Don’t Keep Calm
I love turbulence. You know that feeling when the airplane is trembling and careening to one side and your cup of water is perilously close to spilling? I live for that! For me, It adds some excitement to the hours of nothingness between the take-off and landing.
But It wasn’t always like this. When I first started flying, even the slightest of turbulence would have me in a fetal position imagining all the worst case scenarios. Anxiety was my frequent travel companion.
How did I go from being an anxious wreck to a weirdo that loves turbulence?
When I experience turbulence my heart races, cortisol surges and I get butterflies in my stomach. Instead of labelling this feeling as anxiety, I now call it excitement. It’s a cognitive trick called “anxiety reappraisal”.
Physiologically there is no difference between anxiety and excitement. Our bodies can’t differentiate between them. Both are aroused states that produce the same responses to stimuli - faster heartbeat, queasy stomach and sweaty hands. The only difference is cognitive - our brain chooses to label the aroused state as positive (excitement) or negative (anxiety).
Anxiety is essentially excitement with bad PR.
Tell yourself you’re excited every time you’re anxious. It sounds deceptively simple, but it works! It's also contrary to the most common advice that people give when you’re anxious - Calm down. Not only is this the most useless advice ever but also wrong.
Switching from anxiety which is a negative and high arousal state to calmness which is a positive and low arousal state takes a lot of cognitive and physiological effort. However, switching to excitement is not only better, but also easier. It only requires the cognitive shift because physiologically anxiety and excitement are similar.
Anxious —> Excited is a lot easier than Anxious —> Calm
The next time you’re anxious, DON’T KEEP CALM!
This is backed by research conducted by Alison Wood Brooks, a Harvard professor. The participants in her study were told to say “I am anxious”, “I am excited” or nothing before performing an anxiety-inducing activity. Alison found that the excited group performed better than the other two groups. The control that we have over our emotions and consequently our performance is quite incredible.
I am a chronic anxious overthinker. As I write this essay, my brain is flooded with a lot of “what if I suck at writing? What if people hate it?”. But I’m consciously recorrecting these thoughts to “It's normal to suck at things I just started. I’m excited to see how my writing evolves”. Reappraising my initial thoughts and not letting them define me has allowed me to break free of the inertia that has held me back from starting this blog for two years.
Positive self talk is life changing. Try it out. I’m excited to know what you think of it!
Disclaimer : I am not a mental health expert. When I talk about anxiety here, it's short term and triggered by situations. If you have chronic anxiety, this may not be applicable.
