“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Reinhold Niebuhr

The author of “Healthy Brain, Happy Life” and “Good Anxiety” explains how to harness the power of anxiety into unexpected gifts.

We are living in the age of anxiety. There are about 40 million Americans— or 18% of the population—suffering from clinical anxiety disorders today.

Anxiety is a situation that often makes you feel as if you are locked into an endless cycle of stress, uncertainty, and worry. But, there are ways to leverage your anxiety to help you solve problems and fortify your wellbeing, explains Dr. Wendy Suzuki, PhD, a neuroscientist and professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University. Thus, instead of seeing anxiety strictly as a problem or curse to dread, you recognize it as the unique gift that it is.

Dr. Suzuki has discovered a paradigm-shifting truth about anxiety: yes, it is uncomfortable, but it is also essential for your survival. In fact, anxiety is a key component of your ability to live optimally. Every emotion you experience has an evolutionary purpose, and anxiety is designed to draw your attention to vulnerability. If you simply approach it as something to avoid, get rid of, or dampen, you actually miss an opportunity to improve your life. Listening to your anxieties from a place of curiosity, and without fear or worry, can actually guide you onto a path that leads to inner peace and joy.

Drawing on her own struggles and based on cutting-edge research, Dr. Suzuki has developed strategies for managing unwarranted anxiety and exercises you can do to build your resiliency and mental strength. The exercises include:

Visualize positive outcomes

At the beginning or at the end of each day, think through all those uncertain situations currently in your life — both big and small. Now take each of those and visualize the most optimistic and amazing outcome to the situation. Not just the “okay” outcome, but the best possible one you could imagine.

This process of visualizing “the most optimistic and amazing outcome” should build the muscle of expecting the positive outcome and might even open up ideas for what more you might do to create that outcome of your dreams.

Turn anxiety into progress

Our brain’s plasticity is what enables us to be resilient during challenging times — to learn how to calm down, reassess situations, reframe our thoughts and make smarter decisions.

Reach out

Asking for help, staying connected to friends and family, and actively nurturing supportive, encouraging relationships not only enables you to keep anxiety at bay, but also shores up the sense that you’re not alone.

The belief and feeling that you are surrounded by people who care about you is crucial during times of enormous stress — when you need to fall back on your own resilience in order to persevere and maintain your well-being.

When we are suffering from loss or other forms of distress, it’s natural to withdraw. Yet you also have the power to push yourself into the loving embrace of those who can help take care of you.

Practice positive self-tweeting

Lin-Manual Miranda sends out tweets at the beginning and end of each day. The tweets are essentially upbeat little messages that are funny, singsongy and generally delightful.

If you watch him, you’ll see an inherently resilient, mentally strong and optimistic person.

For you to be that resilient, productive and creative, it’s essential to come up with positive reminders. You don’t necessarily need to share them. The idea is to boost yourself up at the beginning and at the end of the day.

This can be difficult for those who automatically beat themselves up. Instead, think about what your biggest supporter in life — a spouse, partner, sibling, friend, mentor or parent — would tell you, and then tweet, remind or say it to yourself.

Although popular science continues to suggests that persistent, low-level anxiety is detrimental to your health, performance, and wellbeing, but if you could learn how to harness the brain activation underlying your anxiety and make it work for you, you could turn anxiety into superpower, says Dr. Suzuki.

Her research and her own experience demonstrate that this paradigm shift from bad to good anxiety can accelerate focus and productivity, boosts performance, lead to happiness, create compassion, and foster more creativity.

Twenty-five positive quotes and reminders to build resilience:

1. You’re awesome, Bro.
2. You can do all things through Christ which strengthens you!
3. Believe in yourself; have faith in your abilities!
4. Everyday, in every way, you’re getting better and better, dude!
5. “Great minds discuss ideas.” Eleanor Roosevelt
6. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” Robert Collier
7. “Be patient with yourself.” Stephen Covey
8. “People will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
9. “Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the world belongs to you.” Lao Tzu
10. “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” Andrew Carnegie
11. “Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” Denis Waitley
12. “Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Buddha
13. “The secret of health for both mind and body…is to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” Buddha
14. “Happiness…is appreciating what you have.”
15. “We make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill
16. “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty.” Charles Dickens
17. “He is a wise man who rejoices for the things which he has.” Epictetus
18. “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.” Oprah Winfrey
19. “Open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift–today.” Steve Maraboli
20. “This is the day the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it.”
21. “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.” Brené Brown
22. “Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.” T. Harv Eker
23. “Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Christopher Robin
24. “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal.” Thomas Jefferson
25. “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” Theodore Roosevelt

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs–even though checkered by failure–than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt

References:

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/31/do-these-exercises-every-day-to-build-resilience-and-mental-strength-says-neuroscientist.html
2. https://www.wendysuzuki.com
3. https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html