Is Anxiety ever good?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Does anxiety serve any useful purpose?

― Mike Hanle y, Tuesday, 9 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It serves as proof of the existence of caring, or giving a shit - about something, anything. I think that's useful. Better than some big dumb serene blankosity isn't it?

― Kim, Tuesday, 9 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i don't like anxiety. it impairs my ability to concentrate on important things.

― di, Tuesday, 9 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sometimes blank-osity seems like a good idea

― turner, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Anxiety causes a psychosomatic pain in me, literally -- the muscles in the upper left corner of my torso tense up, and it feels rather miserable. They've been getting a workout over the last month, let me tell you.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gentle, nudging anxiety for everyday purposes (getting places on time, doing your best work, stepping out of your comfort zone) is fine. Acute, heart clenching, sweating anxiety is the worst thing ever.

― rainy, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

absolutely - ceetrtainly as cause/effect of adrenaline production, on a purely physio level, it's so important - what's essential is yr management of it...ie good anxiety vs bad anxiety, shit i just sounded like george w, now i'm anxious.

― Geoff, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think anxiety is ever helpful.

― Mike Hanle y, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

When I was 14 I got inexplicable anxiety attacks for a few months...it really sucked--Started getting all agoraphobic and shit. Than they dissapeared as mysteriously as they had arrived...wierd

― turner, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would like anxiety a lot more if I ever felt it over important things. Anxiety over stupid or uncontrollable stuff = dud. Low-level background anxiety = also dud as it can't motivate you.

― Tom, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't really like anxiety. I used to get panic attacks...I had a real fear of sitting in one particular lecture theatre. Eating in restaurants, on public transport etc...Basically, any situtation which I couldn't get away from easily. I'm okay now...but I do try and avoid being anxious, as it's affects are always negative.

― james, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I get pains from it too. My stomach gets queasy and if it's bad my chest hurts a great deal. I find it very interesting to watch in myself, though.

― Maria, Wednesday, 10 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

four years pass...

ARGH I had an anxiety/panic attack last night over stoopid, STOOPID financial shit that I know i can fix in the the long run. SUCH A POINTLESS WASTE OF ENERGY.

Since I didn't really have any beer left, I worked it out by walking around the block several times whilst bitching to a friend over my phone. It doesn't help that I'm already stressing over all the holiday shit I have to deal with this weekend due to:

1) thanksgiving
2) brother's wedding and me being in it
3) being back in michigan for the first time since I left, and only have 3.5 days to fit everything in, along with the whole "seeing friends" thing

So, is this shit ever good? A little, maybe. A lot, fuck no.

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

Just think, it'll be over in 4 days, might as well make the most of it.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't anxiety kind of a function of not actually being able to affect the outcome of things? Because if you were worried about something and you could actually DO something about it, you'd be doing that thing, not sitting at home clutching your stomach and wishing you were asleep because it's 3.47 in the fucking morning. So DUD DUD DUD unconditionally.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 20:28 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, but this is more related from financial shit. the other bits from this weak are just exacerbating it.

xpost

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 20:31 (nineteen years ago)

The human ability to predict and foresee possible outcomes outstrips our ability to affect those outcomes. Ideally, every emotion leads to something useful. In Real Life we constantly suffer from useless emotions that cannot lead to any practical purpose. It's a design flaw.

When it is doing its propoer job, anxiety is supposed to prevent teenagers in slash movies from going up the dark staircase. So, it can be good sometimes, even though it never seems to help those teenagers.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 20:33 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, if only anxiety was like vitamin C—you piss away what you can't use. Take the useful lets-not-drive-over-the-cliff stuff, alchemically transform it to Ninja-Style Alertness, and excrete the rest into your adult diaper.
I always keep a water bottle at hand in dicey driving situations, and psyche myself into thinking that it's washing the excess adrenaline out of my system. I have to make a lot of pit-stops, but concentrating on how much I need to pee distracts me from the death-fear thing.
Why is this whole post about pee?
Dogs pee when they're scared. I guess there's an atavistic pee-anxiety link.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

Aimless & Beth OTM. The problem being that we evolved our emotional responses in response to a way of living we haven't had for thousands of years, us and presumably the animals we've domesticated. I wonder how much damage that'll do to us as a species in the long term.

― THIS IS THE SOUND OF ALTERN 8 !!! (noodle vague), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, another thread of mine braught feepishly back to life! I was having concerns about this VERY issue last nigh too, as I had an exam today! synchronicity!?

― Mike Hanle y (mike), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 04:14 (nineteen years ago)

I think anxiety is somethign nature gave us to help save our asses in the wild , but in today's world it doesnt help us much. it is a prison, like the song...

http://www.mikehanley.net/discography/midnight_mass.html

― Mike Hanle y (mike), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 04:15 (nineteen years ago)

anxiety helps me during exams - optimal level of arousal and all of that. a bit of adrenalin makes me focus. or so i think. seems to work though - i usually get much better marks in exams i feel a bit panicky about.

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 04:19 (nineteen years ago)

I think I need a bit of agitation to do my best work too. usually in the form of a looming deadline.

― turboalbino (haitch), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 06:25 (nineteen years ago)

anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity! (t.s. eliot)

― Peter Densmore (pbnmyj), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 07:14 (nineteen years ago)

Timely revive -- I was talking about this with my therapist today. I expressed constant, relentless anxiety, but also expressed that it was making me work harder. So the question was, "Is it good anxiety or bad anxiety?" This is particularly pertinent since the source of much of my other, more constant anxiety is because I fear I am not working hard enough. Can an anxiety that seems to relieve deeper, more habitual and less productive forms of anxiety be considered "better"? Maybe even "good"? Is white-knuckled fear a valid form of motivation?

I asked my therapist all of these things. She only asked me what *I* thought. Once again, I asked a good question, and she asked a stupid one. I mean, who cares what I think?

Anyway.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 07:54 (nineteen years ago)

when i was a psych undergrad we studied a theory called the yerkes dodson law - a sort of framework for the combination of motivation and anxiety which (if i remember rightly, which i quite possibly do not) posits that individuals have varying optimal levels of arousal - but in all individuals, when the anxiety is above that optimal level - and you are too anxious to get anything done, too low and you are not motivated to do anything. simple common sense perhaps. for me personally, some anxiety seems to have a positive effect. but for others, their optimal level of arousal may be a much lower level of anxiety.

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 08:09 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

bleurgh

― kingfish, Thursday, 30 August 2007 10:41 (seventeen years ago)

testify

― Frogman Henry, Thursday, 30 August 2007 10:48 (seventeen years ago)

that was a rough night. Fortunately, i got me an appt wiht my local doc du jour today, let's see what he can do for me.

― kingfish, Thursday, 30 August 2007 15:43 (seventeen years ago)

ugh

― and what, Thursday, 30 August 2007 15:47 (seventeen years ago)

mmm, klonpin.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 30 August 2007 16:09 (seventeen years ago)

hooray, i got tranqs!

― kingfish, Thursday, 30 August 2007 22:40 (seventeen years ago)

Why must I careen between the inability to give a fuck and constantly shaking my forearms just to get rid of all the "GAH! GAH! OMGWTF! GLAAARGH!" in my system? Wo ist ein Happy Medium?

― Abbott, Thursday, 30 August 2007 22:44 (seventeen years ago)

When I wasn't yet 19 (being in Canada, where the drinking age is 19), and I had damn-near clinical anxiety problems I would get so worked up worrying about getting turned away at the door at parties (even though I was 99% sure it wouldn't happen) that when I did get in I could dance like a machine for hours because of all the adrenaline released.

Bah, cocaine and red bull are for losers, real people just have anxiety attacks before they go out.

― mehlt, Friday, 31 August 2007 16:36 (seventeen years ago)

one month passes...

I'm actually goign to start up sessions to cover my anxiety problems on wednesday. I'm hoping that actually focusing on them as a primary issue will help. My anxiety level still is too high for me to follow the news or any of that shit. Odd thing is that it's the one thing keeping me from a much better life right now. If i didn't have to freak about stupid bullshit, things would flow pretty well.

― kingfish, Monday, 22 October 2007 06:22 (seventeen years ago)

Same here. But I stopped seeing the therapist as he just sort of ignored him despite me repeatedly mentioning it. He also said I shouldn't take any meds cause it would just cause dependency (or at least that I would have to up the level to avoid having attacks). At times I wish I could/would see a therapist to tackle this problem. :-(

Good luck Kingfish!

― stevienixed, Monday, 22 October 2007 06:50 (seventeen years ago)

him-> it. duh

― stevienixed, Monday, 22 October 2007 06:52 (seventeen years ago)

Good luck dudes. I was lying awake last night thinking I need to do something about this now but I'm pretty sure the NHS is some bullshit.

― Noodle Vague, Monday, 22 October 2007 08:20 (seventeen years ago)

i'm actually having a mild attack tonight, for no particular reason. probably just too much c@ff3!n3.

― get bent, Monday, 22 October 2007 08:36 (seventeen years ago)

five months pass...

i'm going with NO

― banriquit, Sunday, 20 April 2008 21:11 (seventeen years ago)

anxiety = energy, which can be used for good if it can be channeled properly, which is the kicker

― deeznuts, Sunday, 20 April 2008 21:18 (seventeen years ago)

dunno bt tht, mate, lol

― czn, Sunday, 20 April 2008 21:19 (seventeen years ago)

xpost

Maybe I should go run round the block 50 times then.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 20 April 2008 21:19 (seventeen years ago)

six years pass...

http://psychology-tools.com/liebowitz-social-anxiety-scale/

― Brian Eno's Mother (Latham Green), Monday, 9 June 2014 16:58 (ten years ago)

I faired porrly on this

― Brian Eno's Mother (Latham Green), Monday, 9 June 2014 16:58 (ten years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.