We all have the tendency to avoid something now and again. Avoidance is a coping mechanism. It involves consciously or unconsciously avoiding confronting a tough issue or experiencing unpleasant thoughts or feelings. For instance, think about deliberately avoiding someone you do not want to see or something you are scared of, procrastinating working on a project you’re nervous about performing on, acting passive-aggressive with your partner or friend, scrolling through your phone when you start to feel bored or drinking alcohol when you are feeling sad or lonely. It can be easy to avoid things! In this blog, I will explain what avoidance coping is and how it can impact our mental health complaints. We will see why confronting our fears can be helpful.

Temporary relief

Avoidance provides quick relief to negative feelings such as anxiety, sadness or boredom and prevents you from confronting what you are afraid of. For example, if you are afraid of dogs you might avoid going to parks, or meeting friends who have a dog. As a result, you will probably avoid feeling anxious or scared for as long as you can avoid seeing dogs. 

So far you’re probably thinking… ‘’Great! Avoidance sounds like a quick fix for my issues’’. Unfortunately, things are often not so simple and excessive avoidance can end up making things worse. First and foremost, avoidance will often end up maintaining and contributing to your issues and complaints. It results in never addressing the actual problem and in turn, creates a cycle of behaviour that increases negative feelings around the problem. What’s more, it is not always possible to avoid or control the situation and most likely there will be a moment in the future when you are forced to confront the issue.

Maintaining your problems 

This is probably best explained using examples, so let’s take some of the above examples to help us understand:

• If you are avoiding something you are scared of you will never learn to get over your fear, or at least learn to cope with it in a healthy way helping you live a more fulfilling life. If, for example, you have a fear of dogs and start to confront your fear by  interacting with some dogs, you will most likely gain new experiences. These experiences  will alter your previous belief that all dogs are dangerous. Furthermore, by confronting the issue you will learn to tolerate the uncomfortable feelings. You will also learn effective and helpful coping skills for these situations so that you no longer have to avoid seeing that friend or going to certain places. 
• If you are avoiding painful or uncomfortable emotions, you may be engaging in ‘numbing’ behaviours to help you cope, such as using alcohol, drugs or overeating. . However, when the numbing behaviour wears off the uncomfortable feelings will come rushing back, maybe even more intensely than before. By avoiding your uncomfortable feelings in this way, you make yourself feel even worse. You never learn to process the painful feelings and you are not able to solve the core issues that are causing you the pain in the first place. Not to mention that these behaviours often can be damaging to  our health in the long term. 
• If you are avoiding conflict with your partner because conflict causes you anxiety, it may feel like you are helping to create a less stressful relationship. However, by avoiding conflict and not addressing important topics in the relationship you never end up resolving the issue. Over time this can lead to a build-up of stress or resentment in the relationship. By confronting the issue together you can try to find a resolution. 

What are the first steps to confronting your problems? 

The first step is to understand avoidance coping and how it is impacting your own life. This is an important step to help encourage you to face the issues you are struggling with. Secondly, it is important to become aware of when you are avoiding something. Try to actively notice when you are doing it in your daily life and when it is unhelpful. Keeping track of your avoidance can help with this.

Remember that it is okay to engage in healthy behaviours that help us to cope with stress and deal with uncomfortable situations. For example, meditating or exercising (in moderation) can help us to deal with difficult emotions and build resilience to deal with stressors in the future.