Finding Relief from OCD: How to Break Free from Compulsions and Constant Worry
Living with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can feel like being trapped in a mental loop that keeps repeating itself. Thoughts that seem irrational, rituals that feel necessary, and an overwhelming urge to get relief can quietly take over your day and your life. For many individuals managing OCD symptoms, this cycle of distress and short-term relief and reassurance becomes a daily pattern that’s difficult to interrupt.
OCD goes far beyond needing things to be neat or organized. It’s an exhausting mental battle involving obsessions that cause distress, and compulsions that provide short-lived comfort. These behaviours aren’t about weakness or lack of willpower. They’re the mind’s way of trying to manage intense discomfort.
This blog will focus on what OCD compulsions are, why they’re so persistent, and how therapy can help reduce their power. You’ll also find strategies that support lasting change, including ways to strengthen psychological flexibility and ease the mental pressure of constant worry.
What Are OCD Compulsions and the OCD Cycle?
OCD compulsions usually begin in response to an intrusive thought; something unwanted, uncomfortable, or distressing. These thoughts often feel random, alarming, or completely unlike you. In response, the mind scrambles for relief. That’s where compulsions come in.
What Counts as a Compulsion?
Checking locks, appliances, or other repeated actions to lessen anxiety and obsessive thinking
Mentally reviewing, ruminating or obsessing over past actions and events
Seeking frequent reassurance from others
Avoiding certain activities, people, places, or objects to lessen the stress of obsessive thoughts
Repeating actions such as, counting, touching objects, making statements in a specific way,
Repetitive worry thoughts about negative future actions and/or events
While these behaviours, thoughts and rituals may help bring short-term comfort, reduce anxiety, compulsive thoughts and urges in the moment, they also reinforce the idea that the thoughts pose a real threat and over time, the need for these rituals, thoughts and urges can get stronger. This is how the OCD cycle can form and strengthen over time.
The OCD Cycle
Intrusive thought creates anxiety or distress.
Compulsion temporarily reduces the discomfort.
Relief reinforces the urge to repeat the compulsion.
The cycle restarts, often with more intensity.
Understanding Mental Compulsions
Mental compulsions can be even harder to notice:
Replaying conversations or past actions
Silently repeating phrases for reassurance
Trying to “cancel out” a thought with another one
Although they aren’t visible, they still serve the same function: avoiding discomfort by trying to control or correct the thought.
Breaking this cycle starts with awareness. Recognizing the link between intrusive thoughts and compulsions helps interrupt the pattern. Therapy plays a key role here, offering structure and guidance to shift how you relate to your thoughts instead of trying to erase them.
Why OCD Compulsions Feel So Hard to Control
OCD doesn’t respond to logic the way often wish it would! . Even when you recognize a thought as irrational, the discomfort it creates feels real, and the pressure to do something about it builds quickly. Research is increasingly showing that when OCD thoughts arise, these set off a response in other areas of our brain and body, including loss of concentration and focus on daily tasks, and feelings of dread in our abdomen.
What Makes Compulsions So Persistent?
False alarms: The brain treats certain thoughts as threats, even when there’s no real danger.
Short-term relief: Every time a compulsion eases anxiety, it teaches the brain that the behaviour worked.
Avoidance loops: By avoiding the discomfort, the mind misses the chance to learn that nothing bad would have happened.
Compulsions serve a purpose in the moment. They reduce anxiety, restore a sense of control, or prevent imagined harm. But that relief fades quickly, and the thought often returns. This creates a feedback loop that strengthens both the fear and the urge to respond.
Mental Compulsions Are Often Misunderstood
Many people believe compulsions have to be physical. But the internal rituals—such as reviewing, analyzing, or mentally correcting—are just as powerful. They’re also harder to recognize, which can delay progress and lead to frustration.
It’s important to understand that compulsions don’t persist because someone is weak or lacking willpower. They continue because the brain is reacting in a way that feels urgent and necessary. The goal of therapy is not to eliminate thoughts, but to change how they’re experienced. That shift creates the foundation for breaking the cycle and reducing the grip of OCD.
Breaking the Worry Loop: Practical Therapeutic Approaches
Therapy offers more than just a space to talk; it introduces tools that help interrupt the patterns OCD creates. The focus is on changing how you respond to thoughts, rather than trying to control or eliminate them.
1. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT helps identify and shift unhelpful thought patterns. It teaches the brain to respond differently to distress without falling into familiar rituals.
Learn to recognize thought traps.
Challenge beliefs that fuel compulsions.
Practice new ways of responding to discomfort.
2. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
ERP is a form of CBT specifically used for OCD. It gently introduces you to triggers without allowing the compulsion to follow. Over time, this reduces the anxiety associated with the trigger.
Practice resisting compulsions in small steps.
Build tolerance for uncertainty and discomfort.
Rewire the brain’s reaction to fear cues.
3. EMDR’s Distancing Technique (Krentzel & Tattersall)
The Distancing Technique in EMDR can help individuals with OCD develop greater psychological separation from distressing thoughts, urges, or sensations. Rather than being fused and ‘swept away’ by our thoughts, the Distancing Technique helps the individual become a more distant observer of these thoughts, feelings and sensations.
Practice looking at a thought as ‘just a thought’.
Notice how thoughts ‘come and go,’ much like waves on an ocean or clouds in the sky.
Continue practicing these Adaptive Coping Statements
4. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) emphasizes psychological flexibility. Instead of fighting thoughts, it encourages making space for them while focusing on values, goals and meaningful action.
Practice letting go of the need for certainty.
Respond to anxiety without avoidance.
Stay engaged in life even when discomfort shows up.
Each of these approaches supports a different part of the healing process. Therapy doesn’t aim to silence your mind—it helps you build skills to relate to your thoughts in a healthier way. With time and practice, the cycle of compulsions and worry begins to loosen its grip.
For more on these approaches, see CAMH’s overview of OCD treatment.
Everyday Tips for Easing the Urge of Compulsions
While therapy provides long-term strategies, here are three quick techniques you can try when you feel the urge to engage in a compulsion:
Name it to tame it
Silently say to yourself: “I know what this is. This is an intrusive, OCD thought. My brain is sounding a false alarm.” This creates a small amount of distance between you and the thought.
Anchor in the moment
Cold temperatures, such as drinking ice water, holding a piece of ice, or wiping your face with a cold cloth, can help bring you back into the moment. Doing the 5 senses exercise, looking for 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste, can also be helpful.
Delay by 1-5 minutes
When you feel the pull to do a compulsion, set a timer for 1-5 minutes. Focus on slow breathing and other self-care strategies during that time. Perhaps you can make a cup of tea, text a friend, if you have pets, spend time with them, or do something else that nurtures and takes care of you. Try to turn your attention away from the anxiety, fear and urges. Sometimes, the intensity of the urges can start to fade.
These aren’t meant to replace therapy, but they can help you ride out an urge and practice new ways of responding.
How Psychological Flexibility Helps Break the OCD Cycle
Psychological flexibility is the ability to face uncomfortable thoughts and feelings without needing to push them away or act on them. It means being able to hold difficult internal experiences while still choosing behaviours that reflect your values.
For someone living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, this skill can be transformative. Instead of trying to stop intrusive thoughts or perform rituals, the focus shifts to responding differently when those thoughts appear.
What Psychological Flexibility Looks Like
Allowing a thought to be present without needing to analyze or “fix” it
Making room for anxiety without immediately reaching for a compulsion
Choosing behaviours based on what matters most, not on fear or urgency
This approach creates space for change. When you stop fighting the thought and start noticing it without reacting, the urgency begins to fade. Over time, this reduces the hold that compulsions have on daily life.
Therapy and Flexibility
ACT, EMDR’s Distancing Technique, and mindfulness-based interventions help strengthen this skill. They teach you how to notice patterns, create mental distance from distressing thoughts, and return attention to what matters—relationships, goals, rest, and creativity.
Rather than being controlled by the worry cycle, psychological flexibility makes it possible to notice the thought, allow the feeling, and continue. The more often this happens, the less powerful the compulsion feels.
How Individual Counselling at ThriveWell Supports OCD Recovery
OCD can leave you feeling stuck in a cycle that seems never-ending and impossible to interrupt. At ThriveWell Counselling in Toronto, individual therapy offers a personalized path forward. Our approach offers a safe and nonjudgmental space, where we can slow things down, understand the challenges and overwhelm you have been facing, and begin to identify patterns in your thoughts, behaviours, and compulsions. Many clients come in feeling overwhelmed by mental compulsions and intrusive thoughts. Therapy helps them name those experiences and begin to respond differently.
Therapists at ThriveWell use evidence-based approaches like CBT, ERP, EMDR’s Distancing Technique, and ACT. These methods interrupt and address various aspects of the OCD cycle. Using an integrative approach, we focus on changing behaviour patterns, distancing from overwhelming thoughts, feelings and sensations, and building psychological flexibility and emotional resilience. Your therapist will work with you to determine what fits best, always at a pace that respects where you are right now.
What makes individual counselling effective is the relationship. Feeling seen, understood, and guided through the work can make all the difference. You’re not just learning coping skills. You’re practicing them with someone who understands how to lessen the power that OCD can have on your life.
If you're managing obsessive compulsive disorder and looking for a way to break the cycle, individual counselling can offer clarity, direction, and healing. Living with OCD compulsions can feel like being caught in an endless loop of worry, rituals, and brief relief. It’s exhausting and often isolating. Understanding how the OCD cycle works and more clearly seeing the connection between intrusive thoughts and compulsions the more likely it becomes to interrupt that pattern.
Therapy offers more than just coping strategies. It helps shift the way you relate to your thoughts, giving you the tools to respond with greater flexibility and less fear. Over time, compulsions lose their grip, and thoughts become less commanding.
Having a process that’s grounded, supportive, geared to addressing the OCD cycle, and rooted in your goals can make all the difference.
Start Breaking the Cycle of OCD Compulsions
If compulsions and constant worry are taking over your day, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Individual counselling at ThriveWell can help you understand the cycle, reduce the need for rituals, and shift how you respond to intrusive thoughts, feelings and sensations.
Visit our individual counselling page to learn more about how we support people with obsessive compulsive disorder, or contact us to take that next step.
