learning From It

Recovery isn’t about eliminating anxiety instantly. It’s about changing your relationship to it.

This is where behavioural experiments come in.

Instead of asking, “How do I avoid panic?” the question becomes: “What happens if I don’t use my safety behaviours?”

This shift turns you into an observer rather than a reactor.

How to Start Dropping Safety Behaviours

There are two main approaches:

1. Immediate drop

Stop using safety behaviours as soon as you identify them. This is the most effective—but also the most challenging—approach.

2. Gradual reduction

Start with easier behaviours and work your way up. For example:

First: bring a support person
Next: go alone
Then: remove distractions

Both approaches work. The key is consistency.

Integrating This Into Exposure

When facing feared situations:

Expect anxiety—it’s part of the process
Don’t distract or suppress it
Stay in the situation long enough for anxiety to rise and fall
Observe what actually happens (not what you fear will happen)

The goal is not to feel calm—it’s to learn.

What You’ll Discover

Over time, most people notice:

Anxiety peaks lower than expected
Panic symptoms pass on their own
Catastrophic outcomes don’t occur
Confidence increases naturally

And most importantly: You were never as fragile as anxiety made you believe.

Final Thought

Safety behaviours feel like protection—but they’re often the very thing keeping you stuck.

Letting go of them is uncomfortable at first. But it creates the exact conditions needed for real change: direct experience, new learning, and growing confidence.

The path out of panic isn’t through control—it’s through exposure, learning, and trust in your ability to cope.

Reference

Centre for Clinical Interventions. (n.d.). When Panic Attacks: Module 6 – Dropping Safety Behaviours. Government of Western Australia. https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au