If you're anxious and you know it, clap your hands
The New York Times had a fascinating article in the weekend magazine about anxiety. According to research, children who are naturally anxious and afraid of new things as babies commonly grow up to be anxious adults. Many of these adults are social, stable, and high-functioning, but deep inside they see themselves as little more than a mass of nerves. Anxiety can increase to the point of becoming a debilitating clinical disorder.
According to the article, severe anxiety is often correlated with hyperreactivity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes perceptions of novelty and threat. As a result, chronic anxiety is becoming recognized as at least partially an inherent, inborn trait, albeit one whose effects can best be mitigated by early intervention and treatment.
Personally, I don't know my amygdala from a hole in the ground. I do know that I have a mild but definite tendency towards anxiety, though, and there have been one or two brief periods in my life where it threatened to become debilitating. The best way I know to manage it is to reach out and take ownership of whatever's freaking me out. I suspect that's one reason that I'm a martinet about personal finance and minimizing my exposure to bad financial situations: If I'm adequately prepared, there's a whole lot less to worry about if something bad (like a layoff in the next couple of months) actually happens.
Do you think of yourself as naturally anxious? How has your natural anxiety (or lack of anxiety) influenced how you manage your money?
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8 retorts:
Read that article the other day and though it was interesting.
I'm definitely "a worrier", as has my father been all his life, and have resigned myself to the fact that ain't changing. Like people in the article I'm well aware of this shortcoming, but I still regularly do the awake-all-night-fixating-on-one-thing routine, have broken things in frustration, etc. It's a constant battle. What I find helps is being married to a totally easygoing guy, who balances out my occasional insanity and calms me down when necessary. Interestingly, my dad is married to a similar happy go lucky personality.
However ..... while work, home ownership, family, social life and beyond can get me totally worked up, I never (or very rarely) worry about money. Investments going down, retirement account balances, income, blah blah, these have never been issues for me. I've been naturally good with cash since day one but beyond that have no idea why, but I'll take it.
Yes, I am anxious about things that I could control in theory but am not currently in control of and need to make decisions about. Which is the main reason I ended up being hopeless at trading. I don't worry about things beyond my control though. I'm pretty laid back about that stuff in life.
I am definitely a naturally anxious person. In grad school I went to the doctor convinced that I had asthma. I would get these bouts of not being able to breathe, to the point that I would get light headed and dizzy and have to pull over/stop whatever I was doing and concentrate on deep breathing until my breathing would normalize. I described my symptoms to the doctor at student health in extreme detail, and as she was nodding her head I knew I was walking out of there with a prescription for an inhaler.
Wrong! I was having mild panic attacks. The doctor told me that if I was able to talk myself down on my own I probably didn't need to be medicated, but that I should monitor the frequency of the attacks and if they started to become daily occurrences I should come back. I still get them sometimes, even if I feel like I'm handling my stress really well. They just creep up and take hold of my chest for about 10 minutes, and sometimes it's excruciating. I've been told since that initial appointment that these types of anxiety attacks are really common, but it still makes me feel like I have a few screws loose.
So yes, I would say that I am a naturally anxious person :)
We could go with the 2 kinds of people argument. People who worry and people who don't. Not sure if it includes a high level of anxiousness. I think that is an extreme.
Some people are oblivious to things they should be aware of. Things that can hurt them, things that could be coming their way, that are mostly avoidable or can be mitigated. Like a major stock correction. A hurricane. H1N1. A friend that lied to you before. Some people just get surprised by stuff like that and it seems to me they are just a little too tolerant and easy going.
Others worry. They don't get surprised by the obvious. They run all the scenarios in their analytical minds and try to prevent things from going wrong. If you don't have these people in charge of new programs, developing plans, you're going to have unnecessary failures.
Because this is all natural, I'm guessing we need both kinds of people to make the world go 'round. It's the extremes that need to be treated; either of them could be harmful to your life.
I'm a major stress puppy (as I once heard it so charmingly referred to!).
I think my generally high levels of anxiety have greatly assisted my money management skills. It's an area of my life that I feel I can control, and so I do, and very carefully too.
Being well in control of my finances gives me a lot of comfort and I really can't imagine how I'd be if I had a large mortgage or credit card debt - the thought of it alone makes me feel a bit panicky and tight in the chest.
I'm definitely a worrier. I think that part of it comes from too much being outside of my control. As someone with a chronic health condition, my ability to earn is limited. And my husband's chronic health issues (we match!) create a lot of unexpected expenses - many of which we can't prepare for.
I think that a large part of the anxiety does come from those particular situations. But I've always been a high-stress individual. I didn't develop the right coping techniques early on. So my guess is that at least half of my anxiety problems are situational rather than biological.
In my case, I find one of two things helps:
1. As the anxiety mounts, I sit down and make a list of things that need to get done. (Or, if it's finance related - and it usually is - I draw up a budget.) This leaves me with some feeling of control. If I simply do this and this, things will be okay. It is purely psychological, of course, and life inevitably intervenes, making the whole exercise kind of futile, but it helps nonetheless.
2. I realize just how much crap in life is out of my control. I recognize - even if I have to say it out loud - that there is little to nothing that I can do to effect change on the situation. Our health is what it is. Our limited earning probably won't change. And then I work on accepting my powerlessness in that situation. It's incredibly hard to do, since I'm a total control freak. But there is something freeing about realizing that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot do anything and, therefore, you don't have to take responsibility for it. You still have to react, of course, and cope. But that if it's truly out of your hands, no one will reprimand you for letting it happen. No one will blame you for it. It's simply how things turn out, and that has no bearing on you as a person. Realizing all that can be a huge weight off your shoulders.
I'm obsessively fussy about some things, so I'm partially wired for anxiety. My mom has completely flipped the switch from being non-anxious to anxious to a power of ten, so I wonder if it's a latent thing in our family.
Haven't quite gotten a handle on dismissing the anxiety beyond working it out or walking/running it off.
Guiness416 - Glad to hear that you've found balance. I have been in worry overdrive all week and it's exhausting. Unfortunately, my SO is in the same situation and all we're doing is making it worse for each other.
Moom - It's good that you recognized the impact of your worrier characteristic on your ability to be a trader. I think mine would make me bad at being self-employed in general, as enticing as it sounds for other reasons.
TeacHer - I'm sorry to hear about the panic attacks. I've had one or two of them in my life and they are awful. I'm glad you have techniques to help control them.
Gord - Wasn't it Ben Franklin who advocated moderation in all things? I think that's good advice. As far as pandemics go, however, that's something I don't worry about. My respiratory system is so weak that I'd be dead in the first wave. Not having to worry about surviving a pandemic because I know I won't is oddly comforting.
Penny - Agreed, I have thought about upgrading to a larger apartment many times, but I couldn't bring myself to go into mortgage debt again for it. Good for you for channeling your worries in a productive direction.
Abigail - Aren't lists awesome?? I absolutely rely on them. They are so calming.
Revanche - The worries about losing my job have led to a truly excellent marathon training season. I highly recommend running as an outlet.
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