translator: denise rqreviewer: robert deliman imagine that you're getting readyto go to a party. you feel excited, but also nervous, and you've got this feelingin your stomach almost like another heartbeat. there's something holding you back,holding you back from getting too happy. "no, you mustn't get too happy. better to be cautious, otherwise,something bad might happen." you start wondering,"who should i talk to when i get there?
what if no one wants to talk to me?what if they'll think i'm weird?" when you arrive at the party, someone comes up to youand starts talking with you, and as this is happening, your mind starts racing,your heart begins pounding, you start sweating, and it feels almost likeyou're dissociating from yourself, like it's an out-of-body experience,and you're just watching yourself talk. "keep it together," you sayto yourself, but you can't.
and it's just getting worse: after a few minutes of conversation, the personyou've been speaking to leaves, and you feel utterly defeated. this has been happening to youin social situations for a long time. or imagine every time you go out,and you're in crowded places, you feel this panic starting to arise. when you're surrounded by lots of people, like on a bus, you startto feel hot, nauseous, uneasy,
and to prevent this from happening, you start avoiding a lot of placeswhich makes you feel lonely and isolated. you or the personin both of these scenarios have anxiety disorders, and what i can tell youis that anxiety is very common, much more than people think. right now, one in 14 peoplearound the world have an anxiety disorder, and each year, it costsover 42 billion dollars
to treat this mental health problem. to show you the impactthat anxiety has on someone's life, i will just mention that anxiety can lead to depression,school dropout, suicide. it makes it harder to focus,and to hold down a job, and it can leadto relationship breakdown. but a lot of people don't know this, that's why, a lot of times,people sweep anxiety under the rug as just nerves that you needto get over, as a weakness,
but anxiety is so much more than that. a reason why so many peopledon't think it's important is that they don't know what it is. is it your personality? is it an illness?is it a normal sensation? what is? that's why it's importantto differentiate what is normal anxietyfrom what is an anxiety disorder. normal anxiety isan emotion that we all get when we're in stressful situations. for example, let's say,you're out in the woods,
and you come face-to-face with a bear. this will probably make you feela little bit anxious, and you'll probably wantto start running like crazy. this anxious feeling that you get is goodbecause it protects you, it saves you, and it makes youon a hightail it out of there, although maybe it's not such a good ideato start running when you see a bear. i really don't thinkyou can outrun a bear. anxiety helps us meetour deadlines at work and deal with emergencies in life,
but when this anxiety emotionis taken to the extreme and arises in situationswhich don't pose a real threat, then that's when you might havean anxiety disorder. for example, peoplewith generalized anxiety disorder worry excessively and constantlyabout everything going on in their lives, and they find it very difficultto control this worry. they also have symptomslike restlessness, fear, they find it hard to fall asleep at night,and they can't concentrate on tasks. in spite of whatever kind of anxietyyou might be suffering from,
there is somethingthat you can do to lower it. it works, and it's simplerthan you may think. all too often, we're givenmedication for mental disorders, but it doesn't always workin the long run. symptoms often come back,and you're back to where you started. so here's something else to consider: the way you cope or handle thingshas a direct impact on how much anxiety you're experiencing, and if you tweak the way you're coping,then you can lower your anxiety.
in our studyat the university of cambridge, we showed that women living in poor areas have a higher risk for anxietythan women living in richer areas. these results didn't surprise us,but when we looked closer, we found that women living in poor areas, if they had a particular setof coping resources, they didn't have anxiety, while women living in poor areaswithout these coping resources had anxiety.
other studies showed that people who had facedextreme circumstances, who had faced adversity, beenthrough wars and natural disasters, if they had coping resources, they remained healthyand free of mental disorders, while others, facing the same hardshipsbut without coping skills went on a downward spiraland developed mental disorders. so what aresome of these coping resources, and how can we use themto lower our anxiety?
and before i dive into what they are, i'd like to point out -and i think this is so interesting - you can develop these coping resourcesor coping skills on your own through the things that you do; you can take chargeof your anxiety and lower it, which i think is so empowering. today i'll be talking aboutthree coping resources, and the first one is feeling likeyou're in control of your life. people who feel like they'remore in control of their life
have better mental health. if you feel likeyou're lacking in control in life, then research shows that you should engage in experiencesthat give you greater control. i'll show you what i mean: do you sometimes find that you put offstarting something because you just don't feel ready enough? do you find it hard to make decisions like what to wear, what to eatwho to date, which job to take up?
do you tend to waste a lot of time deciding what you might dowhile nothing gets done? a way to overcome indecisionand this lack of control in life, is to do it badly. there's a quote by writerand poet gk chesterton that says, "anything worth doingis worth doing badly the first time." the reason why this works so well is that it speeds up your decision-makingand catapults you straight into action, otherwise, you can spend hours
deciding how you should goabout doing something or what you should do. this can be paralyzing and can makeyou afraid to even begin. all too often, we aim for perfection,but never end up doing anything because the standardsthat we set for ourselves are too high, they're intimidating, which stresses us outso we delay starting something, or we might even abandonthe whole thing altogether. do it badly frees you up to take action.
i mean you know how it is: so often, we want to dosomething perfectly we can't start until it's the perfect time,until we've got all the skills, but this can be daunting and stressful so why not just jump into itjust do it however, without worrying if it's good or bad? this will make it that much easierto start something and as you're doing it badly to finish it, and when you look back,
you'll realize, more often than not,that actually it's not that bad. a close friend of mine who has anxiety started using this motto,and this is what she said, "when i started using this motto,my life transformed. i found i could complete tasksin much shorter time periods than before. do it badly gave me wings to take risks,to try something differently, and to have way more funduring the whole process. it took the anxiety out of everythingand replaced it with excitement." so do it badly, and you can improveas you go along.
i'd like to ask you to think about this: if you start using this motto today,how would your life change? the second coping strategyis to forgive yourself, and this is very powerful if you use it. people with anxiety think a lot about what they're doing wrong, their worries,and how bad they're feeling. imagine if you had a friendwho constantly pointed out everything you're doing wrong, and everythingthat was wrong with your life.
you would probably want to get rid of this personright away, wouldn't you? well, people with anxietydo this to themselves all day long. they're not kind to themselves. so maybe it's time to startbeing kinder with ourselves, time to start supporting ourselves, and a way to do thisis to forgive yourself for any mistakes you think you might have madejust a few moments ago
to mistakes made in the past. if you had a panic attackand are embarrassed about it, forgive yourself; if you wanted to talk to someone, but couldn't muster upthe courage to do so, don't worry about it, let it go; forgive yourselffor anything and everything and this will give yougreater compassion towards yourself. you can't begin to heal until you do this.
and last but not least, having a purpose and meaning in life is a very important coping mechanism. whatever we do in life,whatever work we produce, however much money we make, we cannot be fully happy until we knowthat someone else needs us, that someone else depends onour accomplishments, or on the love that we have to share. it's not that we need
other people's good wordsto keep going in life, but if we don't do somethingwith someone else in mind, then we're at much higher riskfor poor mental health. the famous neurologistdr. victor frankel said, "for people who thinkthere's nothing to live for and nothing more to expect from life, the question is gettingthese people to realize that life is still expectingsomething from them." doing something with someone else in mindcan carry you through the toughest times.
you'll know the why for your existence and will be able to bearalmost any how; almost any how. so the question is do you do at least one thingwith someone else in mind? this could be volunteering, or it could be sharing this knowledgethat you gained today with other people, especially those who need it most, and these are often the peoplewho don't have money for therapy, and they're usually the ones
with the highest ratesof anxiety disorders. give it to them, share with others, because it can really improveyour mental health. so i would like to conclude with this: another way you can do somethingwith someone else in mind is finishing work that might benefitfuture generations. even if these people will never realizewhat you've done for them, it doesn't matter, because you will know,and this will make you realize
the uniquenessand importance of your life. thank you. (applause)
