Research has revealed that we’re living in a time with the highest level of anxiety in recent decades, with young people being particularly affected. However, instead of taking this as a total negative, PsychologyToday recently published an article on the topic of how we might regulate our anxiety to actually help us, to take it as a “yellow light instead of a red light.” In small doses, anxiety actually serves as a potential warning, telling us to pay attention. It’s only when we “interpret anxiety as a red light, rather than a yellow light,” that we “undermine its motivation to improve our health, well-being, safety, and relationships.” At this point, it becomes problem anxiety instead of beneficial anxiety. Some characteristics of problem anxiety include thought-racing or thought-looping, in which our anxiety is worsened, sometimes growing beyond our control.

“We must recognize that anxiety is not reality; it’s a signal about possible reality,” writes Dr. Stosny. “Check out the alarm, but don’t mistake it for certainty; the smoke alarm is not the fire. Most of the time, it signals caution, not danger.” He goes onto walk through the ways one might be able to approach their anxiety as a yellow light, rather than a red one. These steps include slowing down, thinking through probabilities, and trying to come up with answers to our own questions. Anxiety is hard to deal with, that’s for sure. But it may just be easier for us to deal with it if, instead of running away from it, we try to understand it.

Read the article here.