Everything you need to know about stopping OCD Compulsions

Article by Max Maisel, PhD

Clinical Psychologist Practicing in Redondo Beach and Los Angeles, California

One of the most important things you can do to get your OCD in a better place is to learn how to target and eliminate OCD compulsions. Stopping compulsions is often referred to as “response prevention,” as we are preventing unhelpful responses to OCD intrusive thoughts or obsessions. Before we talk about actionable techniques to do this, it’s essential to understand what a “compulsion” means and why they are crucial to your recovery from OCD. A compulsion is any behavior you engage in after an intrusive thought, intended to eliminate or cope with fear, discomfort, or uncertainty caused by the intrusive thought. Other names for compulsions you might hear include rituals, unhelpful coping, or avoidance behaviors. It’s common for OCD sufferers to experience powerful and overwhelming urges to engage in compulsions after they have an intrusive thought.   It’s important to note that compulsions can be physical actions that one can see or internal and invisible responses (also called mental compulsions). Examples of some of the most common compulsions we see at Beachfront Anxiety Specialists include excessive:

• Repeating things 

• Checking (e.g., ovens, doors, pockets; emails)

• Excessive handwashing/cleaning

• Reassurance seeking

• Readjusting 

• Overanalyzing and rumination

• Suppressing thoughts

• Avoiding triggering situations

• Prayer

• Counting

• Tapping/moving 

• Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones

• Hyper focusing

A Brief History of Compulsions

When psychologists first wrote about OCD in modern medical texts (e.g., 1950s and 60s), they saw OCD as a chronic and essentially treatment-resistant disorder, where the primary goal was to learn to live with it. Back in the day, OCD  was conceptualized through a Freduan lens, which suggested that compulsions were a way that one’s ego was defending against hidden and decisive impulses. Psychologists viewed it as dangerous to stop compulsions, which academia incorrectly saw as the unconscious mind’s last-ditch effort to preserve sanity. 

When more high-quality, science-informed behavioral research took hold in the 60s and 70s, we grew a much more accurate and more profound understanding of OCD and the mind's fear response. It became apparent that compulsions were the very thing that maintained OCD symptoms, and directly addressing compulsions was a pivotal element in helping people get their lives back on track!

How compulsions work

OCD compulsions are the oxygen supply line that gives your OCD the life force it needs to take over your life. When you have an intrusive thought, you may experience a rush of discomfort, which our clients often refer to as “the OCD whoosh.” It can be anxiety, fear, uncertainty, shame, guilt, disgust, or any other unpleasant feeling or sensation. It is natural to want to feel comfortable by doing whatever it takes to eliminate these incredibly uncomfortable, often scary. Compulsions have several short-term benefits, which is part of why folks with OCD continue to do them. The short-term benefits may include temporary:

• -feelings of reassurance

• -reduction of anxiety or discomfort

• -feeling increased control

• -feeling a sense of protection

Unfortunately, compulsions serve to perpetuate your anxiety and OCD in the long run despite the short-term benefits. There are generally three accepted reasons for this:

• Learning: Engaging in a compulsion teaches our brain that the intrusive thought or obsession is dangerous. At the core of all anxiety and OCD is the fear center of the brain, also known as the amygdala. The amygdala is evolutionarily much older than the “thinking” part of our brain and, therefore, does not respond well to rational thinking. The brain’s old, evolutionary programming is why you can’t “think” your way out of OCD. How the amygdala learns is by association.  When we do something to eliminate the intrusive thought, our amygdala receives the message, “This thought MUST be dangerous, or else why would I be doing something to make it go away?” Once your brain has deemed a particular thought or obsession a “threat,” it will be on the lookout for that thought, inadvertently creating more scary thoughts! Suppose you don’t do anything in response to the intrusive thought. In that case, the anxiety will eventually go away on its own, and the amygdala learns “this thought is harmless,” which will ultimately make your amygdala bored. The power those thoughts have will significantly decrease.

• Undermines trust: When we do compulsions, we never get a chance to learn that we can tolerate the anxiety and that the scary thought is not as powerful or valid as it feels. The OCD stories about what “could happen” seem more real and valid than your actual lived experience about what IS happening. Compulsions undermine your trust in yourself and your ability to cope with life's challenges. 

• Negative Reinforcement: When you feel an immediate reduction in anxiety or discomfort, your brain feels relief. When you do something

Now that you have a good sense of what OCD compulsions are and how they work let’s get into our top tips to help you stop OCD compulsions and begin reclaiming your life from OCD.

Top ten ways to stop OCD compulsions:

1. Build Awareness:

The first step in breaking free from compulsions is knowing when and why they happen. Notice the triggers and patterns of behavior. You create space to choose a different response by bringing awareness to the compulsion. Selecting a new response is about pausing and asking yourself, "What am I trying to avoid or control?". It can be eye-opening to track your compulsions using a journal or phone for a few weeks. You can track the trigger (e.g., situation, person, place, memory, etc.), intrusive thoughts, emotions, compulsions, and time spent doing compulsions. It’s common for our clients to feel shocked when confronted with how much time and energy OCD takes from them. Acknowledging can be painful, but it is an essential motivational step.

2. Be Strategic:

Instead of tackling all your compulsions at once, choose one or two to focus on. Rank them from least to most distressing and start small. Working intentionally, bite-sized helps avoid overwhelm, allowing you to build confidence and success with smaller steps. 

3. Practice the Art of Prolonging:

You don’t have to stop the compulsion immediately—try delaying it. If you usually wash your hands after touching something “contaminated,” set a five-minute timer and try waiting. Over time, you can gradually increase this delay, building tolerance for discomfort and proving that the feared outcome doesn’t occur. You can use this for mental compulsions as well. See if you can sit with the urge to ruminate for several minutes before giving in, strengthening your mind's ability to resist your OCD’s demands.

4. Change the Compulsion Up a Bit:

Try modifying the compulsion rather than completely stopping it at first. For example, if you need to check the door lock ten times, try it once with a long, deliberate look. Changing how you perform the compulsion disrupts the automatic nature of the behavior, giving you more control.

5. Recognize the Futility and Consequences:

Acknowledge that compulsions don’t fix the problem—they provide temporary relief but often worsen anxiety in the long run. Recognizing the futility of the behavior helps reduce its hold on you. Ask yourself: Is this compulsion helping me live a better life or holding me back?

6. Build Self-Compassion:

OCD can be harsh and punishing, but you don’t have to be. Practice being kind to yourself during the process of resisting compulsions. Remember that setbacks are part of the journey, and celebrate small victories. Self-compassion creates a gentler, more supportive mindset, making it easier to cope with the challenges of OCD.

7. Engage in Helpful Self-Talk while resisting compulsions:

We know that challenging or “talking back” to OCD intrusive thoughts never works well and will lead you to feel absolutely exhausted. What does work, however, is intentionally tapping into your resources to ground yourself in the fact that OCD is not in charge and you are the one who will be calling the shots. Engaging in helpful self-talk will build your resilience and enable you to separate your authentic self from the disorder. Examples of helpful empowering self-talk include motivational statements (e.g., “My life will be so much better after this”), anger statements (e.g., “OCD, you tell me what to anymore, I’m not listening”), one-upping OCD (e.g. “that’s all you got OCD? Come on, give me more”), irrelevance (e.g. “maybe, maybe not. It’s none of my business), or using absurdity (e.g. “your telling me a robber will break into my house because I didn’t check the lock another time? It’s probably going to be an army of robbers. They are probably specialized robot robbers that are being controlled by the mafia. They’re having a lot of trouble getting my bank statements”).

8. Self-Care is the Best Care:

Taking care of your physical and emotional well-being plays a significant role in managing OCD. Prioritize sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Engaging in relaxing or enjoyable activities provides a positive distraction and builds mental and emotional resilience against OCD urges. Self-care won’t “cure” OCD, but it can be a constructive way to balance your nervous system and help you feel confident and in more control of how you spend your mental bandwidth. 

9. Be Mindful of Mental Compulsions:

Compulsions aren’t always physical—mental rituals like excessive reassurance or rumination can be just as damaging. Pay attention to these mental habits and work on resisting them, using the same techniques you'd apply to physical compulsions, such as delaying or reframing.

10. Get Support:

OCD can be incredibly isolating, but you don’t have to fight it alone. It can make a particularly impactful difference when it comes to compulsions that involve other people (e.g., seeking reassurance from loved ones). It's common for family members and friends to readily offer this support to comfort and support, not knowing that, in the long run, it is continuing to fuel the OCD beast. If there are people in your life that your OCD loves to be involved in compulsions, it can be a total game-changer to let them know how your OCD works and to come up with a more helpful way for them to support you. Examples of this can be having the other person withhold from reassurance (even for only a few minutes at first), helping you identify OCD (e.g., “Is that your OCD wants to know?”), limiting reassurance (e.g., answer one question per week instead of answering all questions related to your theme).

Learn more about OCD and how specialized treatment at Beachfront Anxiety Specialists can help you. You can also read more blogs with other helpful information Here.