6 'Soothing' Activities That Are Secretly Causing You More Anxiety

You may think that these common habits will relax you, but don't be fooled — they might add to your stress instead.

When you’re overwhelmed with stress, you may feel like curling up in a ball and not know how to pull yourself out of the funk. From watching hours and hours of TV to pretending the stress isn’t there, there are common “soothing” behaviors that we do to unwind that can cause more harm than good.

“I do things that exacerbate my stress,” Niro Feliciano, a psychotherapist and author, told HuffPost. “And I know that I’m doing them, but it’s natural as humans.”

Even therapists can fall into these stress traps, she said. But if we work on how we handle stress even just 50% of the time, it can drastically help.

We asked therapists about the one thing that they try to avoid for relieving stress because it can actually aggravate tension — and what they try to do instead.

1. ‘Binging’ On TV Or Shopping