Daily Calm: Facing fears rewired anxious young brains

Daily Calm, from Central London Hypnotherapy

A randomised trial published this month looked inside the brains of young people with anxiety, before and after two different kinds of therapy. The paper, Exposure-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Increases Connectivity Between the Central Executive and Salience Networks in Pediatric Anxiety, found that therapy built around facing fears changed brain wiring in a different way from therapy built around relaxation.

What the study found

The trial started with 135 young people aged 7 to 18: 100 with a diagnosed anxiety disorder and 35 with little or no anxiety. Before treatment, the anxious group had fewer connections inside the central executive network, the brain system that steers attention and planning, and fewer links between that network and the default mode network.

After treatment the two approaches parted ways. Exposure-focused CBT increased the links between the central executive network and the salience network, the system that flags what feels urgent or threatening. Relaxation mentorship training instead strengthened connections inside the central executive network itself. By the end, 112 of the young people were scanned again. The scans measured the brain at rest and were analysed person by person. Our reading is based on the abstract, because the full paper is not open access.

The authors suggest that facing fears may work partly by giving the planning brain a firmer hand over threat signals.

A second source that points the same way

A Guardian opinion piece this weekend describes a study of 75 parents of children with anxiety disorders. Where families changed their own routines more to fit around a child's fears, the children tended to have more severe symptoms. That study only shows a link at one point in time, so it cannot say which comes first. Even so, the two sources agree on direction: supported, gradual contact with what frightens us appears to help, whereas arranging life around avoidance does not. The trial offers a possible brain-level reason, and the Guardian piece shows how avoidance creeps into ordinary family life.

What this looks like in adult life

The young people in the trial are not the commuter who dreads a packed carriage or the manager who dodges presenting. The pattern is familiar in grown-ups too. Each changed route, skipped meeting or call left to voicemail brings quick relief, and each one quietly teaches the brain that the situation was dangerous.

What it means for you

• Write down the small things you now do to steer around one particular worry. That list is your map for change.
• Pick the easiest item and face it in a small, planned way this week.
• Pair each step with something steadying, such as slow breathing, so your brain links the situation with coping.

Where hypnotherapy fits

Hypnotherapy can help relieve anxiety, and it suits this kind of rehearsal: in a relaxed, focused state you picture yourself in the feared situation, coping well, before you meet it for real. A 2019 meta-analysis of controlled trials found that people who had hypnosis reduced their anxiety more than about 79% of people in comparison groups, and the benefit was larger still at follow-up. Unlike relaxation on its own, this work keeps the feared situation in view.

I am Tim Dunton. I have guided clients through this kind of rehearsal for more than twenty years, I am a GHR member, and I studied NLP with Richard Bandler and John Grinder. The page on hypnotherapy for anxiety in London explains how sessions run.

Book a free consultation. A 15 to 30 minute conversation, in person in London or by video: request a free consultation or ring 07975 653893.

The research

1. Exposure-focused CBT and brain network connectivity in pediatric anxiety, randomised clinical trial, PubMed, November 2026. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42988353/

2. The Guardian, "We all want to protect our children from anxiety. But could we be making it worse?", 8 November 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/nov/09/parenting-protecting-children-from-anxiety

3. Valentine KE, Milling LS, Clark LJ, Moriarty CL. The efficacy of hypnosis as a treatment for anxiety, International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2019. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31251710/

Tags: anxiety · research · exposure · London

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