Tame Your Anxiety Read online

  Small steps are frustrating if you are focused on the mountain. Frustration wastes energy that could be invested in action. Once you see the path, small steps feel rewarding rather than frustrating. Often, you can’t see the path until you take a few steps. You have to accumulate information to uncover possibilities. Thus, those first few steps must be taken into the unknown. You may hate to take steps unless you “know what you’re doing.” This leaves you stuck. It’s easier to step into the unknown when you see it as a trailblazing mission. Sometimes those first steps help you see that your mission is impossible. That frees you to find a better place to invest your energy.

  You may be waiting for a big dramatic opportunity to appear. You may expect the world to change in a way that suddenly gives you what you want. Life can pass you by while you’re waiting. You are better off defining practical steps that lead toward your desires, and taking the first step today.

  3. Focus on Your Own Steps

  When you dream of something you want, you may quickly think of what other people should do to help you get it. Advice mongers even tell you that getting help is your first step. This strategy often fails because others are not as invested in your goal as you are. Your steps are what you have power over. Don’t waste it waiting for others to blaze your trail for you. Once you are on the path, you can find people whose paths overlap.

  If you look for a cheering squad, you may not find it. You may waste your energy critiquing others instead of bolstering your own steps. This unfortunate choice is extremely common. The cortisol of disappointment sends your mind looking for evidence that others have let you down, and you are good at finding it when you look. You enjoy some serotonin when you berate their inferior ethics. You enjoy some dopamine when you make predictions and confirm them. You enjoy oxytocin when you bond with other people who feel shortchanged. But the victim template terrorizes your inner mammal. You are like a rider who ignores their own horse to focus on some other horse. Your horse starts to balk.

  When I’m disappointed by others, I focus on something I have control over. I define my goal in a way that can be reached regardless of what any one person does. I don’t make someone else the gatekeeper of my happiness. And if I’ve already done that somehow, I uninstall them. If someone gets on my nerves, I tell myself that it’s my nerves, which I have power over. I set a goal of not being triggered by them. I visualize my path as something I am choosing with each step instead of something “they” are forcing onto me.

  It’s natural to want support, but it’s also natural for others to be focused on their own goals. You don’t have to see their lack of support as an obstacle. You don’t need the world’s approval to prioritize your goal. You can remain open to others without being dependent on their support. You can learn from their reactions and build reciprocal alliances. You can avoid disappointment if you remind yourself that other people are mammals and you are a mammal too. They see your steps through the lens of their own needs. You are doing the same, even if you don’t intend to. Maybe you can cooperate and meet your needs with combined efforts. Maybe not. You will know when you spend a minute clarifying your next step.

  Of course there are steps you can’t take without support. But you can define them in ways you have power over. Instead of waiting for the phone to ring, you can define the outreach efforts you will make each day. When you reach that goal, you can feel rewards whether or not you get a “yes” on that day. Define a next step that you can take without support. Then you can access the joy of moving forward instead of always feeling threatened by obstructions. Support will trickle in while you are busy taking steps.

  Mammals need social alliances to survive, but we are tempted to idealize these alliances. You might think the right allies would make your climb easy. It helps to remind yourself that mammalian social bonds are built on reciprocity. Two monkeys cooperate to beat a common enemy and then revert to competing when they prevail. Do not expect idealized support and end up with nothing. Build trust in small reciprocal steps.

  Jan’s Story

  Jan wants to set a happy example for her daughter, but she doesn’t know how. She can’t see how she will figure it out in sixty seconds. Then she remembers that she only has to choose her next step. She tries to think of a step toward dopamine, oxytocin, or serotonin. It feels strange since she’s not used to thinking about her life in that way. She doesn’t know anyone who thinks this way. She imagines the criticism she would get if she tried to explain this to people she knows. Suddenly, she notices her pattern. She is always imagining people criticizing her. What if she did the opposite? What if she imagined people supporting her instead of criticizing her? It would be risky. They might shoot her down and the disappointment would feel worse than ever. It would only be one disappointment if she only tried it once, but it would feel like a bad omen. Now she sees that she just repeated the pattern of anticipating failure once again! Expecting criticism comes effortlessly, while expecting support is something she’s not sure how to do. Then she realizes that expecting support for one moment would be a valuable step forward. She could call one person and expect that person’s support, and it wouldn’t matter if she got it or not because she will have already benefitted by the act of expecting it. So with the clock ticking, she calls her biggest imagined critic, and while the phone is ringing, she imagines the fun of sharing her new knowledge of the mammal brain. She feels like someone will be interested, so if it’s not this person she will try someone else tomorrow.

  Joe’s Story

  Joe feels stuck. It seems like the jerks at work will always be jerks, so why would he think it could be different. Only fifty seconds left. This is ridiculous. He can practically feel the punches he would get if he tried to change things. Then he realizes that he created the feeling of being punched with his imagination. He decides it doesn’t matter because they really would hurt him if he stopped submitting to their BS. Forty seconds left. Joe’s mind goes back to the cruel vengeance he anticipates, and his desperate urge to avoid it. He sees how he imagines a world full of predators. He spends most of his energy running from these predators. What if he took one step toward a greener pasture instead? What if he worked on the new project he loves instead of putting out fires. He reaches for the new-project file and lays it on top of the cleaning-up-their-mess project. His fear of predators surges immediately, and he almost changes his mind. But the thought of the new project feels so good that he decides to take the risk. He will trust himself to deal with potential threats if and when they actually appear.

  Managing Your Brain with Carrots and Sticks

  Your inner mammal is motivated by rewards and pain, even though your verbal brain won’t admit it. The skillful use of carrots and sticks gives you power, but it’s hard to use these tools skillfully. Carrots lose their reward power when they’re too abundant. Sticks lose their motivating power when they’re overused. Many people have made carrots and sticks taboo, but without these natural tools, they find it hard to motivate themselves. They leave themselves prey to the carrots and sticks designed by others. You can learn to use carrots and sticks skillfully instead.

  I am not suggesting that you actually use a stick on yourself, or your loved ones or coworkers. The point is that pain was the motivator of human history. The pain of hunger continued until you foraged successfully. Agriculture brought the risk of starving next year unless you take steps now. And if you didn’t feel like milking the cow, you went without butter. Maybe your children went without milk.

  Children grew up with an awareness of such threats in the past. They milked the cow and appreciated the butter. Today, children are freed from labor in order to study, but they get butter even if they refuse to study. They even critique the butter they get without an investment of effort. This wires them with unrealistic expectations about life.

  Each brain has some glitches in its guidance system. These glitches can lead you astray when you need to tap into int
ernal motivation. Fortunately, you can rewire your expectations about rewards and pain over time once you learn to notice them. You may deny that you care about a particular reward or pain with your verbal brain, but if a pathway is there, it is motivating you. If you have denied a pathway for a long time, it’s scary to look straight at it. But an honest look at your myelinated GPS frees you to seek rewards and escape pain in new ways.

  Let’s start with the sticky subject of sticks since we have already explored the subject of rewards. Pain is nature’s prime mover. Imagine a horse that refuses to budge no matter how many carrots you give it. You don’t want to hit it with a stick, so you’re completely stuck. There is nothing you can do but wait until the horse gets hungry. If you leave it for a few hours, carrots will become motivating again. If you think that is “abusive,” then you are well and truly stuck.

  When I was young, children were punished harshly by parents and teachers. Physical pain and rageful threats were common. Harsh management in the workplace was not unusual either. People learned to do what it takes to prevent pain, and learned some skills in the process. My generation objected to such practices, which is a great accomplishment. But we failed to replace them with an effective motivator. We presume another carrot will work, and when it doesn’t, two carrots are offered. Then three.

  The limits of this approach led to the “natural consequences” strategy. Children were supposed to learn from the consequences of their actions. They supposedly learn to be nice because no one will play with you if you are not nice. They are supposed to learn good work habits because your grades fall if you don’t. But natural consequences often fail because the child brain is focused on the short run. Many schools undermine natural consequences by giving good grades to everyone and forcing children to include the aggressive playmate. Equality of rewards is mandated. Young brains learn from immediate rewards. Undesirable behaviors get wired in. As the verbal brain grows, it blames bad grades on the teacher, and blames social isolation on the other kids.

  The failure of the natural consequences approach has led to a strategy of alarmism. We don’t consciously call it “alarmism,” but we resort to motivating young people with dire warnings. We tell them they will die if they choose the unwanted behavior. You will die if you drink and drive, or neglect to use a condom, or eat junk food. Children get used to hearing these urgent death threats. It becomes one of their core self-management tools. They fear they will die if they don’t do everything right. Anxiety results.

  How can we improve this arsenal of self-management tools?

  Some people put a rubber band on their wrist to inflict pain when they engage in the unwanted behavior. But there are better ways to harness the natural motivating power of pain. Wasted time is a huge source of pain, and thus a useful tool. Time commitments are a great way to impose consequences on yourself. I discovered this when I resolved to bring plastic bags to the supermarket instead of wasting new bags. I kept forgetting the bags in my car. Each time, I’d resolve to remember them “next time,” but next time never came. So I decided to inflict pain on myself by going back to the car whenever I forgot them. The first time I forgot, I said, “I’m too busy to go back today.” I did that a few times, and then had a flash of insight. I was failing to keep a commitment to myself. I did not want to lose confidence in myself, so I went back to get those bags. And I didn’t forget them again because I didn’t want to waste the time. Well, the whole truth is that I forgot them again when I started shopping at a different store. The change in routine brought a new round of forgetting and I had to renew my commitment to myself and rebuild the habit.

  It’s hard to use sticks on yourself, but it’s better than getting the stick from others. The better you can restrain yourself, the less you end up restrained by others.

  Children hate external restraints. We hated being told when to go to bed. We thought life would be grand when we could decide that for ourselves. Today, you probably know the natural consequences of failing to get enough sleep. You are irritable and foggy the next day. But when you think of going to bed on time, you resist. That resistance is a myelinated pathway that opposes restraint, even when you’re opposing yourself. Fortunately, you can build a new pathway with repetition. You can design the new path you need and repeat it until it gets established. You can design the carrots and sticks you need to motivate those steps. You can rewire yourself to feel pride (serotonin) when you live up to your commitments to yourself. You can learn to trust (oxytocin) in your new pathways, and feel excited (dopamine) by the new rewards you expect.

  Jan’s Story

  Jan sees the enormity of the goal she has set for herself. She is trying to redirect her electricity from a huge highway to a tiny trail. She decides to help her inner mammal with a careful use of carrots and sticks.

  The carrots are easy for Jan. She wants to invest some money into her photo projects. She decides to reward herself with one photo production every time she completes a week of daily practice of her taming tool. She really wants that reward, so she knows she will do it.

  The stick is harder for her. She can’t think of a stick that would work. Why beat herself for descending into anxiety in front of her daughter? More pain would only make things worse. But that urge to avoid pain reminds her that accountability has benefits. She creates accountability by breaking the challenge into small chunks. She resolves to delay her photo production by one day each time she spirals into her old wallowing and cringing habit. One day’s delay of a photo order is not a huge punishment, but it’s enough to keep her focused on her new intention. She wants those photo productions so much that she will keep redirecting her expectations.

  Joe’s Story

  Joe is cooking! He thinks he has beaten that old habit of being the clean-up guy. He strives to focus on the positives of his contribution at work instead of on his negative reaction to others. He has done it for two weeks now, and his lasagna is widely celebrated by friends and family. Then it all starts to crash. First he overhears those jerks talking about him. They’re saying everything he always feared. Then his boss asks to have a meeting with him. The boss’s eyebrows were cocked at an ominous angle when he said it. The meeting is set for tomorrow. Joe goes home and eats cheesecake straight out of the freezer. He doesn’t even notice until he’s on the second slice. Then he can’t think of what else to do, since he’s sure the boss will submit to the jerks as always. He starts to defrost a slice of lasagna. It will taste bad after the cheesecake, of course. The disgusting thought of eating lasagna after cheesecake finally jolts his attention. What am I doing?

  Joe is rewarding himself with food, of course. And he see that he needs a different reward in order to feel good about the challenge ahead of him. What would feel better than food? Telling the boss what he really thinks, of course! Telling all the jerks what he thinks. That sounds dangerous. Too dangerous. But Joe realizes that he can break it down into smaller steps. He can reveal his true thoughts in small doses to one person at a time. He can bring cheesecake to these meetings to ease the tension. They might hate him anyway, but he shouldn’t give up without trying. He hates to admit that he has treated them like predators instead of explaining his perspective. He has made it easy for them to bond around a common enemy as mammals naturally do. It would not be very realistic of him to expect them to change after one conversation. He decides to express his true opinion once a day, and enjoy it. If he doesn’t meet that goal, he commits to doing it twice the next day. And if he doesn’t do that, he will take five minutes away from his cooking time to practice the joy of expressing himself in the privacy of his home.

  Remember:

  Neglect of your needs feels like a threat, so listening to your needs makes you feel safe.

  To spark serotonin, give yourself permission to take pride in something you’ve done. Take a step you’re proud of each day and spend a minute appreciating yourself for it.

  To spark o
xytocin, create a moment of social trust by offering support and accepting the support offered to you. You can’t always close the loop by making it reciprocal, but you can enjoy the trust you have.

  To spark dopamine, find a new way to step toward an unmet need. Find a goal you can actually step toward rather than a dream that is always out of reach.

  Distraction can be a valuable skill. It can shift your attention from threatening to unthreatening pathways to stop a cortisol spiral. You can’t force yourself to be happy, but you can force yourself to focus on something other than potential threats.

  Healthy distracters take time to cultivate, but they free you from distracters with harmful long-run consequences. The goal is not to be “good at it,” but to be fully absorbed so your mind is not looking for threats.

  Define your goals in a way that you have control over. You can always be stepping toward your goal if you have multiple goals and define them in terms of actions you can take.

  Small steps go far if you keep taking them. Don’t wait for others. They have their own path to find.

  The mammal brain is motivated by rewards and pain, even if the verbal brain doesn’t consciously think that.

  Motivation is a problem when pain is taboo and rewards are so abundant that they’ve lost their motivating power. It takes conscious effort to design the carrots and sticks that work for you.

  6

  Keeping It Tame in the Long Run

  Our brain habituates to the rewards it has, so you can feel anxious about losing something that didn’t make you happy when you had it.

  Habituation

  What if you tame anxiety and it comes back?

  This happens for a reason called “habituation” in biology. Our brain habituates to the rewards it has. It stops noticing them, so it takes something new to trigger happy chemicals. This is especially frustrating because you notice if you lose those rewards. Thus, you can feel anxious about losing something that didn’t make you happy when you had it.