Why We Worry Our Lives Away, and How to Stop
Constant worry is time-consuming and it weighs us down. Here’s how to break free.
Worrywarts like me are very good at making life hard for ourselves. We worry about anything and everything. Small stuff. Big stuff. All the things that might never happen. We worry our lives away.
It can become a habit. A whole way of thinking.
Cognitive behavioral therapists call it “catastrophizing.” Sartre called it “existential dread.”
And the psychologist Jeffrey Gray called it the “Behavioral Inhibition System,” or BIS for short. It is a neurological network that makes us focus on danger and risk, and it motivates us to avoid all the things that might threaten us.
Its corollary is the “Behavioral Activation System” (BAS). That’s the network that seeks out adventure and opportunity. It motivates us to have fun and to get things done.
But BIS and BAS work in an inverse relationship. Only one can be active at any given time, and we tend to favor one over the other.
How to achieve BIS/BAS balance
Finding some sort of hypothetical sweet spot between an inhibited existence and an adventurous one is easier said than done.
