This is one of the most interesting things I’ve heard recently:
Nervousness is a normal, natural, healthy response to situations that are new, frightening, difficult, exciting, and potentially dangerous.
Anxiety is the unnatural, unhealthy response to situations that would not typically produce a similar response in others.
The problem is that so many people equate nervousness to anxiety, thus assigning a pathology to a reaction that is completely healthy and normal.
For example, public speaking makes most people nervous. In surveys about fears, public speaking often ranks above death as the most frightening possibility that a person can imagine. Yet I have heard many, many people tell me that even the thought of speaking in front of others causes them great anxiety.
My response has always been this:
You’re not special. Public speaking makes almost everyone nervous. Just thinking about standing on a stage in front of other human beings makes most people nervous. Some people simply choose to exit their comfort zone and do something exceptionally difficult and legitimately terrifying.
It’s not anxiety. It’s just nervousness. An ordinary, expected reaction to something that frightens almost everyone.
And since I’ve managed to convince hundreds of people who absolutely refused to take the stage to ultimately stand before others and share their truth, this message seems to work.
You’re not anxious. You’re normal.
A friend tells me that she can’t drive into New York City because of her anxiety. The complexity of the route, the traffic, and the distance make her too anxious to manage the drive alone.
Maybe my friend suffers from anxiety, but more than likely, she’s just nervous about driving into a new and complicated city filled with impatient and aggressive drivers and unexpected one-way streets.
Many people feel nervous about driving into a city like New York, especially if they don’t do so on a regular basis. It’s only natural to feel this way.
It’s normal.
I have yet to convince her of this truth, but I continue to hammer away at her defenses whenever I get the chance.
The point that the therapist was making is that we have a tendency to perceive something as normal and expected as nervousness into the more chronic, debilitating problem of anxiety, sometimes seeking help and medication to mitigate a problem that doesn’t really exist.
Even worse, when we label our nervousness as anxiety, it becomes harder to overcome and easier to assume that it can’t be overcome.
This is not to say that anxiety is not a real thing, nor am I implying that public speaking or driving can’t produce anxiety in some people. Anxiety is a real thing, and it’s an enormous struggle for many people.
I know this.
But this idea that people often perceive nervousness as anxiety feels right to me, too.
Then again, what the hell do I know? Other than legitimately frightening moments like Charlie swallowing a marble or our cat requiring CPR in order to return from the dead, few things ever make me nervous. I also have a strong inclination towards optimism and a tendency to minimize the perception, impact, and severity of most problems, which might not be so healthy, either.
I simply compare the problems of today with the problems of my past, and they almost never measure up.
Homelessness, jail, and armed robbery are hard to beat.
I’m also constantly telling myself:
“This problem, which might seem enormous and overwhelming at the moment, will be utterly irrelevant tomorrow or next week or next month, so keep that in mind and treat this problem like it’s something that will be ultimately irrelevant. Solve it, but don’t sweat it.”
Perhaps this isn’t so healthy, either. I know for sure that it annoys many people when I’m dumb enough to say this aloud.
Perhaps this whole nervousness versus anxiety idea is little more than confirmation bias. A theory that conveniently aligns to my personal belief system.
Still, I like it.
