Smart People are Often Highly Anxious People

It's True. Your Big Juicy Brain is an Anxious Brain.

That big juicy frontal lobe of yours isn't only good at problem solving and coming up with great solutions. It's prone to spinning out problems to worry about, as well. In fact, your bright brain is bomb at coming up with problems to noodle through. It's what it does best. And there we have it. The birth of anxious, ruminating, catastrophic thought. Bright brains are anxious brains. Kinda sucks, right?

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Smart People Think They Can Out Think Their Anxiety.

Sometimes smart people are used to having all the answers. It comes with the territory. As a result, smart people, who are used to solving other people's problems, will feel like they should be able to solve all their own problems by themselves. Or worse yet, they feel they shouldn't have problems in the first place.

"I'm too smart to feel this way."
"I shouldn't feel this way."
"I have no reason to feel anxious. It doesn't make sense."
"I should be able to solve this!"

I hear it every day. Every day I hear how Anxious Folk are too smart to be anxious and it shouldn't be happening and if it is happening then they should be able to make it stop on their own. Push through. Master it. Think their way out of it. Bring the anxiety to heel through the application of logic.

The Thing Is, Your Anxiety Isn't Logical.

If your anxiety were logical and responded to the application of logic as a solution, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. That's the whole problem with anxiety. You can't typically just puzzle your way out of it or out maneuver anxiety. No, it's not so simple as talking yourself out of an anxious thought. Why?

All Your Anxious Thoughts Have a Seed of Potential Truth in Them. Or They Certainly Feel That Way.

For one thing, your anxious thoughts will appear to have the seed of potential truth buried in them. In any event, your anxious thoughts, even your worst ones, will feel true. Focusing your bright, sensitive mind on making a thought stop will almost always increase your sense of anxiety. Your considerable will power is not going to help you out in this case.

The Smarter You Are, The Smarter Your Anxiety Is. Go Figure.

As an intelligent person with a habit of solving things through the application of facts and diligence, anxiety can prove tricky. It will evade your efforts every time. Your big brain can actually get in the way of effectively subduing your anxiety. In part, this is because of your high value on solving it alone. For a lot of anxious folks the reliance on the mind can trip you up when it seems to be the mind that is causing your issue. Your intelligence will function as your biggest help-refusing, "I know" defense mechanism, insulating you from the new and ultimately from the very tools you could learn to use most effectively. Anxiety is not just a mental or emotional experience, but a very physical one as well. Dancing with anxiety requires you to learn how to engage your body as your ally and approach life in a new way.

Deepening Your Mind Body Connection Can Provide The Solutions You Are Seeking.

For more than a decade, my clinical focus has been on supporting highly anxious adults in the journey of reclaiming their lives and well-being when anxiety has begun to run amok. The approach that has served best has been a combination of learning how to respond to anxious thoughts while discovering a way to lower the level of anxiety and high activation in the nervous system.

It takes work. And some coaching. And a willingness to work through the discomfort of your over-functioning anxious mind and your anxious, driven nervous system.

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Anxiety Is Not Logical.

Anxiety is best managed when we stop trying to control everything: ourselves, others, our misbehaving anxious mind, our stressed out bodies. When you stop trying to force a particular shape of experience on yourself and your body by trying to relax, for example, you have taken a huge step towards learning to be more at ease overall. By stepping out of the habit of control you are stepping deeper into well-being.

Not logical at all, right?