What learned by "giving up" anxiety for 3 months
When I was in grad school, we were assigned the task of giving up something for a quarter as part of our Addictions class. Right below some of the usual suspects - coffee, alcohol, social media, and other well-known and more socially acceptable forms of addiction - one in particular caught my eye: worry.
As I mulled over the idea - that is, the idea of being worry-free for 3 months - I couldn’t help but think, Wasn't this what they called cheating?
Nonetheless I spoke to my therapist about it and took the bait. And it turned out to be a lot harder than expected.
Day 1 started off swimmingly. I slept in a bit to catch up from the weekend.
No worries. I don't start class until tomorrow. I can give myself some extra space to catch up.
I indulged in an extra long yoga class at lunch.
No worrrrries. It's the beginning of the quarter. I don't have any assignments I need to get on top of yet.
It felt so freeing. I was like Simba, Hakuna-Matata-ing my way around my day, and letting the things I'd normally stress about just roll right off my shoulders. Why had I never adopted this attitude before?
Then 5 o'clock came around.
Well, since I lost a couple hours during the day, maybe I'll work for just a bit tonight just to make sure I stay on top of things.
No worries, right?
Just some healthy ol’, worry-fre, re-gu-lar work.
Just some guilt-ridden, overwhelming, need-to-do-more-to-prove-I'm-still-a-worthwhile-human-being, work-til-11pm-on-something-that-isn't-even-important, work!
Or, as they might call it in the world of addiction:
Relapse.
What the heck happened?
While exploring the idea of worry through the lens of addiction is by no means meant trivialize the severity of many addictions and substance use disorders, there are many parallels we can draw upon to help understand what goes on when we worry. And as my professor would always say: Sometimes the most learning comes from the relapse.
So, when talking about addiction, one of the first questions we often like to ask is: What is it serving for you?
Oftentimes addictions function to fill the places we find voids, to avoid difficult tasks or emotions, or to even to help us self-soothe. In my case, worrying and subsequently panic-working helped me avoid a fear of failure, or the ingrained belief that I don’t have worth if I'm not being productive. So, as my therapist pointed out, I distracted myself by being on top of something that didn’t even matter. Even the act of worrying itself can feel like you're "doing something" or "being productive." It becomes the brain's attempt to solve our problem, without actually taking action.
You can apply this to so many forms of worrying. Worrying you'll die alone can help to avoid challenging feelings of being with yourself in that moment. Worrying you'll fail can help to avoid facing the insecurities you already have that you're not good enough. The irony is, we end up living in those worries as if they're already here. By constantly ruminating about them, we are living in the very realities we're trying to escape.
But here's the catch: While sometimes worrying can be so debilitating it leads to inaction, sometimes it's still the very motivating force we need to actually do something about our problems. Had I squandered the rest of my week away, at the rate I was going I may well not have gotten through the work I needed to.
Does it mean that worry itself is always necessary? Not necessarily. Just like any addiction, worry is a habit that has become deeply reinforced over the course of our lives. It's become our brain's go-to coping mechanism, but that doesn't mean there aren't others that can serve the same function or meet our underlying need. Instead of worrying, for example, you could take action: create a plan, make some progress, or choose to let go of something.
So, what does your worrying serve? What alternatives might serve you more?