Anxiety and Our Selfish Gene

Hello there!

Who can relate to this?       

• The feeling of non-specific worry. You are worried, but can’t quite tell exactly why

• The feeling when everything is ok, and yet you feel like you can’t relax

• Do you feel sometimes that you have done everything and even then when you hit the bed, you are not able to switch off?

In this Issue: Our selfish gene | Anxiety symptoms| Personalized Anxiety Toolkit | List of accessible therapists

Relate much?

Cause: The Selfish Gene

In his famous book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins examines the biology & evolution of our cells and how they are designed to protect us.

We don’t need to read the book to understand that our brains have evolved for the same thing- one selfish goal, to help us survive.

Not to enjoy love, happiness, be productive, or be peaceful.

No.

Only 1 goal - To Survive.

Once we recognize it, it explains a lot why we get anxious.

Anxiety is like a chronic worry situation, typically occurring in the future. What-Ifs.

• What if my parents catch the virus? (Pandemic anxiety)

• What if my boss thinks I am not delivering? (Performance anxiety)

• What if these people at the party find me boring or judge me for my current life situation? (Social anxiety)

So, you get proactive about ‘worrying’, which actually helps us be safe.

You get on long calls with your parents guiding them on every possible precaution they need to take.

You ensure you spend an extra hour working on your deliverable.

You cancel your social plans at the last minute, and settle with Netflix on your safe couch.

We are on alert mode all the time, just as our huter-gatherer ancestors had to be else they would be eaten by wild animals.

So what is the problem, you say. Why should we pay attention to this?

Because, sometimes this selfish survival trait can get constantly loud and debilitating. Something like this…

And because we are so stimulated in our modern lifestyles that everything right from a social media post to a traffic breakdown can trigger this ‘danger signal’ and drain our energies.

And that is what can convert this selfish protective mechanism to a mental health condition.

The difference between mental well-being issue and a mental health issue is the severity. If anxiety becomes chronic and starts interfering with your normal day to day role as a parent, spouse, employee or any other aspect, it needs attention.

Anxiety is NOT trying to make us happy, or make us feel loved, or be at your creative best. It only cares that you and your tribe are alive.

Once we understand it and be ‘aware’ of why we feel anxious, anxiety loses some of its power and puts us in a much better place to tackle it (suggestions below!).

Look around, can you recognize anxiety?

Like many mental health conditions, anxiety often goes undiagnosed. Typical signs include feeling constantly tired, exhausted, having struggles sleeping through the night, getting irritable, feeling pessimistic or directionless.

Fear & anxiety often leads to desiring more control of the environment, in order to relax. Like how a lot of people find cleaning activities therapeutic because it helps them gain a sense of control.

Additionally, there might be more severe panic attack symptoms:

• Physical: Shortness of breaths, Tingling sensation in your body parts? Unable to move because of freezing? Breaking out in acne or itching, sweaty palms.

• Behavioural: Do you snap at your partner or kids easily before an upcoming ‘crucial’ meeting? Do you find yourself checking the door lock multiple times?

• Mental: Overthinking, Doomsday scenarios, perfectionism (leading to procrastination & that leading to anxiety)

Handling Day to Day Anxiety

As a starting point, practice awareness and evaluate the voice which is telling you to worry: Is it based on real or imagined dangers? What is the source of worry? For example, many mothers worry about their child eating adequately. Often, the child is showing all healthy signs, but out of habit they are anxious about this. (What if he is not eating enough?)

Then consider how you can lower the volume of anxious thoughts. Sonali Gupta, a clinical psychologist shares some thumb rules to remember if you feel you are way too anxious to be productive:

• Don’t catastrophize it: Between the best-case and worst-case scenarios in your head, there are very many options!

• Breathe consciously: Anxious thought and breathing cannot co-exist. Check box breathing, famously used by Navy Seals.

• Move your Body: Evolutionally, when there was danger, we literally ran. That explains why in my interviews with many business leaders, running or physical exercise is usually their go-to for feeling more in control. So, try that! Walk/ run/ jump/ dance or any kind of body movement :)

• Carve out time for journalling: Get your anxious thoughts on paper, forcing us to think & structure our thoughts. It can calm you, help you find better solutions or just get it off your chest.

You can see a more detailed explanation in the below video by her.

How to Deal With Anxiety: 8 Things to Do When You're Getting Anxious

Tools to help yourself and others around you

Assess

• Anxiety Test: Take the assessment to check if you have symptoms. Do note this is not a substitute for a diagnosis by a qualified mental health practitioner.

• Test if it’s really anxiety by using HALT approach: Sometimes the symptoms shared above could be due to other issues, not necessarily anxiety. Pause, and use the HALT framework. Ask yourself: Are you H-H- Hungry? A- Angry? L-Lonely? T-Tired?. If yes, remedy that before anything else.

• You can also check your overall wellbeing with a free assessment HERE

Create your personalized anxiety toolkit

• 5 Senses Self Soothing: Create a list of things & thoughts which comfort you, for all 5 senses. For eg. a nice calming picture in your workplace (Eyes), a soft blanket which comforts you (Skin), a particularly soothing song (Ears), a comfort food (Taste) and so on. (Get more ideas here). Keep them within reach and use them next time you feel the anxiety kicking in.

• Delegation Journal ;) Keep a diary just next to your bed. If you find yourself waking me/ unable to fall asleep due to anxiety, try writing your thoughts down. It will calm you, at least temporarily and help in sleeping. You might want to revisit them later and see if those still worry you. You can find some journal recommendations in this past issue.

• Techniques to strengthen awareness: Mindfulness techniques, boundaries, rituals & routines done regularly helps to develop the muscle of awareness, a sense of control and reduces anxiety.

Get Support:

Reaching out for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

• Therapy: When is a good stage to go to therapy? If you believe that you are struggling with your life situations or your resources w.r.t people who can help are limited, therapy can indeed help you. Here is a list of accessible therapists, they are suitable for all kinds of budgets, some are free too, in case you want to try.

• Self Help: If you feel that you want to go deeper into this for yourself, without going to formal therapy, would recommend Sonali Gupta’s Book Anxiety. It is a great resource to help yourself & people around you.

Everybody feels anxious. But in chronic anxiety conditions, it keeps shifting itself. No matter how many things you address, your inner voice will find something else to worry about.

Once we have the awareness and language to understand anxiety, it is much easier to spot in yourself and others around you.

Hope this issue can help you start tackling it rather than it controlling your life.

Before I go, just want to thanks you all for sending me your reactions to the newsletters. It is an effort to do justice to this, with a full time job, being a parent and in a pandemic, but the responses make it worthwhile :)

Until next time,

Keep Thriving!

Rashmi