Tame Your Anxiety

by Loretta Graziano Breuning

  For example, when you groom others who don’t groom you back, you have the power to make new choices. And when others groom you, you can think carefully about their expectations. This sounds obvious, but we are all biased by past experience. We have all had our expectations of reciprocity disappointed. Often we overreact in order to protect ourselves from future disappointments. When you know that reciprocity is natural, it’s easier to recalibrate.

  10. Budget Your Energy

  When you are exhausted, cortisol is triggered and everything looks bad. Prospects look brighter when you are rested, but you can’t save everything for those moments, because there aren’t enough of them.

  If you budget your energy, you can do more with less anxiety. You can do the hardest tasks when your energy is high, and save the easier tasks for lower moments. Once again, this sounds obvious but it’s rarely done. One reason is that every task seems hard. Another is that we instinctively do the fun tasks first. Finally, we let others decide when we do which task. You can overcome these factors and spend your energy in a way that feels good.

  Though you think each task is hard, there are tasks you dread and tasks you look forward to. It’s tempting to do the pleasant tasks first, but that depletes your energy by the time you get to the dreaded ones. Instead, you could start each day with your hardest chore, and then flow easily toward the more desirable ones. That may seems hard at first, but if you make a habit of cracking one tough nut every morning, it will start to feel good. Do not expect yourself to crack tough nuts all day. Save your yuckiest challenges for the first thing in the morning, and only tackle one a day. It feels great to know your day will not be one yucky thing after another, and it feels great to know that five big threats will be out of the way five days from now.

  If you try to tackle all the tough challenges at once, you run out of energy and everything seems hopeless. That motivates you to avoid tough challenges entirely. Budgeting your energy makes it possible to tackle tough challenges at a sustainable pace. With each nut you crack, you build the circuit that expects to succeed. Celebrate each nut you crack, but be sure you actually crack the nut before you celebrate.

  Maybe you think this is impossible because your tough nuts are endless. You can break tough challenges into smaller chunks and tackle one chunk each morning. You can build pleasure into some tasks, and save them for your off-peak energy. Think carefully about how much you enjoy each task and when you choose to do it. Remember that a lion can only prevail in the hunt when it runs on peak energy. It would starve if it frittered its energy in all directions. A lion survives because it budgets its energy.

  Sleep is a critical component of your energy budget. Your intelligent cortex needs plenty of sleep in order to have power over your mammal brain. You’ll sleep better if you avoid stressful tasks in the evening. It may be tempting to get “one more thing” done, but you are robbing the time from tomorrow’s energy budget.

  Your personal life benefits from energy budgeting as much as your work life. There are dreaded tasks in your personal life and fun tasks. The un-fun things must get done in order to get the rewards you seek. To have a date on the weekend, you have to face the challenge during the week. To enjoy the holidays with family, you have to make nice with them today. To enjoy a new technology, you have to endure start-up costs. You may never tackle these tough challenges if you save them for the end of the day when you’re exhausted. Invest some prime time in them instead.

  When you have an especially yucky task, you might want to schedule a fun task right after it. Your enthusiasm will rise because you know you will soon be doing something fun. Apply this principle in the opposite direction too: when you have an especially fun task on your schedule, tackle an unpleasant chore just before it. Then you will get a tough challenge out of the way and still be sure your spirits are lifted in the end. If you have fun plans for lunch, crack a tough nut before lunch. But when you have a stressful lunch on your calendar, do a fun task before and after. Plan ways to recover your sense of well-being when it dips. You can prevent a cortisol spiral by sprinkling your pleasant tasks more strategically.

  11. Prepare Your Fun List in Advance

  Most people have a chore list but not a fun list. You think fun should come naturally. But when anxiety turns on, healthy fun is hard to find. Every movie you check out looks bad. Every book you pick up seems boring. Every friend you call disappoints. It’s helpful to prepare a fun list for moments like that.

  When I reach the end of a hard day, I want relaxing entertainment, but it’s hard for me to find things I like. I might have to scan lots of movies or books before one seems appealing. I don’t feel like doing all that when I’m tired, but if I just watch the first thing I stumble on, I may hate it and get into a negative spiral. So I’ve learned to prepare a list in advance. Then, uplifting content is easy to find when I need it.

  When I say “uplifting,” I don’t mean “educational.” I don’t mean that it makes me a better person in the eyes of others. I mean that it actually feels good. Your verbal brain may have one idea about content while your mammal brain has another. If you ignore your mammal brain, your fun time could add to your anxiety instead of taming it. Honor your mammal brain and it will take you where you want to go.

  I am not always right about the content on my list. Sometimes I sit down with a movie or a book and find it distressing or boring. When this happens, I put it down and pick up something else. I have to make good use of my playtime in order to have energy for my work time.

  I am always listening to an uplifting audiobook or podcast while exercising, driving, or doing household chores. This gives me extra fun time that I look forward to. Enjoying my downtime expands the energy I have to tackle the next morning’s challenge.

  Many people waste their fun time on content that stresses them. They allow negative messages to flood their brain while exercising and driving. We are gloriously free to choose our own content. Don’t feed your brain with alarmism just because others do or because it’s convenient. Find uplifting alternatives now so you always have a taming tool handy.

  Remember:

  It’s easy to wire yourself for unhealthy rewards because nature gives you a head start. But you can build new circuits to enjoy new rewards.

  An activity that works mind and body together is an effective way to redirect your energy.

  Mirror neurons activate when you see another individual get a reward or suffer pain. This activation makes it easier for you to initiate the steps needed to get that reward or avoid that harm yourself.

  You can build anxiety-taming responses by finding tame people and observing them.

  Variety helps you restore the pleasure that habituation diminishes. It’s hard to try something new in a moment of distress, so start your exploring when you’re feeling good.

  Laughing is the sustainable way to get endorphin into your life. Humor is a sudden relief of perceived threat. When it’s suddenly safe to lower your guard, tension is released in your intrinsic muscles. These muscles rarely get a workout so endorphin is released.

  You can bring laughter into your life by viewing it as a strength, investing the time it takes to shop for it, and prioritizing your own sense of humor.

  When a software engineer explains a complex coding problem to a rubber ducky, the solution usually comes fast. Though you feel like you’ve tried everything, explaining a problem out loud helps your verbal brain and your mammal brain work together in pursuit of a solution.

  Self-expression helps you feel safe because it met your needs in youth. There is no perfect self-expression strategy. We all struggle to be heard in a world where everyone else is struggling to be heard. When you acknowledge your urge to be heard, you have power over this struggle instead of seeing it as a real external threat.

  We often reward ourselves in unhealthy ways when what we really want is some downtime. People often re
sist taking a break because it has negative associations in their past. A free mind easily goes to dark places, but with practice, you learn to enjoy recharging your metabolic batteries.

  You cannot predict what will please others, but you can try one thing different, and if it doesn’t work, try something else. If you give yourself permission to experiment, you will always have options instead of feeling trapped.

  Reciprocity is the social glue of the mammal world. You may think it’s wrong to give with the expectation of a return, but your inner mammal is always keeping score. It feels threatened when you ignore it. Reciprocity is not appropriate when it violates the rule of the law, so we are challenged to manage our mammalian reciprocity impulse in healthy ways.

  Tackle one challenge each morning when your energy is highest. Challenges look worse later in the day when your energy is depleted. Do not expect yourself to tackle tough challenges all day. Break big challenges into smaller chunks. A lion can only survive by budgeting its energy, and its brain is designed to do that.

  Uplifting content is hard to find. If you look for it when you’re exhausted, you may give up and settle for negative content that triggers a spiral. Instead, prepare a list in advance. Then, you will always have a taming tool handy instead of feeding your brain with alarmism.

  8

  Avoid These Six Pitfalls

  You feel like a victim when you deny your own mammalian impulses. You are better off seeing yourself as a protagonist.

  Here are some troubleshooting tips to help you manage common obstacles on the path to taming anxiety. These pitfalls are natural, but when you know how to conquer them, you’ll be super-natural.

  1. The Missed Exit Pitfall

  “Half the pizza was gone by the time I thought about it.” This comment came from a person struggling with eating habits, but you may have the same struggle with a different habit. You intend to choose a new road, but somehow you miss the exit. By the time you realize it, you’re far down the old road. How can you jolt your attention sooner?

  I tackled this problem when I moved to a new house and literally missed my exit a few times. It was a big deal because I taught night classes so I drove late at night. I’d get on the old road by accident and there was no safe place to turn around. I’d curse myself, but the next night I would do it again.

  I realized that the sight of the old exit triggered my automatic pilot. So even though I knew what I was doing when I got in the car, I’d be on automatic by the time I reached the trigger. I needed a way to jolt my attention in that moment. So I designed the new habit of getting into the far left lane as soon as I got on the road. Then I would have to cross three lanes of traffic before I could exit. This was not part of my automatic circuit, so it was enough to jolt me into saying, “What am I doing?”

  You can design a way to jolt yourself out of automatic pilot. The most famous example is hiding snack foods to make them hard to get to. Another well-known example is counting to ten before you unleash your venom. It doesn’t always work, alas. Sometimes, your anxiety reaches full force before you remember your new plan. You need a way to snag your attention sooner. Here is a simple strategy.

  Imagine that you are trying to reduce your coffee consumption. You plan an alternative feel-good ritual to replace your second and third cup of coffee. Before you put that plan into action, you need to build an exit ramp between your old habit and your new one. One week before your start date, notice when you think about getting coffee. Each time you think of it, stand up and spin around in a circle. Yes, literally stand up and spin. It feels foolish, but you’ll do it because you want the coffee. The awkwardness of the gesture builds a marker in your brain that helps you notice your urge for a coffee. At first you may not notice until the cup is in your hand, but soon you will notice the urge before you act on it. Whenever you notice, stand up and spin. If you are at work, you can substitute a different awkward gesture that’s less visible, like tapping your elbows behind your back. Any unusual behavior will put a wedge between the thought and the action, expanding your opportunity to activate a new response.

  This strategy may sound like the concept of “triggers” in addiction recovery. There’s an important difference, however. Recovering addicts are taught to identify their triggers so they can choose an alternative before it’s too late. That strategy is useful, but it often leads to blame. You may blame externals for “triggering” you instead of discovering your own impulses. When you understand your impulses, you can find new ways to satisfy them instead of feeling deprived.

  Anxiety flows from your automatic pilot. You don’t intend to go there, but before you know it a small irritant stirs up a big response. You can build an exit ramp to leave that road sooner. Spin in a circle every time you notice anxiety. Whether it’s tension in your body or words in your mind or triggers around you, stand up and spin. You will build a pathway that notices anxiety sooner, and gives you more time to exit to the new path you’ve planned.

  2. The Medical Diagnosis Pitfall

  Anxiety has become a medical diagnosis. If you identify with this diagnosis, there are benefits. There’s dopamine when you expect the health care system to meet your needs. There’s serotonin when you gain a special status. There’s oxytocin when you build community with fellow sufferers. There’s cortisol relief when you feel like you can “do something.”

  But you pay a high price for these rewards. Embracing the medical view of anxiety undermines your belief in your own power. When you expect the health care system to “fix” you, you are not focused on building new pathways.

  The disease view of emotions is hard to resist. If everyone else says troubling emotions are a disease, it’s hard to think otherwise. And it’s hard to pass up the dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and cortisol relief stimulated by the disease model. It’s not surprising that the disease mind-set is so popular.

  It helps to take a historical perspective on troubling emotions. For most of human history, you had to manage your emotions to tackle the immediate threat of hunger and predators. And you needed group ties to survive, so you honored group norms. If you failed to manage your emotions, evil spirits were presumed to be at work. Shamans were relied on to do something about those spirits. If the shaman failed, it was easy to blame the shaman or the evil spirits.

  Then the ancient Greeks came along and blamed negative emotions on a black-bile imbalance. Ancient Chinese and Hindu philosophers blamed similar physiological imbalances. Now you could do something to restore balance. Healers could help, but you had some ownership.

  Western science went on to cure diseases with medicine, surgery, and public health programs. We learned to expect science to cure troubling emotions as well. Advances in genetics strengthened trust in the disease model.

  The medical model treats troubling emotions as symptoms, just as it would see physical pain as a symptom of cancer or tooth decay. This makes you a passive recipient of treatment instead of a manager of your brain. If you question this view, you are vilified by its proponents. Few people want to risk being vilified, so the disease view is widely embraced. You don’t believe in evil spirits, but you blame emotions on external causes of one sort or another. You may even feel offended by the idea that you are creating your internal state. Health care providers cannot risk offending people. Teachers and public officials cannot risk offending people. Friends and family avoid offending. So you may not find a lot of support for taking responsibility for your emotions. But you benefit when you take responsibility regardless of what others think.

  Getting help is valuable as long as you don’t see it as a substitute for managing your emotions. You can think of “help” as an alliance rather than a rescue. This is hard to do when troubling emotions arise because it’s easier to criticize the help than to blaze a new trail in your brain. Everyone else is criticizing the help, so that path is well developed.

  Prevention is always b
etter than treatment. If you have cancer or tooth decay, every treatment option has its down side. It’s the same for mental health. My dentist has a sign that says, “Nothing the dentist can do will undo what the patient won’t do.” Help is nice, but self-care is essential.

  However, when a horse is out of control, a rider is tempted to turn over the reins to anyone who promises to manage it. When your horse seems out of control, it’s tempting to hand over the reins as well. Here is another way to think about it. Imagine yourself as a rodeo rider (or a competitor in the Equestrian Olympics if you prefer). Your horse had great trainers and you had great coaches, but once the event starts, it’s just you and the horse. To win, you must work with your horse to navigate the obstacles in front of you, one after another. You will lose if your attention gets diverted to critiquing the preparation you got from your trainers and coaches. But whether you win or lose, you enjoy working with your horse.

  I grew up before the disease model caught on. I’m not saying earlier models were better. My mother told me her anxiety was my fault. That explanation of anxiety was hard for my little brain to make sense of. It didn’t feel true, and yet I had no other model. I urgently wanted to relieve my mother’s anxiety because she let me feel it so deeply. But I couldn’t figure out how I was turning it on so I could turn it off. While I was focused on her feelings, I ignored my own. Restraining my feelings helped protect me from her wrath. That is not the preferred way to learn self-control, and it flies in the face of the “let it all hang out” movement. But over the years, I recognized the benefits that accrued from my early training in self-control. I wonder where I’d be today if I had learned the disease view of emotions instead.

  Once I left home, I searched for a better explanation of human emotions. In my twenties, I discovered Albert Ellis, the pioneer of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. He held Friday-night workshops near my home that were fun and inexpensive. Ellis talked a lot about low frustration tolerance (LFT), and aimed to help people build higher frustration tolerance. I was glad to hear that healthy emotions were skills that can be built rather than effortless endowments. Ellis taught tools for managing troubling emotions instead of talking about disease.