When Anxiety Meets Social Media and Self-Help Books: Why They Often Make Things Worse

When we’re anxious, most of us instinctively reach for something that promises relief. For some people, that means scrolling through social media to numb the discomfort. For others, it means grabbing a self-help book with the hope of finding a tool, an insight, or a “magic pill” that will calm the system down.

What’s important to understand is that the issue is not social media or self-help books in themselves. The issue is the state your nervous system is in when you turn to them.

When your are anxious, your system is most of the time in fight-or-flight. Your system perceives threat and the brain does not learn, integrate, or evaluate information in the same way it does in safety. It interprets everything through the lens of danger. And this drastically changes how these tools affect you.

What Fight-or-Flight Does to Perception and Learning

Anxiety places the nervous system in a sympathetic state, mobilising the body for action. This biological response narrows attention, increases vigilance, and amplifies threat detection. It also reduces your ability to reflect, analyse, and absorb new information.

One key point that often gets overlooked:

The brain retains and integrates information best when the nervous system is in the ventral vagal state.

This is the state of safety, curiosity, openness, and grounded presence. It’s where learning happens, where perspective returns and where new ideas can land.

In fight-or-flight, the opposite happens:

• the system becomes hypersensitive to threat

• neutral information is interpreted negatively

• comparison and self-criticism intensify

• cognitive load feels heavier

• unfamiliar input feels risky

This is why social media and self-development content, especially unfamiliar concepts or new frameworks, can feel overwhelming or even painful during anxiety.

Why Social Media Backfires When Anxiety Is High

Most people reach for social media not to learn, but to numb. The rapid stimulation offers temporary escape from discomfort. But this is a short-lived relief that can quickly turn into more activation.

Numbing through scrolling actually increases activation

Scrolling gives the nervous system a hit of novelty, speed, and dopamine. This doesn’t calm the system; it activates it. Instead of soothing anxiety, it adds more sensory input to a system that is already overwhelmed.

Threat states intensify comparison

In fight or flight, the brain becomes more sensitive to anything that might signal threat, including social hierarchy or social belonging. Seeing other people’s curated, filtered, or idealised lives can feel like evidence that you are not doing enough, not progressing enough, or not coping well enough. It activates deeper feelings of inadequacy, and this feeds the cycle.

Unfamiliar content is harder for an anxious system

The nervous system interprets “the unknown” as potential danger. New faces, new ideas, new information, even if they are harmless, can increase internal tension.

This is why social media rarely soothes anxiety. It adds unpredictability, novelty, comparison, and stimulation to a system that needs the opposite.

Why Self-Development Books Can Also Make Anxiety Worse

If social media is the numbing strategy, self-help books often become the fixing strategy.

People turn to them with the hope of finding something that will make the anxiety stop. In fight-or-flight, the body wants immediate relief. It does not have the capacity for slow learning, curiosity, or integration.

You’re not reading to understand, you’re reading to escape the discomfort

This turns reading into a pressured activity rather than an exploratory one.

Every suggestion feels like a demand

In ventral vagal, new ideas feel possible. In sympathetic arousal, they feel like proof you’re failing or not doing enough.

Learning is impaired in threat states

Since the brain does not retain or integrate information as well outside the ventral state, reading becomes cognitively exhausting. You may read the same sentence multiple times without absorbing anything.

Unfamiliar concepts feel like “too much”

The anxious system is already overloaded. Introducing new frameworks, new ideas, or new demands can lead to shutdown.

This is why so many people feel worse after trying to “fix” themselves through books when they are anxious, not because the books are wrong, but because the system is not in a state that can digest new input.

What Helps Instead: Bring Predictability and Safety to the System

When the nervous system is activated, what it needs is more known, not more new.

Familiarity is regulating because it reduces the cognitive demand of processing novelty.It tells the system, “This is safe. We’ve been here before.”

Here are supportive options when you’re anxious:

1. Reach for a novel you’ve already read

Your system already knows the storyline.There are no surprises, no cognitive demands, no new information to interpret.It brings predictability into your field.

This reduces anxiety because the brain is not required to process new stimuli — something it struggles with in a threat state.

2. Choose fiction or something easy to digest

Stories engage the imagination without demanding problem-solving.They soothe rather than stimulate.

3. Watch a movie or series you’ve already watched

Rewatching familiar content is extremely regulating because it eliminates uncertainty.The brain relaxes when it knows what’s coming next.

4. Bring in other forms of “known” cues

• familiar music

• orientation

• comforting scents

• physical environments you trust

• routines that feel predictable

• somatic practices that you've already practised.

  
  

All of these help the system shift away from perceived threat and back toward safety.

Why Familiarity Supports Regulation

In a ventral vagal state, the body feels safe enough to explore, learn, and integrate. In fight-or-flight, novelty feels like danger.

Familiar experiences reduce the load on your nervous system by:

• lowering unpredictability

• reducing cognitive effort

• signalling safety

• making the environment more manageable

• supporting co-regulation (especially through familiar voices or sounds)

  
  

This is why people often say that reading a well-known novel or rewatching an old movie feels comforting. The system relaxes because it recognises the pattern.

Conclusion: The Essential Distinction

Social media and self-help books are not “bad.” But they are misaligned with the needs of a nervous system in distress.

When anxious, we usually reach for:

• social media to numb, which overstimulates

• self-help books to fix, which overwhelms

What the system actually needs is familiarity, predictability, slowness, and grounding, not more input.

When the nervous system returns to a safer state, both social media and self-development content can be absorbed very differently. The same sentence, the same idea, the same post feels more accessible and less threatening.

The difference is not the tool; it’s the state from which you engage with it.