All About Anxiety

I was recently asked if there was a singular issue I saw more of in my office than any other. The answer is yes—anxiety. So many people are struggling with anxious feelings these days. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes anxiety is a good thing. It’s protective. I want you to feel anxious about walking through a park late at night. I want the air traffic controller to feel anxious about two flights landing at the same time. Those anxiety feelings can be red flags, calls to action.

But what about when we’re anxious for irrational, illogical reasons? When we see red flags where they aren’t warranted? That’s when anxiety becomes a problem. The thing is, as long as you have imagination, you can have anxiety. Why? Because anxiety is what I call the “what if” disease, requiring us to imagine potential pitfalls. What if I lose my job? What if I’m alone forever? What if they laugh at me? When we get really good at this, we can what if ourselves all the way to worst-case scenarios. What if I blow that presentation, get fired, fail to find a new job, lose my house and become a bag lady?

What ifs are problems we don’t have yet. Anxiety is a time traveller’s disease; it spends its time rehashing the past or forecasting a future we can’t see or predict. But when you break it down, anxiety is really just a feeling. It’s a feeling fueled by racing thoughts. Which is why one of the greatest antidotes to anxiety is to rein in a runaway mind and stay present in the present, where those worries don’t exist yet.

That’s not easy, I know, especially when you’ve spent a lifetime looking for landmines (to the exclusion of the daisies). But it is possible. How? Well, adopting a mindfulness practice is a good place to start. Then, you can start gently challenging your anxious thoughts. Most people have a favourite flavour of what if.

Understanding which flavour bin your anxious thoughts fall into, being aware of their improbability and then bringing yourself back to the present are cornerstones of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), the gold standard for treating anxiety. So, take a deep breath and bring your focus back to the present, where, very likely, the sun is still shining. Mindfulness Mantra: The past is past, the future hasn’t happened yet and right now is where I need to be.

Did you know…

Anxiety is an emotion that at one time served an evolutionary purpose, alerting our ancestors to potential threats (animal attacks, foreign invasion, pestilence). Now, the greater threat comes from the chronicity of stress which, dialed up to the extreme, is anxiety.