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Mental Health

8 Ways To Stop Hyper-Fixating On Your Anxious Thoughts & Widen Your Attention

Author: Kirren Schnack, PsychD

April 21, 2026

Psychologist

By Kirren Schnack, PsychD

Psychologist

Kirren Schnack, PsychD is a clinical psychologist with more than twenty years of experience. She holds a Practitioner Doctorate (PsychD) in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oxford. Dr. Kirren, as she's known online, posts accessible, quick advice and information about mental health and her practice to her 487k+ followers on TikTok daily.

Image by Lucas Ottone / Stocksy

April 21, 2026

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You can train your brain to improve your attentional control, which in turn can lead to a reduction in anxiety. The aim of the following eight practices is to reduce hyper-vigilance, reduce how self-focused you are, increase how easily and diversely you can switch your attention onto other things apart from anxiety, and build your ability to stay focused on the task at hand.

Having eight skills to practice may seem overwhelming at first, but don’t worry, you don’t have to do all of them. Experiment with the different exercises and find the ones that work best for you.

Whichever ones you choose, it’s important to practice them regularly. If the way you focus your attention is a big problem, then you’ll need to practice more, perhaps several times a day to begin with.

Try not to be harsh on yourself if it feels difficult to begin with—it’s normal for your mind to want to go back to anxiety because that’s what it’s used to. Every time your mind places its attention on anxiety, see it as another opportunity to practice improving your attention muscle.

1.Switch from worst to best

This skill is about moving your attention from what feels like the worst thing right now, to what the best thing is right now. This is about the present moment.

What is the absolute worst thing your mind is focusing on in the present moment? For example—a pounding heart.

In this very moment where you are right now, whatever it is that you’re doing, what is the best thing about being here? For example –I’m sitting safe and comfortable in my home, having a warm tasty drink.

Here, you’re shifting your attention from an anxious heated state to something that represents a calmer, cooler state. You’re moving from a negative bias towards a positive bias.

2.Redirect your attention

Situational refocusing is a cognitive behavioral technique used to refocus attention away from anxiety. The goal of situational refocusing is to deliberately shift your attention onto something else in your current situation. This could be a task, an object, your surroundings, things that are available to you in your environment, or an activity. Use this method to redirect your attention away from anxiety and its symptoms. By doing so, you can intentionally interrupt the cycle of over-focusing.

Whenever you become aware that your attention is excessively focused on anxiety, you can consciously acknowledge this by saying:

"I am over-focusing on..." and then say out loud:

"I’m going to refocus my attention on..."

Then shift your focus to the task or activity you’ve chosen.

Try to do this every time you notice that your focus is getting caught up in anxiety. Initially, you may need to repeat this process frequently, but with consistent practice, the frequency will decrease. Even if it feels challenging at first, don’t be discouraged; the effort required will lessen over time, so keep going.

3.Use sounds to improve the scope of attention

For this skill you will need to set a timer, and then focus on simply listening to sounds as closely as you can for one to two minutes to start with, increasing this over time to five minutes. Repeat this exercise several times a day.

Close your eyes and notice what sounds you can hear in the space you’re in. Count and list the different sounds mentally. You may be able to hear the sound of people talking, the hum of a machine, the wind or rain, maybe there’s a clock ticking or a tap dripping: you get the idea.

4.Use textures to improve the scope of attention

Exercise 1

Move around the space you’re in and touch as many different textures as you can find. Say them out loud, describing each one, like this, for example:

- "This is wood, it feels smooth, hard and cold"

- "This is a blanket, it’s soft and slightly scratchy"

- "This is a nail file, it feels gritty, with some smooth patches"

Exercise 2

Fill up two bowls of water, one as warm as you can handle, and the other one as cold as you can handle. Place your hands in the cold-water bowl, close your eyes, and focus on the water’s temperature, how it feels on your skin when you gently move your fingers. Use a timer, then after a minute, move your hands to the warm-water bowl, notice how dif