Here are two techniques for dealing with anxiety, which I’ve been putting into practice in my own life and have had some success with. Like most (all) anxiety techniques, sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.
Technique #1: This technique is based on the idea that anxiety is present when there is a possible danger in the environment, in order to make sure you are paying attention to the danger and doing everything in your power to prevent the danger from affecting you. If you can “satisfy” the anxiety by attending to the danger, taking appropriate measures to deal with it, and being convinced that you have done all you can do, the anxiety will no longer need to be there and can be reduced.
Name the danger. Often we have a feeling of anxiety without explicitly thinking about what we are anxious about. So the first step is to get specific about what we’re worried about — what is the possible danger? Sometimes there will be several dangers at the same time, in which case you should pick one to focus on first, and then repeat these steps with the remaining ones.
Figure out what you can and should do about the danger. The next step is to form a plan — what should you do about the danger? Sometimes the answer is “nothing”, which is okay. You may not know specifics about all that will have to be done, which is also okay — you just need an overall plan and next steps.
Decide to implement your plan. This step simply involves deciding that you will carry out your plan.
Write down any future actions you’ll need to remember. This can be in a “to do” list on paper or in a computer or your cell phone, etc. The important thing is that you no longer need to rely on anxiety to remind you. Continue reading →
There is a new study out which suggests that lack of good social relationships can actually be as detrimental to your health (measured by mortality rates) as being a smoker or an alcoholic! The study is actually a “meta-analysis”, meaning they looked at a number of other studies (almost 150), and analyzed the results of all of them to look for consistent patterns.
One big question is how social relationships affect health. The authors discuss several possibilities, such as the possibility that good social relationships improve immune functioning. But then again, there is still the question of how relationships might affect immune functioning. My own guess (which is certainly not original with me) is that when we’re in a certain emotional state, such as anxiety or depression or happiness, in addition to the feelings we experience there are also other physiological changes that accompany the feeling. For example, when we feel anxious, we also typically have a faster heart rate, sweating, etc. I suspect that these physiological changes have consequences for our long-term health.
Facts happen. But in order to know how to feel about the facts, we create “stories” — we decide which of the facts are important, and what the big picture is underlying the facts, and relate that to our own values. For example, stories might be things like whether we’re a worthwhile person, whether people respect us, whether other people are worth our time or reasonable, and so forth.
We may not think about this much, but I suspect that we are constantly, and often unconsciously, evaluating what happens and creating stories. I also imagine that these stories greatly influence our feelings, and thus our actions.
It may be that “the facts” by themselves aren’t so important when it comes to determining how we feel, but rather that they gain their power through the stories we tell about them. This might explain why something that seems minor to one person can cause another person to have an intense emotional reaction. We probably all have things that we’re especially sensitive about — it may be that we’re telling a “big story” about something that seems little to others. Continue reading →
Following up on what I mentioned in my last post about my own tendency to focus on getting unimportant details “just right” while neglecting more important things, my friend Brad Blanton at Radical Honesty likes to say that “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly”. In other words, sometimes just getting something done is more important than doing a fantastic job.
Here is a video clip of Brad “selling” an audio version of his book, where he talks about the “poor quality” of the recording:
People who have been addicted to a substance know that it can be incredibly hard to break that addiction. Fundamentally, I think of addiction as a conflict between very strong feelings that shout “DO THIS!” and a “wiser” set of thoughts that says “this is a bad idea in the long run for reasons x, y, and z”.
People who haven’t dealt with substance addiction might think that thank god they don’t have to deal with such a problem. (And of course, they’re right!) But I would argue that *all* of us, in one way or another, have feelings that “push us around” in ways that a wiser part of ourselves suspects is not in our best interest.
For example, I sometimes spend a lot of time trying to get unimportant details “just right”, while neglecting more important things. Tonight I decided to work on this blog, and then proceeded to spend two hours adjusting the arrangement and spacing of some links I’m trying to add, even though I knew that it was much more important to work on adding content to the site through writing posts. But I felt compelled to work on the link positioning. Continue reading →
For me, one of things that sometimes gets in the way of being happy is the everyday barrage of unpleasant thoughts, often about relatively minor things I have to do, things that might go wrong, things I’ve screwed up in the past, and so forth.
In the past I’ve tried various techniques to lessen the unpleasant feelings associated with these thoughts, with varying degrees of success, but this is still an issue I have. This morning on the subway on my way to work, I tried something a little bit different. I tried imagining that my feelings were like fireworks, and that I was a spectator, watching the show. Instead of getting caught up in the content of the feeling (such as “just great, I have to send those insurance forms in and I don’t know where the receipts are and it’s probably too late and I hate doing it”), I tried to focus on the feeling itself, as in “ooh, there’s one now, that’s an interesting one”.
This isn’t really anything that new, as many thinkers in the past (roughly in the Buddhist style) have suggested becoming an observer of your thoughts and feelings so that they don’t overwhelm you. Continue reading →
A central interesting question about people is “what causes us to have certain feelings?” For example, what kinds of situations cause anger? Anxiety? Happiness? While we all have some rough ideas about these (such as “anger is caused by someone being a jerk”, “anxiety is caused by danger”, or “happiness is caused by getting something you want”), when it comes to more comprehensive answers, (to my knowledge) we just don’t know.
For example, what causes the most happiness? Being respected by people in your social circle? Having a family? Not having to worry about money? A great sex life? Adventure? While it’s true that we all have opinions on this, what do we know from a scientific perspective? Do we have any more than just people’s one-off thoughts on this? Continue reading →
In my previous post I discussed my thoughts on how feelings come about — that they’re based on “pretty good” cues from the environment in times past — pretty good, but not perfect. I also mentioned that in my view feelings are everything, in the sense that anything that matters only matters by affecting our feelings.
Some evolutionary background
From an evolutionary perspective, our “purpose” is to propagate our genes (for a fantastic account of this, read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins). This might look something like this:
People talk about “feelings” all the time, and yet there are so many words and ideas associated with feelings that it can be hard to know just what someone is referring to when they mention feelings. People talk about “trusting their instincts”, “going with their gut”, being on an “emotional roller coaster”, or having a “sense” about what someone will do. As I talk about feelings a lot on this blog, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on what I mean by “feelings”.
By a “feeling” I mean any sense of something which is immediately present to you, without the need for any thoughts about why you’re having that sense. Thoughts may be present along with feelings, or after feelings, but you can have a feeling without having any thoughts. The classic emotions are feelings in this sense — happiness, sadness, anxiety, lust, and so forth. I also include more direct bodily sensations such as the pleasure of a delicious meal or the pain of pricking a finger. Continue reading →
We would all like to have great relationships — relationships that are fun and deeply satisfying. Relationships that make us feel great. But what is it exactly about a relationship that makes us feel great? One simple answer might be that what makes a great relationship is one where people are “nice to each other”. This may be part of the story, but I’m guessing it’s not the whole thing — I suspect there’s more to a great relationship than just “being nice”.
For example, we probably all know people who are “nice” but boring. We might even have common interests with someone and yet we just don’t enjoy being around them. There are many people we hang out with and do things with, and with some people we simply have a better time than with others. We might even enjoy our friends who tell us what they really think of us (even when it’s negative) more than other friends who are are more “considerate of our feelings” who try to only say positive things about us. Then again, we might not. At any rate, what makes a relationship enjoyable seems to be more than just “being nice”. But what does make a relationship highly enjoyable? I don’t think this is an easy question, but I’d like to explore this question further.
Here are two techniques for dealing with anxiety, which I’ve been putting into practice in my own life and have had some success with. Like most (all) anxiety techniques, sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.
There is a new study out which suggests that lack of good social relationships can actually be as detrimental to your health (measured by mortality rates) as being a smoker or an alcoholic! The study is actually a “meta-analysis”, meaning they looked at a number of other studies (almost 150), and analyzed the results of all of them to look for consistent patterns.
Facts happen. But in order to know how to feel about the facts, we create “stories” — we decide which of the facts are important, and what the big picture is underlying the facts, and relate that to our own values. For example, stories might be things like whether we’re a worthwhile person, whether people respect us, whether other people are worth our time or reasonable, and so forth.
People who have been addicted to a substance know that it can be incredibly hard to break that addiction. Fundamentally, I think of addiction as a conflict between very strong feelings that shout “DO THIS!” and a “wiser” set of thoughts that says “this is a bad idea in the long run for reasons x, y, and z”.
For me, one of things that sometimes gets in the way of being happy is the everyday barrage of unpleasant thoughts, often about relatively minor things I have to do, things that might go wrong, things I’ve screwed up in the past, and so forth.
A central interesting question about people is “what causes us to have certain feelings?” For example, what kinds of situations cause anger? Anxiety? Happiness? While we all have some rough ideas about these (such as “anger is caused by someone being a jerk”, “anxiety is caused by danger”, or “happiness is caused by getting something you want”), when it comes to more comprehensive answers, (to my knowledge) we just don’t know.
People talk about “feelings” all the time, and yet there are so many words and ideas associated with feelings that it can be hard to know just what someone is referring to when they mention feelings. People talk about “trusting their instincts”, “going with their gut”, being on an “emotional roller coaster”, or having a “sense” about what someone will do. As I talk about feelings a lot on this blog, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on what I mean by “feelings”.
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