When an anxiety spiral hits, your thoughts run away with you. You can’t quit anticipating the worst. It tends to have physical symptoms too — an upset stomach, sweating, a pounding heart, dizziness, and more. You go into fight-or-flight mode even though there’s no real danger present.

The only way to wind down is to gain control over your thoughts. But way too often, that’s not what people do. They yell at themselves and make their anxious state even worse.

Here’s a look at the LEAST useful (and most harmful) things you can tell yourself during an anxiety spiral:

1. “Just stop thinking about it!”

If I told you right now to avoid thinking about pink elephants, that’s exactly what you’d think about. This is called a rebound effect, where “a person’s attempt to suppress thoughts can actually result in preoccupation with that thought”. (Psychology Today)

But if you feel anxious about something, it’s worse than a pink elephant. It’s a pink tiger and you feel like it’s going to eat you. Even though there’s no immediate threat, anxious thoughts make you feel like you can’t let your guard down.