How to Harness the Healthy Function of Anxiety

Anxiety offers a boost of energy and focus that can be used to powerful effect

Sometimes the best way to deal with anxiety is to take meaningful steps towards resolving the thing you're anxious about. Gladskikh Tatiana/Shutterstock

Amid the recession, pandemic stress, political tensions, and global unrest, Americans are experiencing record levels of stress. Many of us know this intuitively, but it has also been confirmed according to a recent poll by the American Psychological Association.

Unsurprisingly, studies also show record levels of anxiety disorders in the United States. The mental health industry can barely keep up with the demand. Many therapists are booked to the maximum, and prescriptions for antidepressants (often used for anxiety as well as depression) are at an all-time high.

As a clinical psychologist, I’m glad people are getting the care they need, but I’m also a bit concerned that my field may be medicalizing (and thereby monetizing) what’s actually a normal part of the human experience and potentially shunting public interest away from more constructive ways to approach certain forms of anxiety.

I’m not denying that pathological anxiety exists, but I think it’s important to consider that we’re more prone to disordered outbursts of anxiety if we don’t understand how to use anxiety in a healthy way.

While many people tend to assume anxiety is an enemy to be fought or something to be “blissed away” through relaxation techniques, it’s important to understand that anxiety actually has a healthy function: to stimulate preparation behaviors. Once we know how to use anxiety constructively, it actually becomes a friend rather than a foe.

This is empowering on a personal level, and it gives us alternatives to Big Pharma prescriptions and the host of unwanted side effects they often carry.

This article contains three practical techniques to use anxiety constructively, illustrated with common examples of everyday stressors. The general idea is that anxiety brings a burst of energy, and we'd be wise to use that energy strategically.

Mindful Observation

Before reaching for any of the proverbial “tools in your toolbox” when confronted with anxiety, it’s important to examine the anxiety and its source. This will help ensure you select the best tool for the situation.

I find that most techniques break down into one of two categories, which I call “leaning in” and “pivoting away.” Both categories are actually useful, but it’s essential to select from the category appropriate to your situation.

The leaning-in approach is best when you examine the anxiety and realize that there’s actually a clear preparation behavior it’s trying to stimulate.

For example, if you’re experiencing anxiety due to an overwhelming list of friends and family on your holiday gift list, the anxiety could actually be providing a helpful drive for you to make a list of recipients, brainstorm their gifts, and begin to shop now rather than waiting till the last minute when prices and selection are both likely to be worse.

On the other hand, if your holiday shopping is now complete but you’re just experiencing residual anxiety over it, then you might consider pivoting away techniques that are geared toward relaxation or pointing the excess energy onto another task that needs your attention. To help categorize your concerns in the mindful observation stage, simply ask yourself if there is any preparation action you can take around the topic that’s making you anxious. If there is, then find a way to “lean in” and use the nervous energy constructively.

If there isn’t, then consider ways to relax, practice acceptance, or redirect your energy where it can be more useful. Either way, don’t scold yourself for being anxious. This only leads to “anxiety about anxiety,” which offers no benefit.

Instead, be grateful for the extra mental energy you have, and use it in a way that is helpful to you.

The Mental Shortlist Technique

This is a pivoting-away technique. To flesh out the example above, let’s suppose you had been extremely anxious about your holiday shopping, and now you’ve finally finished it—yet you still feel keyed up with residual anxiety even though all the preparation behaviors (shopping, wrapping, shipping, etc) are complete.

At this point, you could absolutely choose to do some deep breathing, imagine a beach, or do whatever typical tried-and-true relaxation technique you like. This would be totally fine, and I would even recommend it if you felt the need.

However, you also have another choice: You could choose to redirect the nervous energy that often accompanies anxiety, and use that energy to accomplish something else that’s meaningful to you. This is where the mental shortlist technique comes into play.

To try the mental shortlist, create a list of five things that you’d like to do whenever you have some extra energy. For example, your list might include calling friends and family, polishing your resume or online job profile, planning a fun date with your spouse, practicing prayer or meditation, doing a meal plan for the week, or catching up on your expense reports—the list could include anything.

This technique helps resolve the issue that occurs when we’re anxious. We often get tunnel vision that makes it hard to see anything beyond the single item making us anxious. This is actually a gift from Mother Nature that helps us to focus on threats or serious stressors, but it becomes an obstacle when we’re focused on a stressor that’s outdated.

The silver lining is that if we have a mental shortlist, it’s easy to redirect this burst of anxious energy toward something else. The only caveat is that we need to have a list prepared in advance, since it’s often hard to recall other topics when our mind is stuck on the outmoded stressor.

This is why I encourage people to actually write down their mental shortlist. The items on it will probably seem simple and obvious in your calm state of mind, but you’ll thank yourself for having the list ready when you’re hyper-focused on an outdated stressor.

I often compare having a good mental shortlist available to having a fridge full of healthy and delicious snacks rather than leaving yourself with nothing but cookies when the snack monster strikes: It’s much easier to make healthy choices when we have good options pre-selected and easily accessible rather than leaving ourselves to nosh whatever is quick and tempting when we’re under stress.

The Zone of Control

This is a leaning-in technique, meaning that it’s best for situations where your anxiety connects to a topic that would benefit from preparation steps.

For example, let’s say you’re anxious about an upcoming visit with family over the holidays First, you would make a list of every facet of the visit that makes you nervous. The list might include a lack of personal time, a feeling of powerless around certain insensitive family members, an aversion to holiday travel, and a sense of displeasure over the expense.

Obviously, there are likely many positive aspects of your family visit, but for the purposes of this exercise, we’re focused on the parts that make you anxious.

Once your list is complete, make a T-chart and divide your concerns into controllable and non-controllable. You might put lack of personal time and feeling powerless around certain family members into the controllable category because, upon reflection, you realize that you could build moments of personal time into the trip (i.e., booking a massage or a day pass to the local gym, or even a walk where you have a cellphone call planned with a supportive friend); and that you can actually strategize how to handle certain family members (i.e., craft a few boundary-setting statements to set limits with the person, or plan a “secret signal” for your spouse to literally stand by your side if needed). You might put the fact of holiday travel and expense into the non-controllable category, although you might find the act of doing so activates your critical-thinking skills and promotes an awareness of ways you could reduce expenses or make the travel a bit less stressful.

Once you’ve divided these anxiety triggers into controllable and non-controllable, your next move is to write an action step by each item in the controllable category (for example, making the arrangements for gym, massage, or the cellphone call; or creating an “SOS plan” with your spouse for certain family dynamics).

Whenever you feel anxious about the trip, simply point your eyeballs at your action steps and start knocking them off. This will increase your sense of control around the stressor (a sense of control is a known protective factor for mental health) and it will ensure your anxiety is being used constructively by helping to stimulate the preparation behaviors you listed next to the items on the list of things you can control.

This proactive leaning-in approach is often healthier and more beneficial to you than simply stewing in anxiety, or even just closing your eyes to mentally escape to a relaxing beach. The difference is that you are actually using your anxiety constructively rather than just trying to manage or escape from it.

Conclusion

While no technique or approach is a panacea, hopefully these ideas offer you a fresh perspective. Don’t hesitate to seek professional help if these or other forms of self-help leave you still feeling stuck. The goal here is just to realize that anxiety often offers a silver lining, which is a boost of energy and focus that can actually be quite helpful if we know how to use them to our advantage.

We were given anxiety for a reason, so we want to consider its benefits, especially in a time or season when anxiety runs high.

The techniques featured in this article are borrowed from my book “Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety” (Macmillan 2021). It’s available in many languages, including Simplified Chinese.