Make anxiety work for you: How to use 'overthinking to your advantage
Being anxious and overthinking every situation is usually thought of as destructive but used correctly it can be an advantage
5:10PM BST 13 Jul 2015
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New research suggests that an anxious nature can also be an advantage – but only if you have the tools to manage it effectively. Here, Dr Alice Boyes, author of a new anxiety 'manual' explains how.
We seem to be in the midst of an anxiety epidemic
Dr Alice Boyes, author of The Anxiety Toolkit
Those of us who live with anxiety know all too well what it feels like. "Overthinking” every decision in life, leading to a paralysing inability to take action. Always expecting the worse has, or indeed will, happen: a child home late leading to terrifying visions of them lying injured in the street. Feeling a total failure if our performance – whether as a worker, parent, friend or lover – is less than perfect.
We seem to be in the midst of an anxiety epidemic, or perhaps we are just getting better at admitting how destructive anxiety can be. In the UK, anxiety disorders – which can take the form of panic attacks, phobias, social anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, as well as “free-floating” anxiety - are thought to affect up to one in ten people during their lifetime.
Many more people, while not diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, are still prone to this debilitating emotion: a YouGov survey of 2,300 people carried out last year revealed that almost one in five respondents reported feeling anxious all or a lot of the time, and four out of ten employed people experienced anxiety about their work.
But surprisingly, an anxious nature can also be an advantage in life – as long as it isn’t out of control. It’s only recently that mainstream psychology has recognized the value of so-called “negative” emotions, which have evolved for a purpose. Our capacity to feel shame warns us against doing things that would lead to being socially excluded, for example, while anger can prompt us to stick up for ourselves and others. In the same way, anxiety functions as a hypervigilance system that prompts us to scan our lives for potential risks, big and small.
Many anxious people have had a lifetime of others telling them “Don’t worry, be happy”, but this does nothing more than make them feel worse. In fact, studies have found that despite endless exhortations to think positively, the upside to imagining the worst case scenario – so-called “defensive pessimism” – is that it can actually motivate you to prepare better and try harder.
The Anxiety Toolkit by Dr Alice Boyes
So, given reducing feelings of anxiety to zero is neither possible nor desirable, the key is clearly to accept and work with your nature, rather than to fight it. Problems only occur when anxiety gets to the point where it’s paralysing and you become stuck in a rut. I think of these bottlenecks as anxiety “traps”, which have affected virtually all of the anxious clients I’ve worked with. Here are the five most common - and how to address them, so you can rebalance your thinking to experience the benefits of anxiety, without the costs.
Excessive hesitation
Putting off doing something we don’t want to do is natural – but anxious people hold back from doing things they do want to do unless they can be 100 per cent certain of a positive outcome.
Since few situations in life come with such guarantees, you can easily get stuck in pause, rather than play mode. The key is to shift your thinking to recognise the value of acting in spite of uncertainty, versus the harm of not acting at all.
● Use the three-question technique. Ask yourself “What’s the best possible outcome?” “What’s the worst possible outcome?” “What’s the most likely/realistic outcome? This is a standard technique in cognitive therapy and will help you balance your options.
● Then, ask yourself how you’d cope if the worst did happen. What would you tell yourself, to get through it? Who would you ask for help? Anxiety can cause us not just to overestimate the likelihood of negative outcomes, but to underestimate our ability to cope with adverse events and disappointments when they occur.
● Practise making more small spur of the moment decisions - such as changing your usual takeaway order - to build your confidence that even if you make the 'wrong' choice, the world won't end.
Rumination
A little self-reflection is a good thing but ruminating – brooding too much on an event in the past - is the biggest predictor of common mental health problems, according to a 2013 study. For anxiety-prone people, rumination often takes the form of self-criticism. You berate yourself for minor mistakes, replay social interactions that you think you handled poorly, and wonder what the other people involved think of you. Rumination can be triggered by trivial issues, like a typo in a document, or larger issues like questioning whether you’re enough of a success in your life. And while it can easily become a habit, habits can be broken.
● Be kind to yourself when you make a mistake – they are part of the universal human experience. Think of a few simple ways you could put the situation right and/or avoid the same mistakes in the future. Act on those plans now if you can and then move on.
● Try to develop a ‘non-stick’ mind, that lets mistakes go. Mindfulness meditation may be helpful, but you don’t need to sit in silence with your eyes closed - make a conscious decision to watch leaves flutter in the wind or register the sensation of the floor beneath your feet, to redirect your attention to the present moment.
● If you catch yourself dwelling in the past, try spending two minutes with something mentally demanding (like a Sudoku), which is such a successfully proven distraction method, some doctors have suggested it could be prescribed to patients in lieu of pain relief.
Sudoku is a proven distraction method
Perfectionism
There is nothing wrong with the pursuit of excellence, but perfectionism – a need to perform flawlessly at all times - can be highly destructive, leaving you unsatisfied with any achievement. Perfectionists can also spend too much time sweating the small stuff, while avoiding larger issues – leading to even greater anxiety, down the line.
● Set limits on overly persistent behaviour e.g. don’t allow yourself to check documents excessively, and stop for a break after spending 30 minutes working on one task. This will give you some psychological distance before deciding how much more effort it’s wise to devote.
● Invest time and energy in areas that aren’t performance-orientated, such as volunteering, enjoying a hobby or spending time with a child or grandchild.
● Allow yourself to stop when a non-critical task, whether at work or home, is 'good enough', even if it is not perfect. The more you practice letting go, the more you will get done - and the more flexibilty you will leave yourself to exact higher standards in situations that really require them.
Fear of criticism
We’ve all heard the phrase “You shouldn’t care what other people think of you.” In my view this is misguided. Being a liked and accepted member of a tribe is helpful for surviving and thriving. Being sensitive to social rejection is an evolved skill, not a deficit. It's only unhelpful if you feel so threatened by criticism that you avoid feedback and challenges, or if criticism sends you spiralling into weeks of rumination.
● Find one person who you feel comfortable getting constructive feedback from, and ask for their considered opinion on how/where you might improve.
● Identify three times in the past when hearing negative feedback helped you correct a small problem before it became too big.
● Don’t interpret an ambiguous response as a negative: for example, don’t assume that just because someone can’t fit a meeting with you into their diary for a fortnight, they don’t like you or your ideas.
Fear of criticism - Getty
Avoidance /procrastination
We’re all guilty of putting off today what can be done tomorrow. But in people with chronic anxiety, procrastination – delaying certain tasks, whether at home, work, school or in relationships - can become extreme and sets up a vicious cycle, causing further stress.
● Make a list of all the things you’ve been avoiding, and set yourself a 30-day project - where you take a small step towards at least one of them every day.
● Set aside a weekly “power hour” to tackle small tasks that don’t have a fixed deadline and that you’d usually allow to build up.
● Learn to scale back large tasks so that you have less urge to avoid beginning them. Tackle cleaning out a drawer rather than a whole room. Or write the first 500 words of that report. Once you get in the flow, you may find you achieve more than you set out for.
The Anxiety Toolkit by Dr Alice Boyes is published by Piatkus at £13.99. To order your copy for £12.99 plus p&p call 0844 871 1514 or visitbooks.telegraph.co.uk
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/11731837/Make-anxiety-work-for-you-How-to-use-overthinking-to-your-advantage.html
