Your Mind, Your Society: Breaking Free From Anxiety’s Hold
5 Inner Hangups and journal prompts for each one
If you want to be healthier in a society where anxiety and depression are rampant, then you have first to recognize that you belong to said society.
Fact #1: You are society.
Fact #2: Society has many ailments.
Fact #3: Healing society starts within. (Cliche but true)
Today I want to share five hangups that are well-researched and very common.
Quick refresher: How to map the psychology of an Anxiety Loop
“Like a seed needing fertile soil, the old survival brain creates the conditions for anxiety to sprout in your thinking brain (chronic). This is where anxiety is born. Fear + uncertainty = anxiety.”
Brewer, Judson. Unwinding Anxiety
The next time you get anxious or stressed, notice…
What is triggering you? [Trigger]
What are you doing to cope with it? [Response]
How is the coping helping you [Reward]
What also happens as a consequence of that coping? [Result]
Take some time to observe the hangups and map them out.
Now let’s go over five common hang-ups that might be blocking you from achieving your dreams:
Compulsive Worrying
Learned Helplessness
Feelings of unworthiness
John Henryism
Type C- “Nice” Persona
Do any of these resonate with you?
Hang up Example 1: Compulsive Worrying (to get more certainty)
We all know that compulsive worrier. The person who needs to control everyone and anticipates problems that do not exist yet. It is a personality trait driven by compulsion. Worry is a form of addiction - it gives us a sense of control. Some of us may reach for the bottle, others eat their feelings out, and others- worry.
🔎 Research 🔎: Anxiety itself can trigger worry as a way to avoid negative feelings. Conversely, worry leads to more anxiety and it becomes a cyclical behavior of worrying.1
How can I get the same reward for worrying from a different, healthier source such as exercise or connecting with others?
What is the result of worrying? On myself? On others? Is it what I am hoping for?
What am I not expressing in my life that may put me in a worrying state?
What patterns in my family history could have led to this worry? Does anyone else experience it?
“Worry is defined as both a noun (“I am free of worry”) and as a verb (e.g., “I worry about my children”). Functionally, the act of worrying is a mental behavior that results in a feeling of anxiety (nervousness or unease). On top of this, the feeling of anxiety can trigger the behavior of worrying, which becomes cyclical”
Brewer, Judson. Unwinding Anxiety
Example:
Trigger: Someone is late
Behavior: Text them 30 times and call four times
Reward: Increased sense of control
Result: Sustained release of stress hormones damaging the body
Hang up Example 2: Learned Helplessness (to increase predictability)
This will be the topic of a full future essay, but learned helplessness is essentially when anxiety remains unchecked long enough to deplete dopamine and result in a state of depression. Sounds like “There is nothing I can do about this”.
🔎 Research 🔎: After prolonged exposure to stress, animals, and humans have shown a tendency to give in, and even ordinary tasks seem too much. We adopt a mindset of “this is just how it is going always to be.” 2 (Sapolsky, Why Zebra’s Don’t Have Ulcers)
Subjected to enough uncontrollable stress, we learn to be helpless—we lack the motivation to try to live because we assume the worst; we lack the cognitive clarity to perceive when things are going fine, and we feel an aching lack of pleasure in everything.
Sapolsky, Robert M.. Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
✍️ Reflections ✍️ for those experiencing learned helplessness:
What previous life experiences were I able to cope effectively and manage the anxious situation?
When did I start feeling anxious about the issue I feel helpless about today?
What kind of needs do I have that are not met? Which ones can I offer myself? Which ones do I need someone else’s help?
Example:
Trigger: Work keeps piling up unpredictably
Behavior: Staying home and social isolation
Reward: Increased predictability of the environment
Result: Being stuck in an unhealthy environment
Hang up Example 3: Feelings of unworthiness
This is one of the most common wounds of our time. As we compare ourselves to more people globally via our feeds, we isolate ourselves more, and it’s easier than ever to spiral into shame.
🔎 Research 🔎: indicates a strong link between feelings of unworthiness and anxiety, with individuals experiencing low self-esteem often reporting increased anxiety due to a constant fear of not being good enough, leading to heightened self-doubt and a tendency to anticipate negative outcomes in various situations; this is particularly prevalent in cases of "imposter syndrome" where people feel like they are not deserving of their achievements, despite external validation.3
If a friend was experiencing the emotions I feel today, what would I tell them?
Example:
Trigger: Seeing a hot person online
Behavior: Eat cake
Reward: Delicious dopamine to counter the negative feelings of low self-worth
Result: Gain more weight
Hangup Example 4: The Overachiever, Type A, John Henryism
This one is an insane myth that has become all too commonplace in today’s world. It is the opposite of learned helplessness. Essentially (and according to legend) John Henry's prowess as a steel driver was measured in a race against a steam-powered rock drill, a race that he won only to die in victory with a hammer in hand as his heart gave out from stress. This reminds me of the CEOs who die on the job in their 40s and 50s from heart attacks. Silicon Valley is full of John Henrys, who need to hear this story more than ever.
🔎 Research 🔎: The studies here are mixed and no findings are conclusive of hypertension or heart disease in response to John Henryism yet. However, it is a cultural phenomenon worth exploring and studying further. 4
What do I believe I can do alone with hard work and effort?
Why do I believe this to be true?
What societal pressures are at play here? What situations in my life do I need community and advocacy to face instead of hard work?
Example:
Trigger: See insurmountable task that is not yours
Behavior: Offer herculean efforts to finish the project
Reward: Pouring the frustration into extreme effort
Result: Exhaust heart and nervous system further
Hangup Example 5: The Stress-prone persona (Type-C)
We frequently hear about the Type-A persona and how it relates to stress, but this Type-C is the subject of a lot of what is shaping the current thinking between emotional trauma and health outcomes.
🔎 Research 🔎: Type - C People (who compulsively put others’ needs before theirs, repress healthy anger, have a problem saying No, and have an over-identification with a sense of duty or responsibility) are more prone to stress-related diseases such as cancer. 5
Where am I suppressing anger or resentment to maintain the peace?
What roles do I take on as a given, even when they impact my own needs?
Who do I put compulsively before me? Why do I do that? What core human need do I selfishly get out of that?
Example:
Trigger: Boss says hurtful comment or acts inappropriately
Behavior: Repress anger to avoid confrontation
Reward: A sense of calm and predictability
Result: Putting oneself in the same situation over again
Thanks for reading, let me know in the comments which one resonates with you and if you like this, please consider upgrading to paid to support the writing or support both me and someone who needs this…
Anxiety and Worry as a loop
There’s plenty of research showing that anxiety gets perpetuated as a negatively reinforced habit loop. Over the past several decades, T. D. Borkovec, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University, wrote a number of scientific papers showing that anxiety can trigger worry.
Brewer, Judson. Unwinding Anxiety
Mishra AK, Varma AR. A Comprehensive Review of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Cureus. 2023 Sep 28;15(9):e46115. doi: 10.7759/cureus.46115. PMID: 37900518; PMCID: PMC10612137.
Scherer, K. R. (2022). Learned helplessness revisited: biased evaluation of goals and action potential are major risk factors for emotional disturbance. Cognition and Emotion, 36(6), 1021–1026. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2141002
Dolezal L. Shame anxiety, stigma and clinical encounters. J Eval Clin Pract. 2022 Oct;28(5):854-860. doi: 10.1111/jep.13744. Epub 2022 Jul 28. PMID: 35903848; PMCID: PMC7613638.
”John Henryism in a world of people born into poverty, of limited educational or occupational opportunities, of prejudice and racism, it can be a disaster to be a John Henry, to decide that those insurmountable odds could have been surmounted, if only, if only, you worked even harder—John Henryism is associated with a marked risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.”
(Sapolsky)
Rymarczyk K, Turbacz A, Strus W, Cieciuch J. Type C Personality: Conceptual Refinement and Preliminary Operationalization. Front Psychol. 2020 Sep 16;11:552740. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.552740. PMID: 33041918; PMCID: PMC7525034.