Blog

Emotional Avoidance: The Invisible Habit Keeping Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout Alive Many people believe that emotional health means not feeling overwhelmed, sad, anxious, or uncomfortable. From an early age, we are often taught—explicitly or implicitly—to “stay strong,” “push through,” or “not dwell on feelings.” Over time, this can lead to a subtle but powerful habit known as emotional avoidance.

If you’re a high-achieving professional, you likely pride yourself on delivering results, anticipating problems, and setting a high bar for yourself and your team. Those strengths can also become stress traps—fueling perfectionism, overwork, and a constant sense that “it’s never enough.” Over time, the combination of unrelenting standards, round-the-clock availability, and fear of failure increases risk for anxiety, low mood, sleep problems, and burnout (Hewitt & Flett, 1991;