How to Manage Anxiety About Uncertainty
This was originally published at the start of COVID and has since been updated.
With the onset of a global pandemic, things are really uncertain right now.
No one truly has any answers for us because we still don’t know how things will ultimately pan out.
Our brains really don’t like uncertainty, it’s not how they function properly because uncertainty isn’t safe. And after a year and a half of so much uncertainty, you’re likely feeling the weight of it by now.
You might be consumed by fears for the future, whether it’s physical health or financial health. Maybe you’re worried about your parents or grandparents. Maybe your job is secure, but not for the people around you and you worry about how to take care of them.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, panic, or hopelessness, I want to offer some extra support and give you some tools to manage these feelings.
Table of Contents
How Your Brain Handles Uncertainty
A Simple Strategy to Calm Down
Grounding Exercise to Reduce Anxiety
Useful Phrases to Reduce Anxiety
Self-Compassion Exercise to Reduce Anxiety
How your brain handles uncertainty
You’ve probably heard of the fight-flight-freeze response. Your brain is always scanning for threats in your environment, most of the time without you even realizing it.
When you encounter something threatening, your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activates, speeding up your heart and sending a message to your brain that you need to mobilize (fight-flight-freeze).
It’s an important system that keeps you alive, but it has a fatal flaw: this system can’t distinguish between an external, physical threat and an internal, emotional threat. Whether you suddenly see an oncoming car or you lose your job, you’re going to experience that same fight-flight-freeze activation.
When it’s an external threat you would either:
Fight against the threat to defend yourself
Flee to remove yourself from danger
Freeze to hide yourself
All of these actions are designed to protect you and keep you safe. Once the threat has been neutralized, your body can then close the loop and calm down. When the threat is internal, these same defense strategies become directed at yourself.
Fight with self-criticism and blame, attacking yourself
Flee by numbing yourself with media or substances, avoiding how you’re feeling to get away from it
Freeze by ruminating and worrying, getting stuck in looping thoughts
You can quickly see there’s a problem here! You can’t fight, flee, or hide from yourself and you can’t close the loop because the threat never gets neutralized. I know I’ve experienced all 3 of these defense strategies at some point when dealing with an internal threat.
Which of these is your go-to strategy?
The next time you experience it, try labeling it as an adaptive function, understand that it is trying to protect you (even though it’s not very helpful).
This helps us create a space between experiencing something and over-identifying with it (getting swept away or believing it). I can mindfully observe that my brain is trying to protect me from something scary, and make a choice to engage in an activity that feels more helpful.
A Simple Strategy to Calm Down
Remember I mentioned how the sympathetic nervous system is responsible for fight-flight-freeze activation? The parasympathic nervous system (PNS) is responsible for calming you down and getting you into a resting state.
How can you activate your resting state? The quickest way is by taking slow, deep belly breaths.
Instructions:
Put one hand on your chest and one on your stomach
Take a deep breath by inflating your stomach (making sure you’re breathing from your diaphragm and not the upper part of your chest) and hold for a few seconds
Gently exhale through your mouth and make the exhale longer than the inhale to promote the rest and digest response
If you’re trying to teach your child, have them lay down and put a book on their belly, taking in deep breaths to make the book move up and down
One thing is key: don’t stop once you’re feeling better, keep going! It’s easy to think you’re in a resting state when you’re still a bit agitated. Feel a sense of calm wash over you and continue to take deep breaths. When you feel like you can stop, take a few more breaths.
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Grounding Exercise to Reduce Anxiety
When you’re stuck in anxious thoughts (freeze response), you’re likely worrying about the future or wondering if things are going to change for the worse (or maybe assuming they will).
Anxious thought loops leave you paralyzed and drained, and they don’t even help you problem solve or figure stuff out.
When you start to notice the physical symptoms of anxiety, like a weight on your chest or heart beating too fast, sweating, or a pain in your stomach, notice what you’re thinking about.
Is it a repetitive thought or are you all over the place? Is there a theme that keeps popping up? Start to mindfully observe how your anxiety shows up and what it’s telling you.
Instructions:
Bring yourself back to the present moment by taking deep breaths and noticing what’s around you and naming what you see
Use descriptive language, like “a blue, medium-sized lamp with a gray shade” instead of just saying “a lamp.”
Keep naming the things around you and then turn the focus inward
Feel the weight of your body in your seat, feel your feet on the ground. Put your hand on your leg and feel the weight of it.
Continue to notice yourself in your environment in the present moment, and take a few deep breaths to finish
As an alternative, you can also name facts that orient you to right here, right now. Your name, phone number, address, what year it is, etc. This keeps your thinking brain online, helping to prevent a fight-flight-freeze response.
Useful Phrases to Reduce Anxiety
I originally saw this phrase on Reddit and it really stuck with me. “Don’t borrow a problem.” It’s the idea that when faced with uncertainty, we often go straight to worst-case scenario.
You worry or obsess over it, but it’s something that may or may not happen. It’s a problem you don’t yet have, but you’re borrowing it today.
Of course you’ll need to plan for worst-case scenario, but constantly worrying and hanging on to this problem doesn’t help you fix anything. In many cases, there’s nothing to fix until that thing happens. So in reality, you’re suffering through it twice.
Instead of stewing in it, try validating your worries by acknowledging that your fears are understandable, and remind yourself that it’s a problem you don’t want to borrow today or suffer through twice.
Trying saying something like: “I’m OK in this moment. I don’t know if (worst-case scenario) will happen. Is there anything I can do right now to prepare or prevent this from happening?”
If the answer is yes, do what you need to do even if you don’t feel like it. If the answer is no, try saying: “There’s nothing more I can do in this moment. I don’t want to borrow that problem today.”
You may not always be OK, but try noticing the moments you are. Practicing this helps keep you grounded in the present and builds up the resilience you’ll need if things hits the fan.
When you use up all your brainpower worrying about the what-if’s, you’ll find your reserves depleted when the problem arrives and needs to be dealt with.
Related: How to Stop Worrying & Overthinking
Self-Compassion Exercise to Reduce Anxiety
Remember that when you’re having a moment of suffering, whether it’s anxiety, sadness, or fears of failing, these feelings are part of the shared human experience. All humans suffer, all humans experience loss. We’re all imperfect and lead imperfect lives.
When you’re having that moment of pain or suffering, when you’re feeling all alone, there’s an interesting irony that you actually become deeply connected to humanity.
Whenever you’re struggling with uncertainty, no matter how irrational, make sure you don’t diminish how you’re feeling right now. “Someone out there has it worse than you” can be said for almost everyone in every situation and is rarely helpful.
Try practicing self-compassion by simply treating yourself like a good friend. Offer yourself support and validation, and consider what you’d tell a friend who was worrying about the exact same thing.
Related: What Is Self-Compassion? Practices to Be Nicer to Yourself
There is space for your suffering and gratitude for what you do have, or that things could always be worse. Pain and gratitude are not mutually exclusive. They can exist at the same time.
Acknowledge how hard this is for you and how hard this is for all of us. Acknowledge what you have and what you’re worried about losing. Stay in the present moment and practice holding space for all of it.
