If you’ve recently been under a lot of stress and started experiencing intrusive thoughts or repetitive behaviors, you might be wondering: Can stress cause OCD?
The short answer? Stress doesn’t cause obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but it can play a significant role in triggering symptoms.
Keep reading to understand the connection between stress and OCD better.
What causes OCD?
OCD is a chronic (long-term) mental health condition involving a cycle of:
- Obsessions: Unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images, urges, feelings, or sensations that cause significant distress.
- Compulsions: Repetitive physical or mental acts done to relieve distress from obsessions or to prevent something bad from happening.
While researchers don’t know what the exact cause of OCD is, they believe symptoms could develop from a combination of:
- Genetics
- Brain structure and function
- Environmental influences (including early life experiences, infections, or trauma)
In short, OCD is not something you can “catch” or develop overnight from just stress alone. However, stress can trigger or exacerbate symptoms.
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How stress can impact OCD symptoms
“Anytime there is an escalation of stress, it can drive up OCD symptoms in terms of intensity, making them louder and more frequent,” says Tracie Ibrahim, LMFT, CST, NOCD’s Chief Compliance Officer.
Here’s how stress can interact with OCD:
- It disrupts coping mechanisms: When you’re feeling overwhelmed, your brain may default to compulsions as a way to feel in control.
- It heightens anxiety: OCD thrives on uncertainty and distress. Stress can increase anxiety, making obsessions feel urgent and harder to resist.
- It interferes with sleep and routines: Poor sleep, irregular eating patterns, and a lack of structure can all exacerbate OCD symptoms.
For some, OCD may seemingly appear out of nowhere during a period of heightened stress. However, in reality, they may have had mild or manageable symptoms beforehand that were exacerbated by stress.
Can stress alone cause OCD?
No. According to Ibrahim, there’s no research to support that stress alone can cause OCD symptoms to develop.
However, stress can:
- Act as the first noticeable trigger for OCD symptoms
- Make preexisting symptoms worse or more disruptive
If symptoms persist beyond the stressful period, it may be a sign of OCD—and if so, it’s best to reach out to a licensed mental health professional for help.
Stress vs OCD: What’s the difference?
Stress is a physical and emotional reaction to demanding or difficult situations. In contrast, OCD involves a cycle of obsessions and compulsions that feel difficult to control. These symptoms persist—even when stress subsides—and can interfere with your daily life.
Examples:
- Stress: Double-checking a work email before sending
- OCD: Re-reading the same email over and over for hours to make sure it doesn’t contain something offensive
- Stress: Wanting a clean desk to feel more focused
- OCD: Cleaning for hours to relieve intense anxiety about contamination
The key difference? OCD isn’t just about being stressed or careful—it’s driven by anxiety, fear, and a need to reduce distress through rituals. If that sounds familiar, it’s worth reaching out for help.
When to seek help
While everyone experiences significant stress from time to time, prolonged and intensified stress can necessitate professional help. “If your stress is getting to the point that it’s affecting your work, school, or ability to perform daily responsibilities, that’s when you know it’s time to seek help,” Ibrahim says.
How to treat stress and OCD
If you’re dealing with significant stress on top of OCD, know that you’re not alone and that help is available. The most effective treatment for OCD is exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. ERP is a specialized form of CBT proven to be effective for OCD. General CBT, if not tailored for OCD, can sometimes be unhelpful or even worsen symptoms.
With the help of an ERP therapist, you’ll gradually face your fears head-on while resisting the urge to engage in compulsions. Over time, you’ll learn how to sit with the discomfort from obsessions without falling back on compulsions.
Ibrahim says that no matter what mental health condition you’re getting treated for, a mental health professional will incorporate stress management tools to help you along your journey, as stress is a normal part of life.
Bottom line
While you can’t develop OCD just from stress, it can unmask or intensify symptoms in people who are more susceptible to the condition. If you’re noticing obsessive thoughts or compulsive behaviors that don’t go away when the stress does, it’s a good idea to speak with a mental health professional, preferably an ERP therapist. With the right treatment, OCD is manageable—even during the most stressful times.
Key takeaways
- Stress doesn’t cause OCD, but it can trigger or worsen symptoms in people who are predisposed.
- OCD is a neurobiological condition influenced by genetics, brain structure, and environment.
- High stress can make OCD harder to manage, increasing the intensity or frequency of obsessions and compulsions.
- Effective treatments like exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy can help even when OCD is triggered during stressful times.
