🎙️ Office Hours with Arthur Brooks: 2 Proven Strategies (and 1 Big Mistake) for Dealing with Anxiety

Brooks' metacognitive technique for transforming unfocused fear into manageable, episodic fear:

• Identify Five Anxieties: Write down specific sources of anxiety in order of trouble
• Define Scenarios: For each anxiety, outline best case, worst case, and most likely scenarios
• Assign Probabilities: Estimate the likelihood of each scenario occurring
• Develop Strategies: Create action plans for each scenario, especially the worst case
• Review Regularly: Consult the journal whenever anxieties resurface, building confidence through preparation "Write down your worst fear. Write down your paranoid fantasy, what actually it is, or maybe put it in your phone, but password protect the file if you do. Define the actual source of your fear."

Brooks explains how avoidance strategies for both physical and emotional pain backfire:

• Fear of Feelings: People are often more afraid of how they'll feel than the actual event
• Hypervigilance: Attempts to eliminate pain lead to increased focus on discomfort
• Disuse Cycle: Avoidance behaviors worsen the original problem (e.g., not moving with back pain)
• Elimination Paradox: Efforts to eliminate pain often create more suffering (opioid crisis example) "When people try to eliminate their back pain because they're afraid of feeling this back pain, what they tend to do is they get into a pattern of disuse and that worsens the discomfort."

Brooks' framework for understanding how happiness and unhappiness can coexist:

• Negative Emotion Prevalence: Negative emotions are more intense and attention-grabbing than positive ones
• Survival Function: This negativity bias evolved because negative emotions save lives while positive emotions are merely "nice to have"
• Conscious Amplification: Positive emotions must be consciously cultivated to balance natural negativity
• Gratitude Practice: Actively listing things you're grateful for enhances positive emotions crowded out by negativity "Negative emotions, they capture your attention a lot more than positive emotions. So the feelings associated with unhappiness are a lot more intense."

Brooks' approach to transforming anxiety from threat to opportunity:

• Adrenaline Reinterpretation: Recognize that the physiological response to anxiety (adrenaline) is the same as excitement
• Performance Enhancement: View anxiety as fuel for high performance rather than a barrier
• Adventure Mindset: Following Kierkegaard's view of anxiety as "an adventure which every man has to affront"
• Growth Opportunity: See anxious situations as chances to learn and develop resilience "High performance people, they tend to be very anxious and that they use their anxiety as a fuel for their high performance."

Brooks' adaptation of Buddhist philosophy for understanding suffering:

• Suffering = Resistance × Pain: The amount of suffering increases with resistance to pain
• Acceptance Principle: Accepting distress as painful but not catastrophic reduces suffering
• Mindfulness Application: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) teaches acceptance of distress
• Commitment Component: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on living a valued life despite pain "Suffering will go up with pain, of course, but even more, it'll go up with resistance. The more you resist the suffering, the higher the suffering is actually going to become."

Brooks provides a crucial distinction between fear and anxiety that helps reframe our understanding of anxiety. Fear is an intense, episodic response to a clear threat that evolved to protect us, while anxiety is a chronic, mild, unfocused version of fear that has become maladapted in our modern environment. This insight explains why anxiety feels so uncomfortable yet doesn't trigger the same clear action response as fear. It's our threat detection system running constantly without a specific target.

Brooks presents alarming data showing that anxiety rates have doubled from 2008 to 2018, with young adults (18-25) being particularly affected, rising from about 7.5% to 15% of the population. During the pandemic, rates increased by another third to over 20%, with no subsequent decline. These statistics reveal anxiety as a growing public health crisis that requires attention beyond individual treatment.

Brooks highlights the strong correlation between social media use and anxiety, particularly among girls and women who engage in more social comparison. With the average American teenager spending 5 hours daily on social media and checking devices 205 times per day, these platforms function as "stress machines" that maintain a chronic state of unfocused fear, contributing significantly to the anxiety epidemic.

Brooks challenges the common approach of trying to eliminate anxiety, explaining how this "eliminationist philosophy" backfires. Just as attempts to eliminate physical pain led to the opioid crisis, efforts to eliminate mental pain often exacerbate the problem. He cites research showing that when people are instructed to suppress anxious behaviors, their anxiety actually increases.

Brooks emphasizes the importance of metacognition: using our prefrontal cortex to manage our emotions rather than letting emotions manage us. Techniques like the Anxiety Journal work because they engage our rational executive functions to process and organize the unfocused fears that characterize anxiety, transforming them into manageable concerns with clear action plans.

Contrary to viewing anxiety as purely detrimental, Brooks presents research showing that high performers often experience significant anxiety but have learned to use it as fuel. By reframing anxiety as excitement or adventure, the same physiological response (adrenaline) that causes discomfort can enhance performance and focus, turning a perceived weakness into a strength.

Brooks identifies a cultural philosophy of "if it feels bad, make it stop" that he calls the "summer of fear", the opposite of the 1960s "if it feels good, do it" mentality. This cultural shift has created an expectation that negative emotions should be eliminated rather than accepted and worked through, contributing to the anxiety epidemic by pathologizing normal emotional experiences.

Brooks shares the Buddhist equation that suffering equals resistance multiplied by pain. This insight reveals that our resistance to uncomfortable emotions often causes more suffering than the emotions themselves. By accepting anxiety as a normal part of the human experience rather than something to be eliminated, we can reduce the additional suffering caused by resistance.

Drawing on William James' distinction, Brooks explains how shifting focus from the "me self" (looking inward at oneself) to the "eye self" (looking outward at others) can provide relief from anxiety. This insight highlights the therapeutic value of service and connection: focusing on helping others rather than ruminating on personal worries.

Brooks addresses the misconception that happiness requires the absence of negative emotions. He explains that happiness and unhappiness can and do coexist, with negative emotions naturally capturing more attention due to their survival function. By consciously cultivating positive emotions through practices like gratitude, we can balance our natural negativity bias without expecting to eliminate negative feelings entirely.

Transform unfocused anxiety into manageable fear through structured reflection:

• Set aside quiet time to identify and write down five specific sources of anxiety
• For each anxiety, outline best case, worst case, and most likely scenarios
• Assign realistic probabilities to each scenario
• Develop concrete strategies for each scenario, especially the worst case
• Review and update the journal regularly as new information or anxieties arise

Develop comfort with uncomfortable emotions rather than trying to eliminate them:

• Practice Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) techniques
• Learn to observe anxious thoughts without judgment or immediate reaction
• Accept anxiety as a normal human experience rather than a sign of brokenness
• Use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to focus on valued living despite anxiety

Transform the physical sensations of anxiety into performance-enhancing fuel:

• When feeling anxious, label the sensation as "excitement" or "energy" rather than "anxiety"
• Ask yourself: "How can I use this energy to perform better?"
• View challenging situations as adventures or growth opportunities
• Practice this reframing regularly to build new neural pathways

Actively balance the brain's natural tendency to focus on negative information:

• Keep a daily gratitude list, especially when feeling particularly anxious
• Write down specific things you appreciate, even small ones
• Share gratitude with others to amplify its effects
• Make gratitude a regular practice rather than a reactive one

Move from the "me self" to the "eye self" to reduce anxiety:

• Engage in regular acts of service or volunteering
• Practice active listening and focus on others' needs
• Limit rumination by scheduling "worry time" and redirecting attention outward
• Build connections through meaningful contribution to others' well-being

Reduce the "stress machine" effect of social platforms:

• Track and limit daily social media time (aim for less than the 5-hour average)
• Reduce device checking frequency (well below the 205 times daily average)
• Curate feeds to minimize social comparison and triggering content
• Practice regular digital detoxes, especially during anxious periods

Strengthen the prefrontal cortex's ability to manage emotional responses:

• Practice observing your thoughts and emotions without immediately reacting
• Use meditation or mindfulness exercises to build cognitive control
• Regularly check in with your emotional state throughout the day
• Develop a vocabulary to accurately identify and describe different emotional experiences