Tame Your Anxiety Read online

  Serotonin promotes relaxation rather than bullying. Thus, an animal that dominates resources may use them to help others meet their needs. But it keeps trying to stimulate its serotonin too. Its rivals do the same. No mammal has a royal road to serotonin. Each mammal confronts social rivals in each moment.

  The mammalian facts of life can be upsetting, but denying them leaves you worse off. You believe that others are trying to dominate you if you can’t see your own urge for social dominance. You feel wronged by the one-upping impulses of others when you ignore your own participation in the one-up game.

  The mammalian urge for serotonin is hard to satisfy. It may seem like other people get to be special all the time and you are wrongfully deprived. But they face the same dilemma as you, because every mammal brain compares itself to others and feels bad when it sees itself at a disadvantage. You may condemn this impulse in others without realizing that condemning others is a way to put yourself in the one-up position. Moral superiority is the modern way to stimulate serotonin. It’s better than violence. But if you are constantly outraged by other people’s serotonin-seeking, you end up feeling just as threatened. You can help your inner mammal feel safe by accepting the naturalness of this impulse. You can find ways to make your inner mammal feel special instead of investing in a disappointing quest for the world to make you special.

  You Want Endorphin

  The word endorphin comes from “endogenous morphine.” It is your body’s natural opioid. Endorphin masks pain with a euphoric feeling. It is only released in response to real physical pain, and it only lasts for a short time.

  Endorphin evolved to help an injured animal do what it takes to survive. A gazelle can run with a lion hanging from its flesh because endorphin masks pain. A caveman with a broken leg could seek help thanks to endorphin. You have experienced endorphin if you’ve ever taken a bad fall and said “I’m fine,” only to realize twenty minutes later that you are not fine. Your endorphin masks pain effectively because that’s the job it evolved to do.

  We are not designed to inflict pain on ourselves to enjoy the endorphin. That would be a very bad survival strategy. We are designed to feel pain, after a brief respite, because it gives us the information we need to protect injuries. We can be glad we have endorphin for emergencies instead of trying to chase it.

  But people are tempted to chase it. Runner’s high is the modern world’s best known endorphin stimulator. It’s important to know that runners do not enjoy it every time they run. They only get it if they run to the point of pain. Starving yourself to the point of pain triggers it too. The tragedy is that your body adapts, so it takes more and more pain to release it. We are not designed to seek endorphin. We are meant to seek dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, and to save endorphin for emergencies.

  There are relatively few emergencies in the modern world. We are not bitten by crocodiles when we drink water or by centipedes when we go to bed. We don’t starve while waiting for the fall harvest or endure rashes while waiting for spring to make bathing possible. We can eat honey without suffering bee stings. It’s easy to forget that endorphin evolved to do a job.

  Fortunately, you get a small bit of endorphin when you move your body in new ways. Laughing triggers a bit of endorphin as it jiggles your innards. Exercise triggers a bit of it too. We can be satisfied with small endorphin rewards instead of pursuing big highs with harmful consequences.

  The Good Feeling of Getting What You Want

  Stop what you’re doing and spend one minute asking your inner mammal what it wants. When you understand the happy chemicals, you can define your wants effectively. If you want the seas to part to smooth your way, you will probably not get what you want. If you focus on something you can get, a reward is likely. If you focus on something you can get effortlessly, the reward will be small. Focus on something distant and you will be rewarded for each step toward it.

  At first, this focus on your needs can be frustrating because the risk of disappointment is always there. Moreover, you have been taught that it’s selfish to focus on yourself and the path to happiness is helping others. But when you ignore your needs, your inner mammal feels like your survival is threatened. Instead, you can zero in on one small need that you can satisfy. Your inner mammal will enjoy the reward, and that will wire it to expect rewards. It will start to feel safer about its needs being met.

  You have to define your needs before you can choose the right step. It takes an unmet need to stimulate your dopamine. It takes a new step toward social trust to stimulate oxytocin. It takes a new moment of social importance to stimulate your serotonin. So set your timer for one minute and find out what you most need right now.

  You may not feel like doing this in a moment of anxiety. You can only imagine things going wrong. Step Two will help you prevent that. Skip Step Two if it’s a real emergency. You know it’s a real emergency if your do-something siren blasts and you know exactly what to do. At other times, you don’t know what you need, so you rely on old habits that don’t really serve you.

  Step Two: Do Something You Like That Completely Absorbs You for Twenty Minutes

  Cortisol has a half-life of twenty minutes. Half of it is eliminated from your system in twenty minutes as long as you don’t trigger any more. That can be hard, of course, since cortisol is designed to alert you to danger. You scan for more threat signals, and you are good at finding them when you look. That leads to more cortisol, and you end up in a bad loop. You have to interrupt that impulse in order to flow from a bad feeling to a good feeling.

  An activity you love is the way to do it. You may not be in the mood for this activity when anxiety strikes, but each time you do it, you build the path that flows out of your cortisol loop. Each step builds the connections that make it easier the next time. Your brain will start to link the good feeling of the activity to the steps toward meeting your needs.

  To make this work, find an activity that

  fully absorbs your mind,

  can be picked up and put down quickly, and

  has no harmful long-term consequences.

  Let’s take a closer look.

  Find a Non-distressing Activity That Fully Engages Your Mind

  Maybe you like to walk in the park, but you silently argue with the people who bug you while you walk. Maybe you like to draw, but you harshly criticize your work. Maybe you like video games, but you tense up while you play and end up irritable. Maybe you like yoga, but you think about how hard your life is while you’re doing it.

  These will not work!

  They will lead to more cortisol. You need to truly free yourself from distressing thoughts for twenty minutes. It takes some self-monitoring and experimenting to find an activity that effectively distracts you.

  Playing a musical instrument is popular because it absorbs your mind so completely. It’s hard to worry and play the guitar at the same time. If you sing while you play, it’s even more absorbing. This is just an example—not a suggestion that you take up an instrument. Music is not fun for everyone, so find the activity that’s fun for you. Keep experimenting until you find something that absorbs you to the point where you stop thinking about who said what to whom, and who should or shouldn’t have done whatever they did or didn’t do.

  Watching television is popular because it has this effect. There’s no judgment here because it’s only for twenty minutes. But some alternatives to consider are arts and crafts, playing with a pet or a child, reading something you love, or a form of exercise that you enjoy. Calling a friend or loved one is popular, but you can’t control whether the conversation will be uplifting or distressing. Listening to music is popular, but be sure you are not ruminating while you listen. It helps to combine activities, so you fully interrupt your threat circuits and give your cortisol time to metabolize. If you have the time, you can add another twenty minutes so that three-quarters of your cortisol will be gone.r />
  Find an Activity You Can Easily Pick Up and Put Down

  My favorite distracter is watching a foreign-language movie while stretching. It absorbs me so completely that I absolutely forget whatever was going on before. You may wonder how this can be done for twenty minutes. It was hard at first, but I soon got to love having this great distracter always waiting for me. I watched a long Spanish soap opera this way.

  You may think the activity you love is impossible to pick up or put down conveniently. But you will find a way to adapt it if you try. If you can’t bring your guitar to work, find a digital simulator. If you can’t indulge in landscape painting, watch a painting lesson or do indoor pastels.

  You can call a friend or loved one, but they may not be available to listen to you for twenty minutes. It’s important to have an activity you can access reliably.

  My reliable distracter when I’m in a public place is to listen to comedy with headphones while walking up and down stairs. I am always ready with comedy recordings that I truly enjoy—not bitter comedy that gets on my nerves. Then when I face a long day of meetings that are less than inspiring, I know I have the power to shift to a new circuit quickly.

  If you are enjoying your distracter, you may not want to stop, but you need to move to Step Three to tame your inner mammal.

  Find an Activity without Harmful Long-Term Consequences

  Life is full of pleasant distractions, but many of them have bad consequences in the long run. When you enjoy such distracters, you also anticipate the harmful consequences and respond with anxiety. Thus, you end up feeling bad when you try to feel good. This conundrum is extremely familiar. You could probably list ten examples in ten seconds and you surely have some favorites. You need a new list of activities that feel good in the short run but don’t hurt you in the long run.

  At first, you may insist that nothing feels as good as your old reliable habit. But once you account for the anxiety this habit causes you, you will broaden your horizons. You can build your own private collection of healthy distractions. The image of a person knitting at a twelve-step recovery meeting is iconic because it works. If you don’t like knitting, open your mind to the universe of other healthy distracters. Experiment with a wide range of options. Try them more than once. Even if it seems impossible at first, you will notice that you start expecting a good feeling when you think of the activity. You can find ways to feel good in the short run without harming yourself in the long run.

  It’s important to have realistic expectations. You do not need to create a state of euphoria. You do not need to do something “good for you.” You only need to distract your mind from thoughts that add fuel to your fire.

  Sometimes you can find a way to transform an unhealthy activity into a healthy one. Let’s say you love to bake cookies when you start feeling anxious, but you end up eating too much. You can bake healthier cookies and put them into the freezer immediately except for one. Of course it’s essential to be honest with yourself when you do this, or you will be back in the muddle of creating pain in your quest for pleasure.

  After twenty minutes, your peak cortisol will pass and you will be ready for an action step. If you can continue for another twenty minutes, you will have metabolized three quarters of your cortisol. Then move on to Step Three, because it’s essential to tame anxiety.

  Step Three: Plan Your Next Step for One Minute, and Take It

  You can’t relieve all of life’s threats in one minute, of course. But doing nothing in the face of cortisol makes you feel like a trapped animal. Finding a step you can take is the key to relieving anxiety.

  You may fear taking the wrong step in your rush to choose. We are often warned against acting in haste. But if you had unlimited time, you might never find the “right” step. You feel powerless while you are looking for the perfect solution. Your power lies in your next step, so, focus on that.

  A famous producer once said, “If you can’t write your idea on the back of my card, you don’t have an idea.” The same is true for your next step. If you can’t formulate it in a minute, you don’t have a next step. So spend this time defining the next step you can take toward meeting your needs.

  If that step turns out to be too big, you can always break it into two steps. Any challenge can be broken down into chunks that are small enough to act on. You can take the first step toward the first chunk right now. That will put you in a better position to evaluate your next step.

  You don’t have to complete the step in one minute. You need to choose it in one minute and take it by the end of the day or write a time on your calendar when you will do it. If you feel like you have no options, your next step is to research your options. In one minute, you can write down your research agenda and commit to a time when you will do it.

  You will honor this commitment because your horse and rider know they must work together. Have you known people who don’t honor their commitment to self? Maybe they expect a lot from others, but they don’t expect much from themselves? They neglect their own horse in order to struggle with other people’s horses. Their horse feels neglected, and they blame others instead of noticing their own neglect. You have power when you honor your commitments to yourself. Your horse and rider relax because they can trust each other.

  You won’t find a step that makes everyone happy, or fixes everything for good, but you can get a step closer to meeting a need by the end of the day. No matter what is going on, you can break your needs into chunks that are small enough to manage, and manage the first chunk.

  A minute seems short, but you have probably analyzed the dilemma for hours already. More analysis is rarely what you need. If you really do need analysis, commit to doing it. Determine which facts you will gather, how you will evaluate them, and when you will get this done. If you think you are too busy to do this, use the time you would have spent on anxiety.

  A gazelle would get eaten if it analyzed its options for too long. Sometimes it can’t see the options from where it’s standing. It has to start stepping to know the facts. Then it can adjust with corrective steps. Taking steps is nature’s cortisol relief.

  You may be thinking that a gazelle dies if it chooses wrong. When you think about choosing wrong, you get that feeling of impending doom. A big cortex is designed to anticipate threats. A cortex fueled with cortisol generates a steady stream of disaster scenarios. It’s hard to see the rest of the story until you take a step that triggers some happy chemicals. Your first step will trigger some dopamine, and each step toward rewards brings you more. The dopamine will help you scan for positives instead of just scanning for negatives.

  A chorus of disapproval may sing in your ear while you’re doing this. It feels like other people control the chorus, but you control the microphone. You can grab it back and return the focus to your view of your steps toward your needs. Your critics have their own microphone and their own steps to plan.

  You may think you can’t step without more money and power. But with more money and power, you’d have more at risk. Every path has risks, but if you choose no path, you just feel surrounded by threat.

  So spend a full minute pondering your best next step, and take it. It doesn’t matter how small the step is because you can follow it with another step, and another. Every step is valuable. Some steps make visible progress, while other steps just bring you to the point where visible progress is possible.

  Dig the Well before You Need the Water

  You will tame your anxiety if you spend a minute clarifying your needs, twenty minutes lowering your cortisol, and another minute defining a step that’s doable. This three-step taming tool may seem awkward and unnatural. You may think you can’t do it while anxiety is flowing. But if you do it every day, you will build a new circuit that goes there automatically. Do it now and the circuit will be ready in moments of greatest need. Your investment of twenty-two minutes will add a powerful tool to your tool
kit.

  Maybe the idea of doing this is raising your cortisol.

  You may fear that you will need endless twenty-two-minute breaks.

  You may fear just thinking about what you want.

  You may fear taking time out to do something you love.

  The following chapters help you tailor this taming tool to your unique brain and lifestyle. First, let’s take a closer look at why this will work.

  Remember:

  You can build new neural pathways by repeating new experiences.

  Your mammal brain is focused on survival even though you don’t consciously think that. It defines survival with chemicals that tell it when needs are met and threat is relieved.

  Your brain tends to focus on what you don’t want until you consciously focus on what you want. Your inner mammal starts to feel safe when you ask yourself what you want because it starts expecting that your needs will be met.

  Dopamine is your brain’s signal that you have found a way to meet a need. It releases the energy needed to approach the reward.

  Dopamine triggers the feeling we call “joy” or “excitement” when we anticipate a reward. Each step toward a reward stimulates more dopamine if you perceive that you are closer.

  Neurons connect when dopamine flows, which turns on the good feeling of anticipation when you see things that triggered your dopamine before.

  Oxytocin is released when you perceive social trust. The mammal brain rewards you with a good feeling when you find social trust because it promotes survival.

  Neurons connect when oxytocin flows, which wires a brain to expect more of the good feeling in situations that triggered it before.