“Don’t dwell on it! Stop ruminating. Why are you so worried? ”These are some words of advice that are often given to us when we are anxious. I have a phrase to offer, however, based on the research of how the human brain actually works, that is going to sound different from all of these: WHAT WE RESIST, PERSISTS! In other words, the harder we try to not think about our anxiety or an anxious thought, the more we are going to think about it. This is called the “rebound effect” and creates a cycle where the more suppressing of the anxious thought there is, the more persistent the thought becomes.