Anxiety is notorious for ruining people’s lives. Everyone knows that panicking is not enjoyable. When we talk about handling anxiety, we often use words like ‘escape from’ or ‘fight against’ as if it is our enemy.
If anxiety is entirely negative to humans, it would be hard to explain why it endures in years of evolution, nor why does it exist in the first place. The question is — what is the point of anxiety?
Put simply, anxiety is a signal of ‘something may be going wrong’. Think about it: every time you feel fearful or worried, something had gone wrong: you or something you care about is exposed to dangers. This is not a likable situation, so anxiety pressures you to handle it.
Does this make anxiety sounds too benign? But it is really what anxiety is all about.
A man who lost his job may feel anxious — his income source that supports his family is now lost.
A public speaker may feel anxious — his image will be ruined if he makes an embarrassing mistake.
An introvert may feel anxious — his esteem will be damaged if he looks awkward in front of others.
Whenever there is anxiety, there is a potential danger to something we value. Anxiety is essentially an alert that reminds and pressures you to do something against the danger; it is trying to prevent a possible catastrophe. Anxiety is not the problem— anxiety is the signal of the problem.
It doesn’t make much sense to shut the alarm bell when there is a fire— stopping the signal does not solve the problem. Even worse, since the awareness is not aroused, the problem may be left unnoticed for some time.
We are not dumb enough to do this with fire, but we do it every time with anxiety — we attempt to erase it, but without paying attention to the underlying problem it warns us about. A common piece of advice for anxiety is relaxation— escaping from anxiety or disguising it with other emotions. This may not sound bad in theory, but it leads to two problems in reality.
First, the underlying problem is unsolved. When we escape from anxiety, we cannot get the warning, but the problem will not resolve itself somehow— the fire is still in the building, rejecting to accept this fact will only get you burned.
Second, our brain will ultimately acknowledge this situation, so it ‘pumps up’ more anxiety to direct your focus to the problem. Escapism does not mollify anxiety, on the contrary, it worsens the situation.
Relaxation is beneficial in short term— it can give you room to breathe and calm down. But if the problem is not handled properly afterward, the temporary peace will ultimately disappear.
A more sensical approach to resolve anxiety is to understand the problem it concerns. If you put out the fire in your house, you will probably be relieved — more relieved than if it spreads. We need to think about what can we do so as to alleviate the problem.
For someone who lost his job, he may need to sharpen his skills and look for potential employment.
For someone who is going to deliver a speech, he may need to practice and rehearse until he can do it comfortably. Besides, he needs to think of what to do if he makes a mistake.
For an introvert who doesn’t want to look awkward, he may need to understand how do people react and respond — which is usually less dreadful than introverts imagine.
The solution varies depending on the situation. We can seldom solve the entire problem, but there is always something we can do. This is what anxiety wants you to do, and this is the most sensical way to resolve anxiety.
Anxiety’s mission is not to nettle us, but to pressurize us to act for our well-being.
