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How to Make Your Anxiety Work for You Instead of Against You
Anxiety is energy, and you can strike the right balance if you know what to look for.Fast Company | Stephanie Vozza
Photo by Feodora Chiosea/Getty Images.
While some cases of anxiety are serious enough to require medical treatment, everyday anxiety is a fact of life and can actually be helpful, says psychologist Bob Rosen, author of Conscious: The Power of Awareness in Business and Life.âHow you use it makes all the difference,â he says. âAs the world gets faster and more uncertain, itâs easy to let [anxiety] overwhelm you. People get hijacked by their reptilian brain survival instincts and fear. On the flip side, denying or running from anxiety causes you to become complacent. You can use anxiety in a positive way and turn it into a powerful force in your life if you strike a balance.âThe first hurdle to get over is viewing anxiety through a negative lens. âWe see anxiety as something to fear and avoid,â says Rosen. âThat thinking is self-defeating and makes it worse. In a sense, we need to see anxiety as a wake-up call; a message inside of our mind telling us to pay attention. We need to accept it as a natural part of the human experience.âAnother problem is our faulty thinking around change, says Rosen. âFor centuries, it was viewed as dangerous or life threatening,â he says. âBut stability is an illusion, and uncertainty is reality. Uncertainty makes you anxious and vulnerable, and anxiety leads you to worry or run away because youâre not in control of life anymore and you feel worse.âPeople often move back and forth between too much, just enough, and too little anxiety, and anxiety is contagious, says Rosen: âWe communicate our level of anxiety to others because weâre connected to each other,â he says. âStudies show that your blood pressure can go up when you deal with a manger who is disrespectful, unfair, or overly anxious. People are hijacked more and more because of too much anxiety.âAnxiety is energy, and you can strike the right balance if you know what to look for:
Too Much AnxietySome people naturally have too much anxiety, and thatâs a problem. âThese are the people who need to be right, powerful, in control, and successful,â says Rosen. âThey orchestrate everything around them, and are mistrustful or suspicious. Theyâre scared of inadequacy, failure, being insignificant, or being taken advantage of.âYou have too much anxiety if you tend to expect respect and admiration, are frustrated a lot, question the motives of others, and are overly impatient, says Rosen.
Too Little AnxietyToo little anxiety isnât good either. âYou put your head in the sand in the face of change,â says Rosen. âYou donât want to take risks. You value status quo and live in a bubble.âYou have too little anxiety if youâre too idealistic and cautious, detaching from all of the change around you. âThe world is changing faster than our ability to adapt. We need to learn new things, and canât stay complacent for long,â he says. âItâs important to allow yourself to stretch and to feel just the right amount of anxiety.â
Good AnxietyLiving with the right amount of anxiety provides just enough tension to drive you forward without causing you to resist, give up, or try to control what happens. âItâs a productive energy,â says Rosen.The first step is getting comfortable being uncomfortable. âA lot of people think the goal of life is to be happy, but itâs not,â says Rosen. âThe goal is to live a full life, and sometimes youâll have good days and sometimes bad days. Develop the skill of being uncomfortable. Knowing you can and will get through it is important.âListen to your body; it speaks to you, says Rosen. âWhether itâs stomach pain or heart palpitations or a stiff neck or back, these are ways the body tells you that you are anxious,â he says.Ask yourself why youâre anxious. Is it because youâre excited? How you interpret anxiety could be good or bad. If youâre about to give a speech, for example, anxiety is good. Instead of trying to avoid it, understand it. âIf youâre not anxious, youâre probably not going to give a great speech,â says Rosen. âAnd if youâre too anxious, that wonât be a great speech, either.âWhen you have too much anxiety, itâs often because youâre telling yourself a story. âFor example, âIf I donât do a good job Iâll get fired,â âMy boss hates me,â or âIâm going to embarrass myself,'â says Rosen. Itâs often not the event that causes anxiety; itâs the story we tell ourselves about it.âWhen this happens, take a long walk or breathe deeply if you have too much anxiety. Meditation is a force that helps you live in the present moment. âWhen you meditate, you get a better sense of how your body and mind are reacting,â he says. âDeep breathing creates a direct connection between your breath and reducing stress. You can get a sense of the source of the anxiety, peel back the onion, and find the cause.âAll change happens in the gap between our current reality and desired future, says Rosen. âWe have a problem we want to solve or have a goal we want to accomplish,â he says. âIn the gap sits our motivation, our engagement, and our anxiety. Anxiety is the energy that moves us across the gap. We need to have enough energy to change. You canât change or transform yourself unless you allow yourself to feel uncertainty and vulnerability.â
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