The Upside of Anxiety: Harness Its Energy to Improve Your Future

When Joan’s mom, Kathleen, was about 40 years old, a doctor told her she had type 2 diabetes. This shocked Kathleen, who had always thought of herself as healthy. At first, she was frightened and even a bit depressed. But soon she transformed her anxiety into dogged

determination to understand nutrition so that she could use her diet to make herself healthy again. Joan recalls her mother frequently sitting on a bed with several open books strewn in a circle around her, avidly reading everything she could find from reputable sources about nutrition and health. Kathleen’s glucose levels quickly normalized, and her diabetes was cured—never to return.

In fact, Kathleen figured out long before modern science did that the best eating style for health and longevity was a Mediterranean diet. Joan grew up eating lots of fresh vegetables, berries and nuts, beans, fish, and seafood, along with large salads dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and red-wine vinegar. Kathleen’s angst-motivated mission to find and follow the healthiest diet enabled her to live to age 99. Joan was an only child, and her father, Leonard was about the least anxious person I’ve ever known; he lived to age 94. Paradoxically, Kathleen’s distress about being diagnosed with diabetes was a key turning point that changed for the better the trajectory of all three of their lives. The diet Kathleen fed her family

kept Leonard vigorous for over nine decades and inspired Joan to become a dietician.

Jim Morrison said, “You shouldn’t take life too seriously; nobody gets out alive anyway.”

This existential angst—worry that goes along with being alive—is unavoidable. It’s part of what makes life so precious, and it is a powerful motivator to accomplish big things. My kids—as they were growing up, and even today—complain about their anxiety as if it were an illness.

Their generation grew up thinking anxiety is dangerous and destructive, and that the solution to its discomfort is to eradicate it.

I tell them, “Look around; the people who make a real positive difference and who change the world for the better, they are generally not well-adjusted individuals.”

Abraham Lincoln was pathologically depressed most of his life, and it goes without saying that he wasn’t on Prozac. Mikel Jollett is a brilliant author and singer-songwriter who has struggled with anxiety, anger, and depression since being raised in an orphanage in a commune/cult in Northern California in the 70s. His memoir Hollywood Park is one of my favorite audiobooks. He says, “Take the pain and make it useful. The longing, the fear, the heartache, and dread. The ability to see these broken pieces of yourself like cracks in your armor through which you are better able to see the world: too broken to

be normal, just broken enough to see beauty.” Many successful people have learned to harness stress, nervousness, and fear to fuel their creative ventures. Face it—you are going to have some chronic anxiety, even if it’s subconscious, and that’s okay. It’s even a good thing if you can redirect that energy to become more productive.

When we accept that anxiety is unavoidable in our day-to-day lives and understand it is meant to be a useful emotion, we can transform it into a positive force for our well-being.

Kathleen learned how to leverage her distressing anxiety, rather than be overwhelmed by it, and this allowed her to discover fundamental insights about how to eat for longevity 50 years

before modern science finally figured it out. This can be a lesson for all of us in our struggles with inescapable anxiety. If Kathleen had complained to her physician that she was paralyzed by worry about her diabetes, he probably would have prescribed her Valium, a

benzodiazepine. This would have kept her “comfortably numb” but would have also melted away her energy and motivation to figure out her own solution. Benzodiazepines like Valium, Xanax, and Ativan are addictive and decades of use might increase risk of depression

and dementia.

Many of my healthiest patients have had a coronary stent, coronary bypass surgery, AFib, or an abnormal calcium score. They used their health scare to motivate them to follow our advice about diet/exercise/lifestyle and are disciplined about taking their meds and supplements as prescribed. Most of these folks are healthier than ever and destined to lead long lives. When we chronically medicate our worries with substances like tobacco, marijuana, and/or alcohol, we short-circuit our natural coping mechanisms for dealing with stress, and those skills atrophy. Play, pets, meditation, music, dance, yoga, reaching out and connecting with family and friends, prayer, attending religious services, exercise, and outdoor activities like gardening can all be remarkably effective for dissipating anxiety. If you

are not harnessing your worries as a motivation to think up solutions and make changes, you are doomed to a downward spiral of unsolved problems and maybe even issues related to dependence and addiction.

That sense of worry is there for a reason—to spur us on and boost our creativity and problem solving. It helped our ancient ancestors endure in the wild, and it is also essential

for your health and survival today. Although stress and fear are uncomfortable emotions, they can be valuable motivators to imagine an uncertain outlook and do things now to make the future safer and better. In that way, anxiety is inextricably linked to hope.

Shortly after our son Evan started medical school, he called home in a distressed tone: “I don’t think I can get through this. There are just so many opportunities to fail.”

I reassured him and and used a quote from Dan Harris that I often recite to myself: “The price of security is insecurity.”

Evan leaned into his sense of self-doubt to motivate him to pay close attention during lectures and study endlessly during his medical school years. By accepting his insecurity, he ensured that he would not fail, and secured his future.

Beliefs have the power to shape reality. When you cultivate a mindset that focuses on the potential benefits of stress, it can make all the difference and transform a toxic emotion into a

force for personal growth and newfound strength.

If you can change your mindset about the emotion of anxiety so that you think of it not as an illness that needs to be eradicated but instead as a signal of potential trouble on the horizon and a tool to motivate change, it can be a source of ingenuity and willpower.

Your brain is designed to learn from stress, whereby challenging experiences can help you grow stronger and wiser. Emotional stress can provide focus and energy. Navigating your way through a stressful period together with others, whether at home or at work, can help you bond and strengthen close relationships.

Prisons and graveyards are full of people who didn’t have enough anxiety. They saw an unlocked car that was running with nobody in it and decided, “Heck yeah! What could go wrong?” Or they drove their motorcycle 140 miles an hour because they felt immortal. Or

smokers who told themselves, “Lung cancer could never happen to me.” Anxiety is a warning sign of danger ahead. Stress is a motivator to make you more resourceful. Forget about trying to be comfortably numb; instead channel your anxiety into actions to make your life better.

Bruce Springsteen in his book Born to Run writes about how his demons compel him to keep striving. When he stops pushing so hard to be a great musician, he becomes gloomy and despondent. Long ago, “The Boss” had enough fame and money to sit back and lazily coast through the rest of his life in luxury. But that makes him depressed. Instead, Bruce transforms his melancholy into a perpetual drive to create, entertain, and be a spokesperson

for noble causes; he’s determined to make the best of his life while he is still here.

Deep down, you already understand that trying to eliminate anxiety in your life is futile. Stress pops up daily, so forget about getting rid of it. Instead, focus on getting better at recognizing stress, embracing it, and using it to mobilize you into action to either solve the problem or neutralize the harmful effects of stress on your system. However, if your anxiety

feels overwhelming and unmanageable, speak with your primary care provider or psychiatrist about safe and effective drug options.

For people struggling with debilitating anxiety, SSRIs like escitalopram can help improve neurochemical imbalances caused by repetitive/internalized thought patterns. Rather than making individuals numb, low-dose SSRIs often calm the mind, allowing them to them to

think more clearly and try to incorporate the above-mentioned lifestyle/mindset suggestions to get the most enjoyment out of life.

Lastly, omega-3 and curcumin are two over-the-counter natural supplements that help reduce inflammation in the brain and therefore help reduce anxiety and depression. Rather than temporarily dulling the angst, they make your brain better at problem solving so you won’t be paralyzed by stress. I take both daily and strongly encourage my family and friends to take them; I also recommend them for most of my patients. Talk to your health care provider about whether omega-3 and curcumin supplements are okay for you. These are potent tools that boost your mood and can help you transform emotional stress into a productive mindset.

Dr. O'Keefe

Disclosure: Dr. James O’Keefe is Chief Medical Officer for CardioTabs, a supplement company whose products include curcumin and omega-3.