Can't control spacing after paragraph

Direct paragraph formatting overrides style settings in Word. If spacing was previously applied manually, changing the style won’t affect those paragraphs unless the direct formatting is removed.

Using Ctrl+Q (or clearing paragraph formatting and reapplying the style) is the correct and only way to make the updated style spacing take effect. There is no way to force a style change to override existing direct paragraph formatting.

Use Ctrl+Q to remove any direct paragraph formatting which has been applied to selected paragraphs (or to the paragraph that contains the insertion point, if nothing is selected). 

If you've applied direct formatting to the paragraph, modifying the style may not change the paragraph's formatting without reapplying the style.

If you want someone to look at it, consider saving a sample document with the problem on OneDrive or DropBox, without confidential or proprietary content, and posting a link here.

Why a sample file is important for troubleshooting. How to do it.

Actually it seems like I can only get the changes to take effect by clearing the formatting and reapplying the style. Is there a way to avoid this step