6 Ways Highly Intelligent People Handle Their Worries Differently
Use anxiety to your advantage.
mimagephotography | Canva Anxiety is uncomfortable, and we often wish we could escape it. But, at its core, it can be a powerful tool for regulating our attention and motivation to look after the things we care about most in life. Anxiety means you care, and we can’t care about things and not see signs of anxiety from time to time.
Yes, too much of it can be tough to manage. Having an anxiety attack or suffering from chronic anxiety can be awful. And, when you're suffering from these feelings, you'll probably be focused on how to calm anxiety rather than use it for good.
However, a moderate amount of anxiety helps us tend to the things we care about most, improve our personal growth, and be at our best.
Six ways smart people handle anxiety intelligently and use it for good
1. They embrace, rather than resist, anxiety
Resisting anxiety adds anxiety to your anxiety, exponentially ratcheting it up to something that can quickly become unwieldy and overwhelming.
Instead, try to embrace that your anxiety is trying to alert you to something you care about instead of suffering through it.
2. They get panic under control by changing their mindset
Instead of fighting panic, learn to dive into it. Like a large wave approaching, bracing yourself isn't as effective as diving through it.
Making a decision not to fight your anxiety and to let its waves wash over you can help you weather the storm of panic. This is one of the most difficult but effective coping skills for anxiety.
3. They rely on the power of anxiety to direct attention
Blvdone via Shutterstock
Anxiety may have more to do with harnessing our attention rather than frightening us, as shown by a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Few resources are as limited as our finite attention, and we simply can’t afford to direct this precious resource indiscriminately.
We live more of our lives on autopilot than many of us realize, and anxiety operates as a backup system to wake us up and pay attention when needed.
If you're dealing with anxiety, try focusing that anxious energy on something else, like a conversation or a beautiful scene.
4. They describe the feeling
Simply translating your emotional experience into descriptive language powerfully changes your experience of it. Enact curiosity and describe your feelings to get control of them.
For people with anxiety disorders, describing those feelings is the best method for managing anxiety, as supported by research in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy.
5. They re-frame fear
In naming your experience, you are also the architect of it. Don’t be afraid to stretch your experience toward the positive. A study from the American Psychological Association suggests reframing fear into excitement has been shown to help people harness their arousal for positive outcomes when it comes to taking tests and public speaking.
How might you be eager, excited, or motivated rather than scared and anxious? You have more control than you think when it comes to translating your anxiety.
Want to know how to relieve anxiety? Just re-frame it.
6. They seize the inherent motivation of anxiety
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A via Shutterstock
Anxiety produces a desire to do something. Like hearing a baby’s cry, we are motivated when anxiety strikes to find a solution to make it stop — it was designed that way.
If we don’t waste our energy fighting with ourselves, we can use it to propel action towards our goals. Sometimes, anxiety can give us that final push to meet a goal.
Anxiety can keep us focused on the things that matter most in life. It reminds us when situations need our attention and motivates us to find solutions. It doesn't have to be a curse and actually can be used to make our life better.
One of our most basic emotions, it is also one of our most advanced. Anxiety challenges us to be at our best and helps us protect the things that matter most to us.
Dr. Alicia Clark has been a practicing psychologist for over 25 years and has been named one of Washington’s Top Doctors by Washingtonian Magazine. She is the author of Hack Your Anxiety: How to Make Anxiety Work for You In Life, Love, and All That You Do.