Publisher's note: This article explores some of the advantages of anxiety through a personal objective and based on research linked throughout. For ideas and individualized care in the field of mental health, please connect with a trusted health professional.
It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I registered that anyway: Reading part of my writing in front of an audience. I was so worried about it, so afraid that I could freeze in front of everyone, that I could panic and cut my reading so that I can be anxious in solitude, that I practiced enormously. I read and reread my room aloud to myself. I cut words on which I tripped. I shortened the superfluous. I practiced a little more. And when it came time for me to get up in front of a large group of people to read my own writing – I did not trip on a single word. Not for three minutes.
I had to get back on my chair later, my hands trembling, the adrenaline always ending in my veins, thick like syrup, that I realized that I had done it without spoiling at all.
How could I have done that about something that worries me so anxious?
The answer lies in the question. My anxiety made me prepare for almost an excess point. I practiced until it is more difficult to fail than to succeed. And then I did it: I delivered. I read my secret writings, my vulnerable words, and I did it before writers, teachers and academics. A nightmare if you ask for an anxious person.
One could say that the reason I did well was because I was practicing. And we would be right to say that. But the reason why I practiced since I did was because of my anxiety.
Anxiety is not a general affliction, covering everyone in the same way, but it seems to me that those who have a propensity to feel anxious work a little differently. They tend to think before doing them. In the example of reading in front of an audience, an anxious person might think of all the things that can go wrong: lose your place in your room; Lock your knees and vanish (it was a sincere fear of mine); Panic during your reading and need to leave halfway.
Anxiety, with an incredibly good reason, has a bad reputation. It sometimes makes very difficult. But there is a lot to say about the change in our way of thinking about anxiety.
What is beneficial in this type of scary and painful thinking is that it can really have you prepare.
I entered this reading after having already considered the worst results. Not only did I consider them, but I just supposed that I would live each of them, and so I knew exactly what to do when these bad results inevitably came for me. Except that they have never done it. I had read my piece so many times that if I got lost, I would have known where on the page to continue continuing. I made sure to keep my knees slightly folded – a skill that I learned in the lycée choir – so that I would not enclose them and that I vanish in front of an audience. And I approached my fear of panicking halfway, remembering that I only have three minutes. I can do almost anything for only three minutes, including something that me and countless others, are terrified: speak in public.
The psychologist Chloé Carmichael, Ph.D. said Anxiety has a healthy function: stimulating preparatory behavior. You don't need to be anxious to prepare or not procrastinate. But, if you are one of those people around which anxiety likes to lace your fingers, there are ways to use it to your advantage. As to know the worst results and work from there; As prepare until it is no longer possible to be more prepared.
Anxiety, with an incredibly good reason, has a bad reputation. It sometimes makes very difficult. But there is a lot to say about the change in our way of thinking about anxiety and using it as a force for productivity.
Another advantage of anxiety? It often highlights our fundamental values.
Professor of Neural Sciences and Psychology at New York University, Dr Wendy Suzuki, wrote a brilliant book entitled Good anxiety: Exploit the power of the most ill -understood emotion. It is a scientific book that helps readers to move their point of view of anxiety from that of a prison cell to something that can increase performance, create compassion, promote creativity and provide you with other superpowers, as it calls them. In the book, Dr. Suzuki says that the sources of our anxiety are pointers towards what we appreciate in life, indicating what is important or precious for us.
I think it's incredible. The things we are worried are in fact indications that we are passionate about something. This means that we care, and we care enough for us to be proactive to preserve what is precious to us.
Anything that requires a certain level of understanding. In a interview With NPR, Dr. Suzuki says there is a gift that can come from your anxiety list: the “and if” list. “What if I don't know the answer? And if they ask me questions about this part of the book and do not remember the study? Anyone can transform your list of '` `What if a list of tasks.” She continues by saying that our stress and anxiety activate our muscles to do something, to act.
The things we are worried are in fact indications that we are passionate about something. This means that we care, and we care enough for us to be proactive to preserve what is precious to us.
The list of advantages continues …
Of Harvard Business Review test series By leading to anxiety: “Decades of research on emotional intelligence have shown that people who understand their own feelings have higher work satisfaction, stronger professional performance and better relationships; are more innovative; and can synthesize various opinions and reduce conflicts. ”
It all seems great. So what is the warning?
It's something to use your anxiety to propel yourself, but to use it SO a lot; To think about it again and again, it will simply stop you in your footsteps. Worse, it will stop you in your footsteps and attract you in the state of cloudy panic that we all anxious, the most anxious.
If you come to this point, Here are some useful things you can do The next time you feel anxious. And if I know my anxious comrades as I think I do it, I know you will read it now so that the next time that anxiety will arrive, you will be prepared. Associate with 50 ways to beat anxietywritten by Alice Boyes, Ph.D., author of The anxiety toolbox.
Another resource – the best I have found (in addition to therapy) – is a book entitled Dare: the new way of ending anxiety and stopping panic attacks By Barry McDonagh. This helps you look at anxiety through the same goal as Dr Wendy Suzuki suggests: like a positive behavior that can really benefit you, but only if you keep it. This book gives you practical means to temper your anxiety, and they work. They work for me as nothing has already done.
It must always be said: if you need help, our friends from the national suicide prevention line are there for you, at any time of the day. The number is 1.800.273,8255. From July 16, 2022, those in the United States can now deal with 988 and will be connected directly to the lifeline. Here is the website For more information.
Take care of yourself.
Treat your head Like the temple he is. And when you are able, remember that at the beginning of time, anxiety was our friend. It kept us alive. There are advantages to be anxious, it is sometimes enough to remind us.
Kolina Cicero is in love with stories – reading them, writing them, getting lost in them. The other things she likes include yoga, travel and taking cooking, Italian and writing lessons. His first children's book, Rosie and the Passe-Temps farmwas published in July 2020.
