Anxiety + These Uncertain Times


I've been continuing on with my first online course and we covered the topic of anxiety and positive emotion in week 3.  For those who didn't read my optimism post, I'm taking an online course through UPenn regarding Positive Psychology and Resilience Skills.  Anxiety feels incredibly relevant to me today, as I have been feeling loads of it with the pause in job hiring and the confusing nature of being in quarantine.

Anxiety has specific effects on our physical bodies that can be detrimental in higher levels.  It increases levels of adrenaline, which channels blood to your muscles to be ready for fight or flight.  However, this means that less blood flow is getting to your digestive system, so if you are very anxious and aren't trying to fight or fly, your body may experience gut issues.  Anxiety also increases cortisol in the body which in the long term impairs healing and your immune system.  The last thing that we need during this outbreak is a suppressed immune system.....

I personally found it interesting when we discussed how low levels of anxiety can actually be motivating.  I think that I am an individual who lives with a higher base level of anxiety due to my type A personality, but I do understand where the professor is coming from now.  These low levels of anxiety can cause us to take action.  If we feel anxious about an upcoming school project or work presentation, our anxiety can motivate us to spend time working on that project/presentation.  However, anxiety is dangerous in the way that once you surpass these 'useful' levels, it often snowballs into very unhealthy levels.

This snowball effect is referred to as 'catastrophizing' and stops us from taking pursposeful action.  In my class, we discussed three specific styles that we catastrophize.  These styles are as follows:

  • Downward Spiral: This style involves an individual continuing on with the same track of thinking.  It oftens turns into a very upsetting story where an individual starts with one negative item and builds on the that item, focusing in the same area.  Example: You start out thinking 'There is no way I'm going to get this done'.  You then think 'The board is going to shut down my program' and then 'I'm going to lose this job.' and then 'My career is ruined'.
  • Scatter Shot: This style involves an individual generating all sorts of seperate really bad things that might happen from one situation.  For instance, in the same situation as above, that individual might think that they can't possible get their project done.  They could then think that they can no longer ask their professor to be their advisor because that professor will think that they are incompetent.  Then the individual might rememeber that it's their partner's birthday the next day and worry about how tired they will be.  So suddenly, having a stressful amount of work has led to this individual having marital problems because they are miserable at their partner's future birthday celebration.
  • Circling: This style involves an individual continuing to harp on the same issue over and over again.  This might look like the individual coming back to saying 'This is just so much work' multiple times as they consider the situation.  They circle back to that one point as they worry.

For this class, we were asked to examine our own lives and decide which of these styles we feel we have experienced.  For me, I think that I have experienced all of these in relation to my back journey.  It truly would depend on the day and how I am feeling.  Sometimes I can downward spiral with thoughts about my athletic ability.  That ends with me thinking I'll never play my beloved sport of basketball again or run an obstacle course mud run again.  Other times, my thoughts are scatter shot as I think about how the injury has effected my mood.  I think about how I'm not my happy-go-lucky self and can't put my best foot forward for job interviews.  Then I'll never get hired, will be unemployed forever and end up homeless.  Lastly, sometimes I can't get off the one thought of 'It hurts.'  I might try to think about other things, but particularly when my chronic pain was at its worst, I would often keep coming back to the fact that I couldn't bear the pain.

This class has offered me a few more tools for how to combat this catastophic thinking and anxiety.  For instance, I've learned that I can slow down and acknowledge all of my catastrophic thoughts.  Then, I might identify the best case scenario and the worst case scenario.  By doing this, I am allowing myself to think of my hopes and my fears surrounding the situation.  Speaking them, or writing them down, can often help one generate some distance from them.  This is sort of how I've felt about writing about bits of my back experience for others.  Once I've done this, I can often plan for the probable outcomes - something between the best and worst case scenarios.

Additionally, I've learned about the power that positive thoughts have on our ability to be cognitively flexible.  One question that spoke to me from this section was, "Are there things that have come from this negative situation that you could be grateful for?" I think I have grown a lot from my personal back journey, although I can still find myself having negative thoughts.  I am human, after all.  This question forced me to broaden my perspective and really put some space between myself and my back.  I made sure to attempt this deep dive on a day where I was feeling positive to begin with, as I knew it was going to be a challenge and I wanted to set myself up for success.  

I came to the conclusion that there are things that I can be grateful for that came out of my chronic pain journey.  I have a higher awareness of my emotions now and have an easier time putting my feelings into words.  While it is not easy to do, it is something that I never used to be able to do.  I was very guarded with my emotions before this ordeal.  My brother even took it upon himself to dub me 'the ice queen' because he thought I was a savage when it came to making emotional decisions.  I looked at them only logically because I didn't have the patience to do the emotional work required.  While emotional work is SUPER HARD, I have found it rewarding overall.  I also have become even more empathetic.  I've always seen myself as someone who can put myself in other's shoes ans see different perspectives, but I think that having an invisible injury has solidfied the idea that everyone has a journey, even if you can't see it.  Because of that, I try my best to put the energy into understanding others and meeting them where they are at.


Are there things that you can be grateful for during this quarantine?



-Vicky








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