How to use anxiety to your advantage bbc.com How is your chemotherapy going? It prepares us to persist, remain vigilant, and act in ways that avert future disaster but also can make positive possibilities into reality. Join local or interest based communities. This post was originally published on Dr. Clark's blog. Too often, the mere use of it casts these experiences in a negative light, infusing them with threat and a touch of the not-quite-right. Far from comfortable, anxiety plays dirty, grabbing our attention when and where it is most needed. But that doesn't mean anxiety is pleasant. Science and technology are my passions! Yet, it is only anxiety disorders when extreme anxiety and our attempts to cope with it interfere with our daily lives that are recognised as mental health conditions. It reminds us that a situation needs our attention and motivates us to find a solution. : + Identify the people in your life who make you feel that life is worth undertakint and that problems can be solved one. When you experience anxiety you have two choices about where to devote that extra energy; into suppressing it or embracing. The work of being human is to learn that although anxiety can be hard, sometimes terrifying, we can learn to make it an ally, a benefit, and a source of ingenuity. The key problem for someone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder is not that they experience intense anxiety, it's that the tools they have at their disposal to turn down the dial on those feelings are causing functional impairment. And when our beliefs make anxiety worse, we are at greater risk for travelling down the path towards debilitating anxiety and anxiety disorders. But psychologist Tracy Dennis-Tiwary explains why the emotion can be a good thing. Pay attention to your anxiety and see . Their findings have been experimentally demonstrated in both animals and humans many times since then. You can succeed when you feel anxious as long as you are open to the idea that nervous energy can fuel your performance. We're sorry. In this piece from the BBC in October 2022, author Tracy Dennis-Tiwary discusses the role of strong emotions, namely anxiety, in how we interact with the world. You must be signed in to continue. The athlete is unable to concentrate on the task at hand and therefore cannot give their performance full attention. Ask it what it wants, and listen without judgment (or fear) to what it is trying to tell you. But the fact is we've got it backwards. While anxiety disorders can be paralysing, the widespread use of the term anxiety to mean a general ill-feeling is problematic because it means we accept two key fallacies: (a) experiencing anxiety is dangerous and destructive; and (b) the solution to its pain is to prevent or eradicate it. How to use anxiety to your advantage. When feeling overwhelming fear, the athlete may be unable to move, talk or act at all. To view or add a comment, sign in See other posts by Dilantha Culturally, we are a nervous wreck, and no one is immune to it. Yet, evolutionary theory and research have not trickled down into the public consciousness or into that of most medical professionals. | It has usurped stress as our language placeholder for feeling uncomfortable anxious about giving a presentation, about going on a blind date, about starting a new job. "From "eco-anxiety" to "FOMO", modern life seems a stressful place to be. He required open-heart surgery and I felt overwhelming uncertainty for what the future might hold. An army transport jet can launch a swarm of cruise missiles using the highly effective, brand-new Rapid Dragon armament With the Information, Resources and Opportunities Required to, With the Information, Resources, and Opportunities Required to, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221017-how-to-use-anxiety-to-your-advantage, US Special Forces will showcase first-ever live fire of airdropped cruise missiles off Northern Norway | The Barents Observer, Navy Probing Super-Secret Seal Mini-Sub Mishap, LCS Glitch | Coffee or Die, NAF Trains 7,000 Special Forces To Curb Insecurity | Leadership, Drought Gives Visitors Rare Chance To Reach Historic Landmark On Foot | Zenger, Will Machines Help Us Become Better Writers? Only something so unpleasant can consistently compel us to sit up and pay attention, can effectively demand that we work hard to avoid future danger and chart a more positive course. Let it spiral out of control. That's right - anxiety can be your ally! In order to safeguard and ensure that people can survive, emotions have been developed and honed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. In this era of pandemic, political polarisation, and climate change, many of us rightfully feel overwhelmed by anxiety for our future. To cope, we have learned to think of the emotion like we do any ailment we want to prevent it, avoid it and stamp it out at all costs. Negative emotions like anxiety have long gotten a bad rap irrational at best, destructive at worst. It's interesting that I just came across this article. Information about the vague futuresomething horrible could happen, but something pleasant could also happenis what causes anxiety. Terrible feelings, ones that can't be ignored, also make us want to turn away. The inexorable logic of this disease metaphor requires us to take it even one step further like other illnesses, from infectious diseases to cancers, until we have suppressed anxiety, we cannot be mentally healthy, just as the mere presence of a cancerous cell means that we're sick. The Best Students Newspaper In The World: Newsblogs Video Community - SAM Daily Times BBC Future - When my son was born with a congenital heart condition, like any parent, I felt lost. You have entered an incorrect email address! Written By Mason Miller. Listen. Anxiety can keep us focused on the things that matter most in life. Ohman A1, Flykt A, & Esteves F. Emotion drives attention: detecting the snake in the grass. Knowing that the future was uncertain but that my actions could influence the outcome, my anxiety helped me to function in what otherwise might have felt like a hopeless situation. Once you learn to accept your anxiety, you are better equipped to shift your . Anxiety fuels our momentum, unleashes our strength. Here are seven ways anxiety can actually be a good thing: 1. Sometimes It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better. Unlike an infectious disease or cancer, avoidance and suppression of anxiety will almost certainly amplify it, while simultaneously exacting an opportunity cost by preventing us from finding productive ways to cope and to build skills of emotional resilience. Today, we seem to be living in the age of anxiety. When we rescue anxiety, we will rescue ourselves. When my mind races with worry, I breathe deeply and focus on what's running through my head. But over the course of the past 150 years, starting with Darwin's The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, we have actually come to understand that emotions like anger, fear, and anxiety are more advantageous than dangerous. Anxiety is anticipating the results of your Covid test, whether good or negative. Think of anxiety like a smoke alarm, warning that the house is catching fire, and priming us to take useful action. Accepting symptoms of anxiety is the first step in using it to your advantage. Anxiety must feel bad to do its job. Use your anxiety as a warning sign. William James . How to use anxiety to your advantage From "eco-anxiety" to "FOMO", modern life seems a stressful place to be. When we're anxious, not only are we more creative and innovative, but our brains respond with greater focus and efficiency when we face the unpredictable. Sometimes, life just doesn't let up and any one of us in such situations would feel intense and overwhelming anxiety. But anxiety isn't useful or straightforward every time. Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter or Instagram. Thus, anxiety is more than just the brains fear circuitry. We are motivated to work for the things we care about, connect with people, and be more productive when anxiety activates our impulses for reward and social connection. It sends us spinning into the future tense, worried and feeling overwhelmed. This is the vicious cycle of anxiety, spiralling it out of control: feeling anxiety as dangerous, fearing it, and ultimately fleeing from it through suppression and avoidance. But for anxiety to achieve this, it has to be uncomfortable so that we sit up, pay attention, and listen to what it's telling us. Knowing that the future was uncertain but that my actions could influence the outcome, my anxiety helped me to function in what otherwise might have felt like a hopeless situation. But psychologist Tracy Dennis-Tiwary explains why the emotion can be a good thing." https://lnkd.in/dMZ9iaaJ Empowerment Angeli.Aquines-October 22, 2022. Neurologically, anxiety is a powerful signal that helps regulate attention and motivation to look after the things you care about most in life. Knowing that the future was uncertain but that my actions could influence the outcome, my anxiety helped me to function in what otherwise might have felt like a hopeless situation. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "The Essential List" a handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife, Travel and Reel delivered to your inbox every Friday. Philanthropist. Making this mindset shift has a powerful positive impact. Look for patterns. Call up one's therapist, or reach out to a friend who always brings a helpful perspective. It is a way of thinking that hasled us to perceive daily anxieties as malfunctions to fix. But no matter what the cause, listening to our anxiety believing there is wisdom inherent in what it tells us and that we can use it to our advantage is the very first step in learning to be anxious in the right way. Not only are we more inventive and creative when we're stressed, but our brains also function more efficiently and effectively when faced with uncertainty. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary is the author of Future Tense: Why Anxiety is Good For You (Even Though it Feels Bad), a professor of psychology and neuroscience, and the director of the Emotion Regulation Lab at Hunter College in New York, USA. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson, demonstrated that moderate levels of anxiety improve performance in humans and animals: too much anxiety, obviously, impairs performance, but so does too little. Your email address will not be published. When I was growing up in the 1980s, stress was the go-to shorthand for emotional discomfort. Here are some tips for how to learn how to use anxiety to your advantage: Use your anxiety as motivation. It can cause you to go so far as to give up or avoid taking part in sports, purely to minimise the chance of losing or underperforming. The problem isn't anxiety. Rates of these disorders, especially among the young, continue to rise, as they have been for well over two decades. generalised anxiety disorder to panic disorder and social anxiety disorder, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, brains respond with greater focus and efficiency, Why the next stage of capitalism is coming, Why we need a new story of self and society, the ancient Latin and Greek words for choked, painfully constricted, and uneasy, lifts mood, improves concentration and learning. Worth the 3 mins of your time, especially if you experience or deal with people who have anxiety. What worries do you keep coming back to? Very helpful. Like the opposable thumb and language, emotions are tools for survival, forged and refined over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to protect and ensure that humans can thrive. Required fields are marked *. Learn when and how to think of Stress, Fear, Pressure, Anxiety as resourceful states of mind. From "eco-anxiety" to "FOMO", modern life seems a stressful place to be. As much as 31% of the US population will experience an anxiety disorder at one point in their lives, which can range from generalised anxiety disorder to panic disorder and social anxiety disorder - which is one of the most common types. How to use anxiety to your advantage. They do this by providing two things: information and preparation. While anxiety disorders can be paralysing, the widespread use of the term anxiety to mean a general ill-feeling is problematic because it means we accept two key fallacies: (a) experiencing anxiety is dangerous and destructive; and (b) the solution to its pain is to prevent or eradicate it. How to use anxiety to your advantage bbc.com Like Comment Share Copy; LinkedIn; Facebook; Twitter; To view or add a comment, . I believe that anxiety can be a tool to help us to cope with the challenges that life throws at us. | Zenger, US military hits al-Shabab extremists in Somalia | Military Times, Astronauts son continues familys tradition of military service | DVIDS, Former Green Beret wants his poetry to serve as a manual for talking to veterans | Press Herald, Reversing Dramatic Decline Of Worlds Wildlife Will Require Transformations That Benefit People Too | Forbes, Food for Life by Tim Spector review the science of eating well | The Guardian, 3 muscle-building exercises that can reduce back pain, from planks to pelvic tilts | Insider. Sometimes anxiety needs yet another way to grab our attention and does so while we . However, for many people anxiety can be suffocating, and has become synonymous with feeling bad. I envisage leaving the content available until the end of the year. 3. How to prevent separation anxiety in cats? These benefits can persist for months or even years. You'll find stories on BBC Future on almost every topic that matters: psychology, food, climate change, health, social trends, . Your attitude and disposition are generally within your control. He required open-heart surgery and I felt overwhelming uncertainty for what the future might hold. As I put forward in my book, Future Tense, one reason for this failure is that mental health professionals, myself included, have unintentionally misled people about the nature of anxiety in the past a misunderstanding that has harmed us. Its job is to help you tend to the things that matter most to you. These feelings and symptoms are a part of our innate way of dealing with stress. Anxiety is information about the uncertain future: something bad could happen, but something good could still happen, too. Anxiety involves a lot of energy and adrenaline. I propose a new, more helpful and hopeful approach to understanding and living with anxiety in the 21st Century to use it to your advantage. Even depression can be linked to a series of anxieties we experience in life. Instead, one of the key problems is that our beliefs about anxiety stop us from believing we can manage it, from accessing and benefitting from coping strategies and treatments that do exist, and to learn to use it to our advantage. Apr 22. And bees! Taking time to think about purpose lifts mood, improves concentration and learning. Known as the fight-or-flight response, anxiety is meant to protect us from danger and allow us to react faster to emergencies. Pre-competitive anxiety also develops as an inability to concentrate before an upcoming event or competition. The harm caused by the disease metaphor for anxiety doesn't stop there. Review each thought and emotion you write down and focus on making the appropriate changes to manage those areas better. Whether we fight it, give in to it, or simply try to avoid it, anxiety often feels like something that happens to us rather than within us. Reviewed by Ekua Hagan. Reprinted with permission. Even the word's origins, derived from the ancient Latin and Greek words for choked, painfully constricted, and uneasy, reflect this essential unpleasantness. But psychologist Tracy Dennis-Tiwary explains why the emotion can be a good thing. Anxiety can help to prepare us for what we are about to experience (Credit: Getty Images/Javier Hirschfeld). 21 Oct 2022 14:09:59 How can anxiety levels impact performance? Change your perspective on anxiety. So, instead of benefitting from the alarm, putting out the fire, and preventing future fires, we just hope and pray the house doesn't burn down. Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement. Thanks so much! Put your plan of action into practice. Whether it's the concept of "time", "consumerism", or even "creativity", many of us tend to think about and define certain ideas in the ways weve been taught. How to Think About X searches for new ideas about our lives, the concepts that govern them and our future. From "eco-anxiety" to "FOMO", modern life seems a stressful place to be. The word has become ubiquitous and absorbed meaning, amoeba-like, to encompass everything from dread to pleasant anticipation. I understood that the outcome might not be good, but I also knew that a positive outcome was possible if I could provide the best care for him. Learn to make the mental shift from 'threat' to 'challenge', from 'nervous' to 'excited'. Thinking about anxiety as a problem pushes us further away from its solution, whereas thinking about it as a tool allows us to use it as such. Because of this, anxiety isnt harmful from an evolutionary theory perspective. Anxiety is anticipating the results of your Covid test, whether good or negative. And we're all on it somewhere. But if anxiety is so great, why does it feel so bad? When you embrace it, youre able to put your energy into the task-at-hand. Rethinking anxiety as a tool, rather than a symptom, lays the groundwork to capitalize on its resources and channel its energy more effectively. When my son was born with a congenital heart condition, like any parent, I felt lost. If you're feeling anxious, it may be a sign that something isn't quite right. Then there are anxiety disorders they are the most common of the mental health diagnoses, more common than depression and addiction. Heres what we reveal when we speak, whether we mean to or not. We can't ignore the role that unrelenting stress and adversity play. Our conversations are sprinkled with slips, pauses, lies, and clues to our inner world. How to use anxiety to your advantage. Oh it's great, but I'm stressed. At a time like that, it was hard to focus on those positives, but I learned that I could use my anxiety to keep me energised. While they certainly can help individuals, why have these solutions failed to reduce the scale of the problem so spectacularly? #3 Personal Growth Often when we're faced with struggles in life, it forces us to grow as a person. Far from treating anxiety as a potential ally, we treat it like an enemy howling at the gates. Try a steady state workout to build strength and feel powerful | Canadian Running. But how did our conceptualisation of these big ideas evolve? Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. From "eco-anxiety" to "FOMO", modern life seems a stressful place to be. Anxiety helps to boost our focus and drive as we close the gap between where we are now and where we want to be. Anxiety is a manifestation of survival logic. This is the kind of debilitating anxiety that feels like it manages you, rather than the other way around. But psychologist Tracy Dennis-Tiwary explains why the emotion can be a good thing. This disease metaphor traps us rather than uplifts us because it causes us to mistake normal anxiety for a disorder, and to fear, avoid, and suppress any anxious feelings as soon as we experience them. Posted December 1, 2018 Let it push you to do better and achieve more. While anxiety disorders can be paralysing, the widespread use of the term anxiety to mean a general ill-feeling is problematic because it means we accept two key fallacies: (a) experiencing. But psychologist Tracy Dennis-Tiwary explains why the emotion can be a good thing. First you need examine how stress affects you and how you react to it. Leverage: Finding useful information in anxiety prepares us to channel and direct our energies to work towards goals and pursue purpose. How to use anxiety to your advantage. Anxious people can be . J Exp Psychol Gen. 2001 Sep;130(3):466-78. The researchers discovered individuals performed best when they acknowledged their anxietyas opposed to suppressing it. BBC Future - Tracy Dennis-Tiwary 7m.