This Silly Hack Can Actually Really Help With Anxiety

Anxiety can feel all-consuming, making your heart race, thoughts spiral, chest tighten and more. Some describe it as a dark shadow that follows you around and constantly reminds you of all the worst-case scenarios. Serious anxiety requires serious treatment, but there are also fun little “hacks” that you can keep in your arsenal to help keep the shadow from overwhelming your life ― for example, giving your anxiety a silly name.

Although it might sound absurd, this playful strategy draws on real psychological principles and can even make dealing with anxiety a little bit fun and humorous. Below, experts break down what you should know about naming your anxiety and how to make it work best for you.

“Assigning a silly or exaggerated name to anxiety can be a useful cognitive strategy,” said psychologist Stefanie Mazer. “By externalizing the experience and labeling it humorously, individuals often find it easier to create psychological distance from distressing thoughts. Calling your anxiety something dumb like ‘Nervous Ned’ or ‘Meltdown Mike’ sounds ridiculous, but that’s the point. It makes the whole thing feel less threatening.”

Giving your anxiety a silly name “knocks it down a peg” and allows you to stop treating it like an all-knowing authority, she added. This tactic is a way to regain a sense of agency over your inner narrative. “It might sound childish at first, but there’s real psychology behind it,” said Erin Pash, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Pash Co. “When we’re caught in the grip of anxiety, it feels massive and all-consuming, like this nameless monster that has complete control over us. But the moment you call it something like ‘Gary the Worry Wart’ or ‘Anxious Annie,’ you’re already taking back some of your power.”

Rather than some terrifying force, your anxiety is just “Gary,” who can be quite ridiculous sometimes. The anxious thought “everyone is judging me” becomes “Gary is telling me that everyone is judging me.” This psychological distance can separate you from the anxiety and make it feel less urgent and persuasive.

“When anxiety hits, we often think ‘I’m anxious’ or ‘I’m panicking,’ which makes us feel completely merged with those feelings,” Pash said. “But when you say ‘Oh, there’s Gary again with his worries about that presentation,’ you’re observing the anxiety rather than being consumed by it. This technique also engages your prefrontal cortex ― the logical, problem-solving part of your brain ― which helps calm down your amygdala, the part that’s firing off all those alarm bells.”

She compared it to the difference between being stuck in a storm versus watching it safely from inside your home. “Calling your anxiety something silly turns it into background noise instead of a command,” Mazer noted. “That shift helps you notice it without getting swept up. It’s harder to take anxious thoughts at face value when they’re coming from a made-up character. You start to see the patterns and maybe even laugh at how dramatic they sound.”

What are some benefits to this approach? Mental health expert Noel McDermott praised the sense of fun and levity in this anxiety hack, which serves as a nice counterbalance to the stress and serious tone present with anxiety. “It’s empowering and accessible,” he noted. “Endless research shows that when people feel empowered in a situation, they manage that situation much better than someone who feels more victimized. It encourages the use of a psychological trick called ‘the observer effect’ which is often seen through the use of meditation, so people can have an emotionally distanced relationship to their anxiety and have a relationship to that anxiety which they can manage more effectively.”

Having some distance from your anxiety can also help you reach a place of acceptance of its presence in your life. “Anxiety symptoms tend to compound when you worry about whether or not you may feel anxious in a given situation,” said Arianna Galligher, a licensed independent social worker at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. “If you can reframe how you view the presence of anxiety as a quirky, albeit sometimes annoying companion rather than a force that limits your ability to engage with the world around you, it takes some of the pressure off. Instead of fearing anxiety, you can invite it to come along with you by saying to yourself, ‘Come on, Edna. We’re going to the store.’”

Naming your anxiety can also help you externalize its symptoms as separate from you, which in turn lessens their severity and duration. “If someone is experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety, such as a racing heart or catastrophic thinking, giving those symptoms a ridiculous name can reduce the intensity by adding humor and levity to the experience, which communicates to the nervous system that it can relax,” said Becky Stuempfig, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Some people might even benefit from leaning into their symptoms as part of the name. “Giving anxiety a nickname could be useful in gently learning to identify a somatic, body-centered anxiety cue,” said licensed marriage and family therapist Sonnet Daymont. “For instance, if a person knows that feeling gas and upset stomach is a cue that they are about to have a lot of anxious thoughts, or if that sensation is present with anxious thoughts, then calling their anxiety ‘Gurgle’ and giving the belly a little rub, taking a yoga breath into the belly, and allowing the self a break to walk outside and look at one’s thinking, and to ground through calming techniques could be helpful.”

She believes this approach could help that person see that their anxiety is “trainable,” like a new puppy. Thus, it no longer feels so intimidating and unmanageable.

“I always tell my clients that the goal isn’t to eliminate anxiety completely―that’s neither realistic nor healthy,” Pash said. “Anxiety serves a purpose. It’s trying to protect us. The goal is to change your relationship with it so it doesn’t run your life.”

Getting comfortable talking to your anxiety can also help you recognize important cues about your life and mental health. “The general idea is ‘This isn’t me. This is my anxiety. How can I use what it is telling me?’” said psychotherapist Meg Gitlin. “Perhaps your anxiety wants to tell you that something is important to you, and it would like you to pay attention to it. Or perhaps it is telling you that your anxiety has clouded your experience for too long, and it is time to seek help to manage your anxiety.”

“The only potential downside to this hack is if you are not motivated to work on your anxiety, and naming it creates too much distance where you believe it is inevitable and can’t be changed,” said Erica Rozmid, a psychologist and clinical assistant professor at UCLA. “Instead, it’s helpful to recognize that naming it something silly can be a conscious tool to help you overcome your fears.”

The hack can backfire if you use it in lieu of processing and addressing your anxiety. “If someone uses humor to name their anxiety but hasn’t learned to sit with discomfort, it can turn into avoidance,” Mazer said. “Instead of facing the anxiety and understanding it, they might just laugh it off and push it away. Over time, the anxiety can build up and come back stronger.”

Creating psychological distance from your anxiety should not mean pretending that your anxiety is not important. Don’t let a silly nickname trick you into thinking your deeper pain and trauma are just a big joke. “If you’re just saying, ‘Oh, that’s just Gary being dramatic’ and then ignoring legitimate concerns or avoiding getting proper help, that’s not helpful,” Pash said.

Indeed, you should also do inner work to find what triggers your anxiety and explore the deeper issues. “People are generally scared to do this on their own because they are afraid of what they’ll find,” said psychotherapist Catherine Athans. “Whether you name your anxiety something ridiculous or not, it’s important to work with a mental health professional who is trained in trauma reduction to get to the root cause and heal it.”

She noted that some people might even put off seeking therapy for their anxiety because they feel embarrassed about the silly name they’ve given it. Becoming over-reliant on one single anxiety hack can lead to issues. “I think the main downside is that it may lose its effectiveness over time,” said Nicholette Leanza, a therapist at LifeStance. “Like any coping skill, your brain may get used to it and so it becomes less effective. Switching it up may help like giving it a new silly name or another technique is to say your thoughts in a silly voice or accent. It’s about keeping that element of absurdity fresh so it doesn’t just become another routine your anxiety adapts to.”

You can also try other similar techniques to create space and make anxiety feel less overwhelming. “You can picture your thoughts as a visual, such as your thoughts floating down the river or dancing on a stage,” said Ash Shah, a licensed clinical social worker and clinical director at Empower Your Mind Therapy. “All of these exercises get to the same goal of observing your emotions and thoughts from a distance.”

“Finding shortcuts and hacks like this are super fun and very effective, but work more effectively if you understand the principles behind them,” McDermott said.