Tossing and turning in the night. A low, constant buzzing in the brain that prevents concentration. Feeling tense and restless.
Most people have experienced this type of anxiety — not the clinical kind that causes full-blown panic attacks, but the mundane kind that leaves you feeling uncomfortable.
“The simple definition of anxiety is the feeling of fear or worry that you experience in an uncertain situation,” neuroscientist Dr. Wendy Suzuki recently told CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his podcast, “Chasing Life.” “That’s my simple definition of everyday anxiety.”
The experience is not pleasant: “The general feeling is, ‘I just want it to go away,'” says Suzuki, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University and dean of the school of arts and sciences, and author of “Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of Our Most Misunderstood Emotion.”
“There’s a misconception that it’s something valuable,” Suzuki says. “It’s a warning system that we all need. It’s a tool that helps us understand what we value. I think without it, something important would be taken away from our lives.”
You can hear more about how anxiety can be a good thing here.
Suzuki explained how anxiety evolved to protect humans. “It’s hard to imagine in modern times,” Suzuki said. But 2.5 million years ago, “when an ancestor with a small baby was walking around looking for food, it heard a twig breaking. It was either a large animal coming to eat the baby, or it was the sound of a twig breaking. If the baby hadn’t been prepared, future ancestors wouldn’t have been born.”
The sound of the twig snapping alarmed her, but alerted her to danger, “and her body went into a fight-or-flight response,” she said.
“When we watch the news, when we watch social media, when we watch what’s going on, the same responses are activated, including the fight-or-flight response,” she says. “Our heart rate goes up, our breathing rate goes down, and that’s not good for our physiology, so… that’s a great reason to learn how to regulate your stress response.”
Suzuki said the first step to overcoming “good” anxiety is to learn ways to lower your everyday levels of anxiety.
So what can you do to curb it? Here are Suzuki’s five tips:
Take a deep breath
Practice breathing meditation.
“Breathing meditation is the oldest form of meditation and it’s incredibly effective at really calming us, and it works immediately,” Suzuki says. “Breathing meditation is my go-to for people who say, ‘I need something right now.'”
One way to calm the mind is with box breathing, which involves taking a deep breath in for four counts, holding it for four counts, exhaling for four counts, and holding it for four counts again. “Repeat this to calm your mind and body,” she says.
Get moving
Suzuki recommends taking a short walk.
“Did you know that just a 10-minute walk can significantly reduce people’s anxiety and depression levels? You don’t even have to get changed to do it,” she said.
“This stimulates the release of neurotransmitters that don’t necessarily reduce anxiety, but do increase feelings of reward and well-being,” she says. “The neurotransmitters that are increased include dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and endorphins. Every time you move your body, it’s like you’re giving your brain a nice bubble bath of neurochemicals, and the benefits are immediate.”
Rethinking anxiety
Turn anxiety-inducing situations into personal challenges that foster growth and resilience, and embrace the novelty of uncertain situations.
Citing Deepak Chopra, Suzuki encouraged people to embrace uncertainty because it’s what makes life interesting.
“Uncertainty in my life can be something that brings excitement and joy. It’s not always the case, but maybe we can embrace some of it and embrace it as something beneficial,” she said.
For example, she said, “If the same thing happened every time I went on vacation, it wouldn’t be a fun vacation. I love new things. I love learning new things and being exposed to new things. And I can’t control that.”
Spinning straw into gold
Turn your worries into action.
To increase your productivity and reduce anxiety, Suzuki advises turning your anxious “what if” lists into productive “to-do lists.”
“I often say that anxiety comes with gifts,” she said, giving the example of something that often happens right before going to sleep.
“Right before I go to sleep, all these worries start to pop into my head, so what I do is turn that ‘what if’ list into a ‘to-do list,'” she says.
“I just say, ‘Okay, I’ll remember these things, Wendy, you can go to bed now.’ But the next morning, I’ll remember all the things that kept me up the night before and I’ll do something about it. … In that way, I make myself more productive. And I use anxiety as the tool it was meant to be.”
Practicing compassion
Support others and let them know they are not alone, Suzuki said.
“Say kind words to others who are experiencing similar anxieties,” she said, noting that some people may feel embarrassed about feeling anxious in certain situations. “This simple act will release dopamine and make you feel better.”
