[for Unravel] Acting on anxiety

Anxiety is… normal....

That is not my opinion; it is what the influential behavioural geneticist Plomin thinks. This conclusion was reached after decades of researching how genes and environments interact, and affect people (1).

Psychological problems - like anxiety - are best thought of as existing on a scale of more or less, where each person is at a different and unique place on own their scale.

You may like to visualise how anxiety is experienced as existing on an everyday classroom ruler.

Or in Plomin's words:

"The abnormal is normal"

In other words, if you're a human being, then you're on the anxiety scale (ruler). We're all on it. And part of a healthy life is experiencing anxiety towards events, people, or problems.

But anxiety holds people back and can ruin lives. Anxiety gets worse in rumination, that constant thinking, worrying, and feeling overwhelmed.

Whenever such feelings or patterns occur, anxiety needs action.

Anxiety is a massive topic, both incredibly personal and complicated.

This blog post is not about how to fix anxiety for everyone; it is about one simple method people can use to face anxiety head on, to reduce it, and to help others take responsibility for their own brain - rather than being a slave to their own emotions.

If you experience anxiety, this does not mean you are a strange person with mental health problems; it means you are human being living in this difficult world. Because of their underdeveloped brains, teenagers are, for example, particularly anxious in social situations (2).

What is important to remember is that each person has different things that make them anxious, and different levels of tolerance for what anxiety means to them. And very few people are anxiety free.

Just as each person prefers different food, music, and sexual partners, it follows that each person will have something different that makes them feel anxious.

Anxiety about strange things is not strange; when we pause to think about it, this is exactly what we should expect.

And again, anxiety can often tell us about what is important to us. So, to get rid of anxiety completely... That... That is a bit silly.

That said, we know that anxiety will overpower the person who sits around and does nothing. Where there is only worry, worry, and worry, anxiety thrives.

In the extreme, this is what a panic attack is.

If a person is unaware or unconscious towards their anxiety, then nothing can be done about it. The great lesson from Freud and others is simply: it is pretty common for people to NOT be aware of what is causing them stress, problems, or anxiety (3).

Paying attention to how you feel requires mental effort and practice; it is an active process (4).

A person may have lots of worries and be feeling anxious, but may in fact pretend to others and themselves that everything is okay. Lying to yourself builds some kind of internal psychological wall, and expends mental energy, just as building a wall in real life expends energy.

Lying to ourselves about we feel often makes us feel worse. Recognising that we are anxious in the first place may begin to lighten the load.

At other times, anxiety "creeps" up on us. No, it doesn't.

We've probably just missed the signals that were important. Paying attention to how we feel is important, takes practice, and is a process that nobody - not even psychologists like me - is perfect at.

Most importantly, it's okay to be anxious about whatever it is you're anxious about. But do try to notice it.

Again, most people, most of the time, are completely unaware that they are, in fact, breathing. On reflection, it should not be surprising that something similar is true of our problems, thoughts, and anxieties.

Anyway, breathing can and does, if done correctly and with patience, calm anxiety.

It does this by engaging your parasympathetic nervous system, the part of your body responsible for the feelings after an orgasm, or when you go to sleep (5).

Engaging it is not difficult, though it will feel strange at first. Unfortunately, in life everything feels strange at first, and a strange feeling should not stop you from trying something helpful (some people may really dislike breathing like this or may not be able to connect with it; fair enough, skip the step).

Find a quiet place, close your eyes, and breathe in for 4, 5, or 7 seconds, and breathe out for 8, 9, or 11 seconds. Count the numbers and let your thoughts float by, but just focus on the numbers, the timing, and your breath.

Do this while listening to a guided meditation like this one. Strange things become easier with a good teacher.

Do this to a timer for 5 minutes. Get through the strangeness; this feels strange for everyone at first. It gets better and easier with practice.

This calms your system. You’re ready for action.

Get some writing technology: a computer with a word document, a pen and paper. Write down the problems that are, right now, causing you the most anxiety.

Give each problem a rating between 0 and 10. At the lowest end – 0 – the problem is not that bad. Scores close to 0 mean that it’s not troubling you very much.

The top end of the scale is 10. This is a catastrophe; it feels like the end of the world. 10 is for times when you feel like you simply cannot go on; 10 is a panic attack.

You may have written down 2 problems; you may have written down 82. Which is most important?

If you have lots of problems, choose the top three or top five most important ones. This is called rank ordering your problems; it is crucial for helping your brain understand what is important, and what isn't.

Once you’ve decided on your problems that are important, analyse them. Here, analyse, means breaking each problem down into smaller problems, and thinking about what you can do to solve them, or how you can take some positive action.

Some problems we cannot change. Others we can do something about (6). Try to accept what you cannot change. And to do something about what you can change.

Explicitly write the small things you can do to make the problem easier; do this for all of your important problems.

Now you have analysed your problems, think about solutions. Are there solutions? Or is it a problem that is too complex to require an easy solution? If it’s easy, write exactly what needs to be done to solve the problem.

If it’s complex, which, unsurprisingly, many of life's problems are, think about the actions than can be taken to make this problem get smaller, weaker, or less painful for you.

Maybe part of the problem is that you don't have the answer; this is a great time to ask others for help. How can every person be expected to know everything?

In fact, in a world so incredibly complicated, no expert can every really ever command more than 1% of the knowledge in the whole world (7). It's okay and useful to recognise when you need to ask for help.

Finally, rate each problem on a scale of 0 to 10 again. Have your problems become less problematic? Have the scores gotten lower?  How does your anxiety feel?

This is supposed to be helpful, and hopefully you feel a little less anxious about these problems. Anxiety reduces when we make things more concrete and comprehensible.

Notice how you feel. Breathe. And decide to do something about it.

The goal is not to get rid anxiety completely: that is unrealistic, unhelpful, and a waste of time. The goal is to understand your own anxiety, to learn to live with it, and not let it hold you back.

Put differently: the goal is for you to take responsibility for your own brain.

Small problems in life are usually easier to deal with than bigger ones. The longer problems get left, the bigger they become - or compound.

Small anxieties compound into panic attacks. This is why it's so important to notice when you feel anxious, to breathe, and to take some action.

Unsurprisingly, smaller anxieties are easier to calm than larger ones. And healthy mental health requires active effort on your part; even in a therapeutic context, it is you that must do the work.

Sometimes we cannot make the world safer, easier, or more comfortable for you. In these times, it is you that must become stronger (8). Reducing anxiety is a wonderful, empowering, realistic, and scalable* way to do this.

*it is scalable because a person can manage, take control, or reduce their anxiety no matter the situation: whether it's giving a presentation, asking somebody out, or facing a childhood fear, we can apply anxiety reducing methods to the problems that life throws at us - our methodology scales.

1) Plomin's (2018) Blueprint: how DNA makes us who we are

2) Eagleman's (2017) The brain: the story of you

3) Peterson's (2021) Beyond order: 12 more rules for life

4) Kahneman's (2011) Thinking fast and slow

5) Whittle & Goddard's (2012) Change

6) Manson's (2016) The subtle art of not giving a f*ck

7) Sowell's (2015) Intellectuals and society

8) Haidt & Lukianhoff's (2018) The coddling of the American mind