It’s been quite a few weeks.
I still haven’t quite recovered from the craziness of the events over the past few weeks. You might still feel a bit on edge – and that is completely natural.
The truth is, war or no war, corona or no corona, anxiety is completely natural.
As human beings we are wired to feel anxious and fearful.
What?! You’re probably thinking – “I thought I was supposed to be calm”. Why would anxiety and fear literally be programmed into our genes?
There is a scientific discipline called evolutionary psychology that studies this very question. Researchers have concluded that fear is actually helpful for our survival.
Like other core emotions – fear provided an adaptive advantage as we evolved.
At its root fear is simply a signal that tells us we are in danger and then motivates us to action to protect ourselves.
Fear helps us anticipate and avoid danger. When the danger is unavoidable fear activates the stress response to help us escape (the flight part of fight or flight). If escape is not possible that same stress response enables us to fight for our survival.
Evolutionary psychologists believe that those with the most effective fear and avoidance mechanisms – a.k.a anxiety – were the most likely to survive in the harsh environments of our ancestors.
Yes, the anxious among us were actually the protectors of the tribe. These vigilant members were constantly on guard, scanning the horizon – looking for enemies, predators, and other threats.
When danger was near these hypervigilant members quickly sounded an alarm and protected the whole group.
Nowadays a worrier can still protect the group. For example – being compulsive about gathering extra food and setting it aside for leaner times (or creating a savings account) can benefit the whole family.
Yes, when it comes to survival there is an evolutionary benefit to having a healthy dose of fear and anxiety.
However, constant vigilance, anxiety and fear can take its toll on a person.
While survival may benefit from fear and anxiety, in order to thrive we need to learn to tame these feelings and keep them in check.
In order to truly thrive we need to cultivate the antidote to fear and anxiety. We need to build up the one thing that will help us listen to the fear, learn from it and then let it go.
We need to develop our resilience.
How do you do that?
Stay tuned for my next post….
