The Evolution of Anxiety: Why We Worry and What to Do About It
Let’s pretend for a moment that you are a giraffe. You live in the meadows of the African savannah. You have a neck that is 7 feet (2.1 meters) long. From time to time you notice a group of people going on safari and taking pictures of you.
This post originally appeared on James Clear’s blog .
But it’s not just your neck and their cameras that separate you from people. Perhaps the biggest difference between you, your giraffe friends and the people who photograph you is that almost every decision you make brings immediate benefits to your life.
- When you are hungry, you go to a tree and chew on it.
- When a storm rolls across the plains, you take cover under the bushes.
- When you spot a lion chasing you and your friends, you run away.
On any given day, most of your choices as a giraffe – like what to eat, where to sleep, or when to avoid predators – have an immediate impact on your life. You live in what researchers call an immediate return environment because your actions bring immediate benefits. Your life is strongly focused on the present moment.
Delayed return environment
Now let’s turn the script around and pretend you are one of the people on a safari. Unlike the giraffe, humans live in what researchers call a delayed return environment .
Most of the decisions you make today will take a long time. If you do a good job today, you will be paid in a few weeks. If you save now, they will be enough for retirement later. Many aspects of modern society are designed to postpone the receipt of rewards until a certain point in the future.
It’s the same with our problems. While the giraffe is concerned about pressing issues like avoiding lions and finding shelter from the storm, many of the problems that worry people are those of the future.
For example, as you travel through the savannah in your jeep, you might think, “This safari was a lot of fun. It would be great to work as a park ranger and see giraffes every day. Speaking of work, isn’t it time to change careers? Am I really doing the job I was supposed to be doing? Should I change jobs? “
Unfortunately, living with delayed return tends to lead to chronic stress and anxiety in humans. Why? Because your brain is not designed to deal with delayed return problems.
Evolution of the human brain
The human brain evolved into its current form when humans were still living in an immediate return environment.
The earliest modern human remains , known as Homo sapiens sapiens, are approximately 200,000 years old. These were the first people whose brains were relatively similar to yours. In particular, the neocortex – the newest part of the brain and the part responsible for higher functions such as language – was about the same size 200,000 years ago as it is today.
Compared to the age of the brain, modern society is incredibly new. It’s only recently — over the past 500 years or so — that our society has moved into a predominantly delayed return environment. The rate of change has increased exponentially since prehistoric times. Over the past 100 years, we have witnessed the heyday of cars, airplanes, television, personal computers, the Internet and Beyoncé. Almost everything that makes up your daily life was created in a very short period of time.
A lot can happen in 100 years. However, from the point of view of evolution, 100 years is nothing. The modern human brain has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years for one type of environment (immediate recoil), and in the blink of an eye the entire environment has changed (deferred recoil). Your brain was designed to appreciate immediate feedback .
Evolution of anxiety
The mismatch between our old brain and our new environment has a significant impact on the amount of chronic stress and anxiety we experience today.
Thousands of years ago, when people lived in an immediate return environment, stress and anxiety were beneficial emotions because they helped us act in the face of pressing problems.
For instance:
- The lion appears on the plain> you feel stress> you run away> the stress goes away.
- A storm rumbles in the distance> you are worried about finding shelter> you are taking refuge> your anxiety is reduced.
- You haven’t drunk any water today> you feel stressed and dehydrated> you find water> your stress has decreased.
This is how your brain learned to use anxiety, anxiety, and stress. Anxiety was an emotion that helped protect people in an immediate return environment. It was built to address short-term, pressing problems. There was no chronic stress, because there really are no chronic problems in an immediate return environment.
Wild animals rarely experience chronic stress. As Duke University professor Mark Leary said: “The deer can get scared by loud noise and fly through the forest, but as soon as the threat is gone, the deer immediately calms down and begins to graze. And it doesn’t look like knots like many people have. ” When you live in an immediate return environment, you only need to worry about acute stressors. Once the threat is gone, the anxiety will subside.
We face other challenges today. Will I have enough money to pay my bills next month? Will I get a promotion or stay in my previous job? Will I be able to repair my broken relationship? Problems in a deferred return environment can rarely be resolved right now .
What to do about it
One of the greatest sources of anxiety in a delayed return environment is constant uncertainty. There is no guarantee that working hard at school will get you a job. There are no promises that investments will grow in the future. There is no guarantee that a date will bring you a soul mate. Living with delayed return means you are surrounded by uncertainty.
So what can you do? How can you survive the delayed return environment that creates so much stress and anxiety?
The first thing you can do is measure something . You may not know exactly how much money you will have in retirement, but you can remove some uncertainty by measuring how much you save each month. You cannot be sure that you will get a job after graduation, but you can keep track of how often you apply to the company for an internship. You can’t predict when you will find love, but you can pay attention to how many times you meet someone new.
During the measurement, the unknown value becomes known. When you measure something, you immediately become more confident in the situation. Measuring won’t magically solve your problems, but it will clarify the situation, pull you out of the black box of anxiety and insecurity, and help you understand what’s really going on.
Also, one of the most important differences between an immediate return environment and a delayed return environment is quick feedback. Animals constantly receive feedback on things that cause them stress. As a result, they really know if they should be nervous. Without measurement, you have no feedback.
If you’re looking for good measurement strategies, I suggest using something simple, like the Paperclip Strategy to track repetitive daily activities, and something like the Seinfeld Strategy to track long-term behavior.
Shift your worry
The second thing you can do is “shift your anxiety” from a long-term problem to a daily routine that will solve it.
- Instead of worrying about living longer, worry about walking every day.
- Instead of worrying about whether your child will receive a college scholarship, think about how much time he spends today studying.
- Instead of worrying about losing weight for your wedding, get busy preparing a healthy dinner tonight.
The key takeaway that makes this strategy work is to make sure that your daily routine both rewards you (immediate return) and solves your future problems (delayed return).
Here are three examples from my life:
- Letter. When I publish an article, the quality of my life is noticeably higher. Also, I know that if I write constantly, my business will grow, I will publish books, and I will make enough money to support my life. By focusing my attention on writing every day, I increase my well-being (immediate return) and also work towards earning future income (delayed return).
- Rise. I experienced a huge shift in wellbeing when I fell in love with exercise. Going to the gym brings me joy (immediate return) and also improves my health in the long term (delayed return).
- Reading. I published my public reading list last year and started reading 20 pages a day . Now I get a sense of accomplishment whenever I read every day (immediate return), and practice helps me develop into an interesting person (delayed return).
Our brains did not develop in a delayed return environment, but that is where we are today. I hope that by measuring things that are important to you and by switching your anxiety into daily practices that pay off in the long term, you can reduce some of the insecurity and chronic stress inherent in modern society.
The Evolution of Anxiety: Why We Worry and What to Do About It | James Clear