Bonus Episode: What Is Anticipatory Anxiety (And Why It's Often Worse Than the Thing Itself)

In this episode, I talk about anticipatory anxiety, the intense fear or dread that shows up before something even happens. So often, the waiting, imagining, and "what if" spiral can feel worse than the actual event itself. I explain how this happens and why your brain reacts so strongly, even when there isn't a real threat in front of you.

You can listen to Bonus Episode: What Is Anticipatory Anxiety (And Why It's Often Worse Than the Thing Itself) online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Bonus Episode: What Is Anticipatory Anxiety (And Why It's Often Worse Than the Thing Itself) is an episode from Your Anxiety Toolkit by Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT.

This episode is 15:26 long.

This episode was published on May 1, 2026.

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