Anxiety and the Science of Learning Safety
What safety signal learning can teach us about anxiety, fear, and healing.
Posted May 18, 2026 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Anxiety is often described as apprehension, worries, a sense of impending doom, or fear in the absence of real danger. For many people, however, that definition may feel incomplete. Sometimes it is the quiet sense that the body cannot settle. The room is calm, the conversation is over, the email has been sent, and yet something inside continues to scan the environment .
This raises an important clinical question: What if anxiety is not only about learning fear but also about difficulty learning safety?
Safety Signal Learning
A growing area of research called safety signal learning offers a useful way to think about this. Safety signal learning refers to the brain’s ability to recognize cues that predict the absence of threat. The body learns that when a particular cue is present, danger is unlikely to follow. This process is related to, but distinct from, extinction learning, where fear gradually decreases after repeated experiences of non-threat. Safety learning involves the active recognition of security, rather than only the reduction of fear.
In a recent study of healthy adults, Odriozola and colleagues examined how the brain responds to learned safety cues and how this process varies with trait anxiety. Participants completed a conditioning task while researchers measured physiological responses and brain activity. Learned safety cues reduced threat-related physiological reactivity beyond the effects of novelty alone. The brain was not simply responding to something new; it was learning that a specific cue signaled safety.
For people with higher trait anxiety, the pattern was different. They showed reduced fear, altered hippocampal activation, altered connectivity between the hippocampus and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and lower activation in regions associated with cognitive control and emotion regulation , including the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. In accessible terms, some brains may have to work harder to register safety.
The hippocampus is often discussed in relation to memory , but it also plays a central role in context. It helps the brain evaluate where we are, what has happened before, and whether the present resembles a past threat. In anxiety, context can become blurred. A person may intellectually understand that they are safe, while the body responds as though danger remains nearby. This is one reason reassurance often has limited power. The thinking mind may accept the facts, but the body may not yet trust them.
The Odriozola study adds nuance by showing that the anterior hippocampus is involved in safety signal learning, supporting the idea that this region helps evaluate the degree of threat or safety in an environment. Clinically, this gives us a more compassionate and precise way to understand anxiety. Often, it reflects a threat system that has not fully updated its internal map.
Many people with anxiety have heard some version of, “But nothing bad happened, so why are you still anxious?” The answer may be that the absence of danger does not automatically create the experience of safety.
A person may leave a stressful job, yet still brace when opening an email. Someone may end a harmful relationship yet continue to monitor tone of voice, silence, facial expressions, or subtle shifts in mood. The stressor may be gone, but the body may still be organized around the need to predict and protect. Safety has to be learned through repeated, reliable experience.
Implications for Therapy
This has important implications for therapy . Many evidence-based treatments for anxiety rely on exposure and extinction learning. Although these approaches can be highly effective, safety signal learning research suggests that some people may also benefit from practices that help the body actively encode cues of safety, rather than only tolerate cues of threat.
In anxiety treatment, “safety behaviors” are often viewed with caution because they can maintain fear, especially when they narrow life or become conditions for functioning. Safety cues, used skillfully, can serve a different function. A grounding object, a therapist’s steady voice, a predictable routine, a familiar scent , a breath practice, a spiritual symbol, or a calming phrase may help the body recognize present-time safety. The key question is whether the cue supports flexibility, agency, and connection with the present.
Healing from anxiety often requires more than calming down. When threat systems are active, the body prioritizes protection over reflection, creativity , intimacy , or rest. From a compassion-focused perspective, therapy often involves helping the threat system soften while strengthening soothing, affiliative, and reflective systems. This usually happens through repeated experiences of steadiness.
This is part of why the therapeutic relationship is fundamental. A consistent and attuned therapist can become part of a client’s safety-learning environment. The therapist does not provide safety through rescue, but through predictability, respect, repair, and emotional steadiness. Over time, those relational cues may become internalized, allowing the person to carry a more stable felt sense of safety.
A small practice can begin with noticing, rather than forcing calm. When anxiety appears, try asking, “What cues of safety are available right now?” Look for concrete signals: your feet on the floor, a familiar room, a kind face, a warm mug, your breath, or the simple fact that you can pause.
Anxiety may involve too much fear, but it may also involve too little registered safety. For many people, healing begins when the body gradually learns that safety can be recognized, trusted, and eventually carried forward.
Odriozola, P., Kribakaran, S., Cohodes, E. M., Zacharek, S. J., McCauley, S., Haberman, J. T., Quintela, L. A., Hernandez, C., Spencer, H., Pruessner, L., Caballero, C., & Gee, D. G. (2024). Hippocampal involvement in safety signal learning varies with anxiety among healthy adults. Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, 4 (1), 155–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2023.05.007
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A. Maya Kaye, Ph.D., DSW, LMSW, is a seasoned neuroscience-informed psychotherapist, lecturer, and researcher.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.