How to Befriend Anxiety in Eating Disorder Recovery: A Therapist’s Tips

Living with an anxiety disorder can feel incredibly overwhelming. Anxiety often appears without warning, tightening your chest, speeding up your heart, and filling your mind with alarming “what ifs.” It’s uncomfortable and draining, and it makes complete sense that most people want to avoid it, silence it, or find a way to make it disappear.

Yet what if resisting anxiety is actually what strengthens it? What if the path toward healing involves turning toward your anxiety rather than pushing it away?

This idea can feel counterintuitive. Anxiety often feels intrusive, intense, and disruptive. But in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we explore a different possibility: approaching anxiety with openness, curiosity, and compassion rather than fear.

Anxiety Isn’t the Enemy

Anxiety is not inherently harmful,  it’s a natural human response. Your brain is attempting to protect you, using an ancient alarm system designed to detect danger.

For those with eating disorders or anxiety disorders, this alarm can go off even when no danger exists. I often describe it as a fire alarm that’s been pulled accidentally: loud, startling, and stressful,  but not indicating an actual fire.

The true struggle often arises from how we respond to anxiety. When we treat anxious thoughts as literal truths, avoid situations that trigger fear (like certain meals in eating disorder recovery or social interactions in social anxiety), or desperately try to suppress discomfort, anxiety tends to grow louder. The more we fight it, the more powerful it becomes.

ACT invites us to acknowledge that anxiety will show up, especially when we’re moving toward things that matter. Rather than engaging in an exhausting tug-of-war, we learn what it feels like to put the rope down.

What It Really Means to Befriend Anxiety

Befriending anxiety doesn’t mean surrendering to it or allowing it to guide your choices. Instead, it’s about reshaping your relationship with it — noticing its presence without judgment and still choosing actions aligned with your values instead of an eating disorder’s demands.

It might look like:

• • • Gently naming the experience: “Anxiety is visiting right now, I can make space for it to be here-even if it feels uncomfortable.” 
    • Making space for uncomfortable sensations rather than rushing to escape them.
    • Observing anxious thoughts as passing mental events, not facts. Trying to notice them mindfully rather than adding judgement or scary stories to them instead of for instance saying, “What does it mean that I’m so anxious? This week is going to be a disaster” You would practice saying, “I’m noticing that my mind is telling me a bunch of scary stories-what can I turn my attention back to in the present moment.”
    • Reminding yourself that meaningful actions are still possible, even when anxiety tags along.
    • Eating the meal your eating disorder voice warns you against.
    • Showing up for social plans when anxiety predicts judgment.

When we loosen our grip on anxiety, we create more freedom to live according to what really matters. As counterintuitive as it seems, giving anxiety a little room often causes it to soften over time.

You Are Not Your Anxiety

A central ACT principle is this: You are not your anxious thoughts.

You are the observer — the part of you that can step back and notice what your mind is saying.

Anxiety might whisper, “You can’t handle this,” or “Something bad will happen.”
But you can shift into noticing: “I’m having the thought that I can’t handle this.”

This small linguistic shift creates distance. Instead of being swept up in the storm, you begin watching it from a more grounded place. The storm still exists, but you are no longer standing in the middle of it without shelter.

You Can Take Pro-Recovery Action While Feeling Anxious

Learning to befriend anxiety is not an overnight process. Some days will feel easier; other days, fear will feel heavier. None of this means you’re doing recovery wrong. Growth is nonlinear and filled with imperfect steps.

What matters is continuing to take small, meaningful actions while making room for discomfort. Over time, anxiety becomes less of a driver and more of a passenger, it can be present, but not in charge.

You deserve a life guided by values, purpose, and connection, not by fear.

Journal Prompts for Reflection

• • • What does my anxious part believe it’s protecting me from?
    • How have I typically responded to anxiety (avoidance, numbing, overthinking, etc.)?
    • What might it feel like to welcome anxiety instead of fighting it?
    • If I made choices based on values rather than fear, how would that support my recovery and my life overall?

About The Eating Disorder Center

The Eating Disorder Center, founded by Jennifer Rollin, LCSW-C, is a premier outpatient therapy center dedicated to compassionate and evidence-based eating disorder treatment. Our team specializes in supporting children, teens, and adults navigating anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, OSFED, and body image concerns. We offer in-person therapy in Rockville, Maryland and Arlington, Virginia, and virtual therapy throughout Maryland, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, California, Washington D.C., and beyond.

We also provide EMDR trauma therapy, as well as worldwide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom.

Learn more or connect with us at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com