A little anxiety helps you think more creatively
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When you’re worrying about a looming deadline or feeling overwhelmed before an exam, it can seem silly, almost insulting, to imagine there’s any benefit to this.
There is no doubt that extreme anxiety can be very debilitating. But at a moderate level, our nervous emotions can make us smarter problem solvers and encourage out-of-the-box thinking. Anxiety can also benefit our health.
To understand why, anxiety can be seen as a kind of alarm bell. It focuses our attention on situations that require action and helps us respond more quickly by increasing our sensitivity to those signals. “Physiological arousal and anxious thoughts come into play faster than a conscious assessment of how tough the situation is and whether we have the resources to cope with it,” says Dr. tod kashdan, Director of the Institute for Well-Being, George Mason University, Virginia. “This increased awareness allows for more informed decision-making.”
As evidence, Kashdan points to a study that tested college students’ anxiety levels before making them believe their computers were infected with a virus. People who were more worried ignored distractions when communicating a problem to their IT team.
Similar reasoning may explain why another study found that neuroticism, an aspect of the personality trait associated with anxiety and vulnerability, was associated with decreased mortality during the study period. If you are constantly worried about your health, you are more likely to seek medical attention.
Source: www.newscientist.com
