It¡¯s not productive. It¡¯s not attractive. But many women are plagued by worry. How to stop losing sleep and start gaining serenity.
You know what I find incredibly stressful? People who tell me to relax. Also, people who tell me the key to relaxation is getting more sleep. Hi¡ªscrew you! You relax! Have you checked your 401(k) lately? Yeah¡­sweet dreams! OK. Maybe there¡¯s a reason Allure asked me to write this article.
Here was my thought last week as I boarded a plane to Los Angeles: A flock of geese is going to smash into this plane. I know it. My other arena for unproductive worry involves my health. I am of the opinion that most indigestion heralds stomach cancer and that my inability to remember people¡¯s names is nascent Alzheimer¡¯s. This might be worth the fretting if it got me to a doctor. Instead, I haven¡¯t darkened a waiting room in seven years. (I mean, the waiting room of a real doctor. I¡¯m guessing plastic surgeons don¡¯t count.)
My father is in the hospital with a broken hip. My mother is also incapacitated. I¡¯m an only child. Did I mention stress? Last year the American Psychological Association polled about 1,500 adults, and nearly half¡ª42 percent¡ªsaid their stress levels had increased in the past year. Forty-seven percent reported losing sleep recently as a result. An earlier survey found that women tend to feel angst more than men do, with more than half reporting side effects such as fatigue, headaches, depression, and irritability. Many of us cope by smoking, drinking, and eating more (¡°Carbs, carbs, and more carbs,¡± as one friend told me). And these bodily assaults take their toll. In fact, stress may actually make us more wrinkled, a study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery suggests. So is there anything we can do, short of upping our Xanax consumption? (Please don¡¯t talk to me about lighting candles and taking a bath. First, I hate baths. Second, let me just say, there¡¯s nothing less relaxing than lying back in a bathtub and setting one¡¯s hair on fire.)
Born to Fret
It¡¯s small consolation when you¡¯re wide awake at 3 a.m., convinced you¡¯ll never have a boyfriend or a job again¡ªbut worry is critical to human civilization. It helps us avoid basic threats (hurricanes, mastodons, Scientologists) while planning ahead. Our successful forebears ¡°were the ones who saved food and fuel for the winter, or didn¡¯t anger the wrong person who could kill them,¡± notes Robert L. Leahy, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York City and author of Anxiety Free (Hay House). Animals, he points out, don¡¯t have the capacity to worry about anything that might happen more than 30 seconds from now. ¡°Consider the cat,¡± he says. ¡°No cat has ever wondered, Did I offend that other cat? or Is my cat ass getting fat?¡± Researchers at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, have identified a tiny region of the brain¡¯s limbic system, the anterior insula, that plays a key role in our gut response to danger, helping us predict harm and avoid it. In their study, 23 people played a financial game while undergoing a brain scan of this area. The subjects with more anterior-insula activity did better at the game and at learning to avoid financial losses. Those with low activity in this region were more careless and lost more money. (And presumably left the lab and went on to get subprime mortgages.) Follow-up research might one day lead to treatments for those whose danger radars are unduly high or low. There is both an environmental and a genetic component to anxiety, notes Golda Ginsburg, associate professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. Compared with people whose parents haven¡¯t been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, the children of clinically anxious parents are up to seven times more likely to develop an anxiety disorder themselves, she points out. ¡°Studies on anxiety and twins raised separately show that perhaps 30 percent of a person¡¯s tendency to worry is genetically based,¡± Ginsburg says. The other 70 percent, she says, is because your family makes you nuts. (OK, she didn¡¯t say that. But she could have.)
Don¡¯t Worry, Be Happy! Yeah, Right.
Is it truly possible to stop worrying and start living? Not entirely. Indeed, a certain degree of worry is necessary; without it, we¡¯d all be lounging in bed eating Gummi Bears and watching Dr. Phil reruns. So if you¡¯re worrying about meeting deadlines, pleasing a boss, or buying plane tickets a month ahead of time so you can get on a particular flight, that¡¯s productive worry, because these are life issues you can ostensibly control. Productive worry can help us avert misfortune and disappointment. Experts advise practicing a kind of worry triage, to separate the things you can control from the things you can¡¯t. ¡°People who are worriers equate uncertainty with a negative outcome,¡± Leahy says. ¡°And they think that worrying itself will somehow make them avoid something bad happening.¡± Worrying about things entirely out of your control is, in other words, a form of magical thinking. It goes something like this: If I concentrate hard enough on the geese, my flight will not end in an explosion of feathers. Worry is a form of introspection, and guess what? The introspective are not the happiest people, says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, and author of The How of Happiness (Penguin Press). ¡°Many people think that when worried, we should try to focus inwardly, questioning our feelings and motivations in any given situation,¡± Lyubomirsky says. In fact, years of research show just the opposite is true. ¡°Overthinking can make sadness worse, interfere with concentration, bias thoughts toward the negative, and impair our ability to take action,¡± she says. Worriers tend to think that their thoughts steel them for disaster, when in reality worry exhausts us and does nothing to make us better able to cope when disaster does strike. Far better, experts say, is to take the negative thoughts in the mind and consciously counter them with positive or neutral alternatives¡ªones that give the thinker a modicum of control. For example, not useful: ¡°I am going to die!¡± Useful: ¡°Well, I know I¡¯ll die someday, but what am I going to do between now and then?¡± Changing your habitual thoughts, as we know, is no easy task. Fortunately, there are many other small but concrete steps you can take to increase your sense of well-being in tough times.
Beware the cake.
Get this: Comfort food may not be so comforting. True, studies show that carbohydrates produce a temporary mellowing effect. But researchers have found that stress in mice causes their levels of ghrelin, the so-called hunger hormone, to rise¡ª and mice that are calorically restricted so they stay hungry seem to show less depression than mice who have free access to food. (Which raises the question of how one judges depression in mice¡­do they start watching reruns of Sex and the City? But I digress.) So in mice, at least, hunger, as opposed to eating, reduces depression, says researcher Jeffrey Zigman, an endocrinologist and assistant professor of internal medicine and psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. ¡°Our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed to be as calm and collected as possible when venturing out in search of food, or risk becoming dinner themselves,¡± he says. ¡°The anti-anxiety effects of hunger-induced ghrelin may have provided a survival advantage.¡± Fasting briefly, causing ghrelin levels to rise, might minimize depression and anxiety, he speculates. This theory must be tested in humans, but there seems to be anecdotal support for it. I know I find it hard to eat when anxious¡ªand I invariably feel, if not wildly upbeat, sharper and more able to cope. And I don¡¯t think it¡¯s just because I¡¯m thinking, Hey, I might drop five here.
Sweat.
It¡¯s kind of annoying, really: Is there anything exercise doesn¡¯t help? Vigorous aerobic conditioning has long been known to ease stress¡ªbut a brisk walk does, too. A psychiatrist in Berlin asked some study subjects to walk on a treadmill for 30 minutes and others to rest in bed. Then he injected them with CCK-4, a compound that induces anxiety. The resters had twice the rate of panic attacks as those who had walked. Rats who exercise regularly are more relaxed under pressure than sedentary rats, new research shows. Scientists believe that increasing tolerance of physical stress alters brain chemistry, boosting the ability to withstand emotional stress, too.
Breathe Deep
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale¡­ahhhhh. Feeling better? Dozens of fragrance makers hope so. The latest scented products that aim to relax include Aveeno Positively Nourishing Calming Body Wash, Neutrogena Night Calming Nourishing Cream Cleanser, and Portico Spa Escapist Bath Grains in Cucumber + Grapefruit. But do they work? Over the years, studies have found that the smell of peppermint is invigorating, and that citrus aromas and scented flowers make people feel happy. Still, no fragrance (including allegedly calming ones, such as chamomile or lavender) has druglike effects, says Rachel Herz, visiting professor in the department of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University and author of The Scent of Desire (William Morrow). Rather, scents can elicit an emotional response based on powerful cultural beliefs or individual memories, and ¡°our bodies and brains respond accordingly,¡± she says. ¡°If a smell makes you feel happy, it may also soothe you,¡± she adds. ¡°It really depends on your own association with the smell.¡±
Customize relief.
Everyone has a signature stress style, according to Beth Hamilton and Stephanie McClellan, doctors in Newport Beach, California, who specialize in women¡¯s health. Whether a woman predominantly has a ¡°fight¡± or ¡°flight¡± response translates to differences in hormones and physical symptoms, they explain in So Stressed (Free Press), which prescribes diet, exercise, and
relaxation advice for four stress types. Wound-up women who frequently experience sleep problems and tension headaches have chronically high levels of the stress hormone cortisol and benefit from doing aerobic exercise early
in the day and avoiding caffeine, for example. Those who feel fatigued when overwhelmed, in contrast, have irregular cortisol release combined with an overactive sympathetic nervous system and feel better from doing rhythmic, low-impact activity such as Pilates or weight training; drinking green tea; and increasing exposure to natural light.
Don¡¯t ignore allergies.
They may be responsible for more than itchy eyes. People report increased depression during the high-pollen season in the spring, Alvaro Guzman, a psychiatrist at the Mood and Anxiety Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, has found. Respiratory inflammation may trigger depression in some people¡ªso treating the physical symptoms could ease the mental ones.
Find one thing a day¡­that gives you joy¡ªand do it.
Going to lunch with a friend, meditating, reading, playing Wordscraper: The benefits ¡°rebound for the rest of the day,¡± Lyubomirsky says. Since the economy tanked, there¡¯s been an increase in at least one cheap, reliable, stress-relieving form of entertainment: Vibrator sales have skyrocketed. (Jimmyjane, the luxury ¡°personal massager¡± manufacturer, saw sales increase 57 percent between 2007 and 2008; Trojan reported a 20 percent boost in vibrator sales in 2009.)
Unplug.
Cell phone. Email. Facebook. Twitter. Telecommunications that make us constantly available ¡°have become a huge source of anxiety,¡± says Rita Emmett, author of Manage Your Time to Reduce Your Stress (Walker & Co.). She advises setting hours when you¡¯re not reachable¡ªand sticking to them just as you would to work hours. ¡°Having downtime¡ªtaking lunch, shutting off the phone¡ªhas been shown to improve productivity,¡± she adds.
Clear clutter.
¡°People who live with piles of paper always say, ¡®I know where everything is.¡¯ But their hearts are pounding as they search for a receipt,¡± Emmett says. ¡°Or maybe they¡¯d like to have people over but are too anxious about it because of the way their place looks.¡± Often, she says, clutter is a source of stress we don¡¯t notice.
Shut the hell up.
That maddening tendency of men to compartmentalize their feelings? Maybe it¡¯s healthier. A study at the University of Missouri-Columbia monitored 24 pairs of female friends after they¡¯d discussed their woes, and found elevations in their cortisol levels 15 minutes later¡ªindicating that, far from being soothed, they¡¯d managed to ratchet up the tension.