IAA 39: I'm Anxious About the Future

While it may seem a bit obvious to have anxiety about the future, Chris and Allison dive into why exactly the future can be so scary to people with anxiety.

 

From overreacting and spiraling out about a hypothetical future scenario that will likely never come to pass to the temptation of "positive anxiety" in the form of perfectionist tendencies and future fantasies that end up eliciting shame when your perfect future never comes to pass, there are lots of different ways our lack of control over the future messes with our minds. We dive into just a few of those ways and try to share some tips about how we manage our relationship to and expectations of the future.

 

We reference two articles: "Anticipatory Anxiety" on Healthline and "Four Tips To Help You Feel Less Anxious About The Future" on Fast Company.

 

Allison also discusses the book "The Antidote" by Oliver Burkeman, and Chris lets rip approximately 393 references to the fact that he's read the entirety of Stoic philosophy. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends or join us at We're Anxious About, our  Facebook community for listeners. Theme music: "I'm Not Nervous" by Square People, used under a CC BY 3.0 license, via the Free Music Archive