What’s the Worry?
What to Know About How Worry Impacts Your Thinking
Our tendency to “overthink” (AKA worry or ruminate) is normal and actually happens on continuum—there are those of us who worry a little bit occasionally and those of us worry intensely, almost all the time. When we worry, it feels like we are solving our problems pre-emptively—getting ahead of things. Ironically, worrying itself can get to be so intense that it blocks us from being able to think clearly enough to effectively deal with life’s complex challenges.
Studies show that “high worriers” actually struggle to perform in tasks that require attentional focus (e.g., generate random numbers, do the difficult Stroop task, perform cognitive tests where we need to concentrate on a goal and shift between two or more elements at the same time, ie.e., dual span tasks ). On the other hand, a slight degree of anxiety facilitates performance.
According to the Yerkes-Dotson law, there’s an optimum level of physiological and psychological arousal needed to achieve our highest performance on tasks. After this point, too much arousal leads to poorer performance. This begs the question— how can we get to that cognitive-emotional sweet spot when faced with a challenge?
Well, let’s take a step back before answering this question, and look at a couple of interesting theories that explain the relationship between ‘worry’ and ‘working memory’. Working memory is our ability to hold information in our attention span for short-term use. For instance, while you’ve been reading this article, you probably haven’t been paying attention to other things happening around you. You could have been paying attention to objects in the space you’re in, the temperature on your skin, sounds in the background—until this point (because you shifted your attention), you have probably been paying attention to the words on this page. Like a spotlight, we can focus on only so much information at any one time. We can move our attention around to other things, but we can’t widen our attention to take in everything all at once. Not only that, but moving our attention around (attention shifting) takes some of our limited attention as well. What is in our attentional spotlight is also called “cognitive load.”
From a cognitive science perspective, worrying by itself creates a ‘cognitive load’ that occupies our limited attentional resources. And it is hard to stop worrying because, by definition, we tend to worry about things that threaten us in some way—worrying about getting poor performance review, about our kid crashing while learning to drive, health of our friends, the world—these are all threatening. As human animals, we are hardwired to pay attention to things that may threaten us.
When worrying, specifically, we are considering lots of negative possibilities. What this does is take up a lot of room in our attention, leaving less room available to consider facts that might disconfirm our fears.
For example, let’s say that I say “Good morning!” to my neighbor and she doesn’t say “Good morning!” back. Oh-oh. As a generally anxious person, my anxiety leads me to assume she’s mad at me, and this gets me spinning—I think about the things I might have done to make her mad (e.g., “Did I leave the sprinkler on? Was my dog barking bothering her? Does she think I was the one who took her mail last week?”) I become fixated on the negative so much that I’m cognitively closed off to more benign, alternative explanations for her behavior. As it turns out, Mrs. Peony doesn’t put her hearing aids in in the morning. She’s not mad at me–she just didn’t hear me. Why wasn’t this my first thought? Why did I worry? Worrying sucks-so why do I do it?
The truth is that worrying can become a chronic, cognitive habit for many of us—and there is good reason for it. Worrying gets reinforced by the brief sense of relief it brings us. Worrying is thought to operate like a “cognitive avoidance strategy”—meaning that worrying inhibits or suppresses cognitive representations of some horrible negative outcome (e.g., Ms. Peony yelling me about her mail, for example). It’s as if worrying about a situation gives a person a sense of ‘problem solving’ to avoid a feared outcome — and therefore prohibits feeling the full emotional impact of some feared worst-case scenario (even if that scenario is unlikely).
How does this work? Every time a negative outcome is even briefly considered, it is immediately followed by thoughts about how to prevent that outcome. Because of this, the worrier experiences a sense of subtle relief as they are not fully experiencing the intensity of thinking about the outcome itself. Micro-moments of fear are repeatedly relieved by worrying, and so the worry-cycle continues and becomes a reinforced habit. Consistent with this cognitive-avoidance theory, studies show that worrying is associated with suppressed physiological arousal when presented with fear-provoking images or scenarios. Interesting right?
Other research supports a second mechanism for why worry can become persistent. Avoiding “emotional contrast” may be another mechanism that drives worry. Many studies show that worry is accompanied by chronic over-arousal when fearful cues are not present (i.e., meaning that worriers are anxious and worry much of the time, even when there isn’t an obvious threat). This theory posits that worry is reinforced because it allows people to avoid a strong emotional contrast when actually faced with a fearful situation (e.g., “I don’t want to be surprised or disappointed so I’ll just always expect the worst.”). Ever try to “keep your expectations low” or try not to “get your hopes up?” Welp, this is what’s going on. You’re avoiding anticipated “emotional contrast” - that horrible crash between feeling hopeful to feeling disappointed.
The downside to all of this is that you end up staying pretty low most of the time. Pessimism and Worry start operating your attentional spotlight.
THERAPY CAN HELP
Therapy can help worriers understand their tendency to overthink, reduce their worry, and embrace their emotional lives more confidently. In therapy, you can learn to better tolerate difficult feelings—like fear and disappointment—and get confidence to know that even when bad or unexpected things happen (as is the case in life), you will handle the difficult feelings that follow and solve life’s problems when they actually occur. When Ms. Peony yells, you’ll be ready for her.
Outside of therapy, a daily mindfulness practice (5-15 minutes per day) can also help improve emotional health and reduce worry. From a purely cognitive standpoint, mindful meditation has been found to improve working memory efficiency! Regular meditators have an enhanced ability to focus and remember information. In clinical research, we also see a reduction in worry and improved mood after engaging in long-term mindful meditation practice.
During mindfulness practices, emotions are invited with an attitude of curiosity, and so are allowed to be experienced rather than suppressed, which may promote their natural ebb and flow. It may be that mindfulness reduces worry by helping individuals fully experience and process intense emotions as they arise in the moment.
By training yourself to allow difficult emotions, you can free yourself from the shackles of chronic rumination. This can ultimately free up those cognitive resources typically absorbed by worry, thereby allowing yourself to think more clearly and be present to the benign—even positive—aspects of life.
Well wishes,
Dr. Rachel
