Anxiety is Good for You? What?! 🤯

Wait What?! How could anxiety possibly be good for us? When most of us who experience anxiety, think about the idea of anxiety…let’s just say that it doesn’t give us a good vibe to say the least. For most of us it brings up painful feelings, memories and reminders of how we wish the past would be different or at least how different our lives would be without anxiety! And… I won’t try to sugarcoat it, I feel that way a lot AND…of course that then leads me into nothing other than a depressed state to add insult to injury! But just think about it for a moment - has anxiety every helped you? Have you ever gotten an extra jolt of anxiety that spurred you to study a little more for a test, prepare a little extra for something important, quickly swerve away from traffic, avoid a potentially dangerous situation? For those of us who have suffered from anxiety the most - we might not want to admit it, but The answer is most likely YES! 🎉

And that’s because at its core anxiety is an adaptive mechanism that is meant to stimulate us for fight or flight when we really need it in the face of real danger. Anxiety can ellicit a bit of a superpower where our hormones are rapidly sent out and it allows us to run faster, stay more alert, and solve problems. The problem is that for us who have difficulties with anxiety its not because we are appreciating all of the times its helped us. We are focused on the times we really didn’t want it because we weren’t in “real danger”. And thats the thing is that because of genetics, trauma, experiences in our past some of us have evolved to have a hyper vigilant anxiety center that is always trying to protect us from danger. The unfortunate part is that it’s just not that good at differentiating real danger from perceived danger so the alarm bells start going off all the time!

With that said it can be very powerful to understand that anxiety is not just an awful monster. It’s a powerful adaptive mechanism too and even in the times the alarm bells go off with no real danger we can appreciate that it is actually trying to help us even if its not. Here are some ideas and steps that can help you to reframe how you think about anxiety as well as work with it when it comes up at inopportune times.

Ways to Stop Thinking of Anxiety as a Monster and More like a Guardian

1. Recognize that anxiety is like a Guardian with good intentions, it’s always trying to protect you and keep you safe even when you don’t need it

2. Be on the lookout for the next time that anxiety actually does help you! (Causes you to prepare a little extra, stops you from walking into traffic, or slice your hand cutting the veggies)

3. Make a list of all the times that an extra jolt of anxiety actually did help you in the past (quickly swerved from oncoming traffic, kept your child from going into the deep end, prepared extra for a test)

Ways to Handle Anxiety When It Comes up at Inopportune Times

1. Remember that the anxiety you are experiencing is scary but not dangerous. More anxiety doesn’t mean its anymore dangerous. Move forward with your values anyways

2. Say “thank you anxiety for trying to protect me today, feel free to join me, however I can handle it” and then move forward with your values

3. Take a time out to perform a calming meditation (Here is a Free one on my Youtube), take a walk, or call a friend and then move forward with your values even if you still feel a bit anxious (it’s not dangerous remember)

So next time you encounter anxiety try to give it a little credit for at least TRYING to protect you and know that it’s really not quite the monster that we’ve made it out to be. Let me know of your questions, comments and what you’d like to see more of in future posts.

With Intention,

Joel